This week, around 1,500 incoming freshmen will come to Ohio State for the opportunity to win their share of almost $15 million dollars.
The University Scholar Maximus Competition, lasting from Feb. 17- Feb. 25, will award 120 merit scholarships in 10 full-ride scholarships, 30 full-tuition scholarships and 80 half-tuition scholarships. Competitors have a 1-in-12 chance of receiving a scholarship.
Everyone competing has already been awarded a university scholarship of $2,400 a year for four years or twelve quarters.
The competition is a two-hour examination consisting of six questions divided into two categories, from which students will choose one question from each category. The answers are “blindly” evaluated by two faculty members.
Brian Orefice, assistant director of the University Honors and Scholars Center, who works with the Undergraduate Admissions and First Year Experience as organizer of the Maximus Competition, said the competition has been made available since the early 1990s for future students identified as University Scholars.
“The reason we offer the essay competition is so that students with comparable academic credentials have the opportunity to distinguish themselves through the essays they complete,” Orefice said. “The essays are written by faculty from several departments in order to construct essay questions that are both creative (one may be asked to explicate a poem) to the analytical (interpretation of statistical data to formulate a policy) on the exam.”
Orefice said the scholarships do not rely on governement finding and instead are funded through institutional revenues and development finds specifically for merit scholarships.
Chad Proud, an incoming freshman for Autumn 2006, is one of the competitors who has already taken the test.
He said he was excited about the opportunity to get more scholarship money.
He also said he was excited to go to an out-of-state school and that choosing OSU was not too hard.
“I took a visit out of curiosity and I just liked it, so it ended up being one of my top schools,” he said. “They did a good job of sending stuff and it’s big but it’s not overwhelming like some schools are.”
Linda Harlow, assistant proost for the University Honors and Scholars program, said a group of six faculty members wrote the exam over a period of three months and some of them will attend the lunch at the competition and assist with the blind evaluations.
Evaluation of essays began Monday and will continue until March 10. After all of the scores are compiled a faculty selection committee will choose the 120 winners, based on essay scores, standardized test scores and class ranks.
The top 20 to 25 contestants this year will have follow-up phone calls during spring break to help select the ten full-ride scholarship winners.
Registration for Maximus begins at 8:30 a.m. at the Ohio Union with a continental breakfast followed by a welcome speech given by Martha Garland, vice provost for Enrollment Services and Undergraduate Education.
The competition takes place mostly within the ballrooms of the Ohio Union and the Kuhn Honors & Scholars Center. While the participants are competing, parents are invited to attend a “Scholars & Dollars” information session to learn more about expectations for honors students, scholarship and financial aid information and transitional issues, followed by a reception at the Honors and Scholars House.
Proud said he was pretty confident of his performance on the test and offered advice for future Maximus competitors.
“Just relax and don’t worry about it,” Proud said giving advice to future competitors. “If you don’t get anything because there’s so many smart people competing, you should just be happy you can be there.”
