ehiunno

not entirely, not in the sense that you have to know exactly what you want to do and how you want to do it, because nobody has that coming in to college and if they do it will probably change. When I say focused I am still hinting at a similar idea though. Someone who has a pretty good idea of what they want to go into, but more that they have made steps in that regard, and shown an ability and passion for something academically.

We here so much about people having 'passions' and that thats what it takes to get you into good schools, well I guess thats partially true, but you need to be passionate about something academically too. If you have straight A's just because you think you have to, and you work your butt off but couldn't really care less about what your studying then your probably not going to get echols. Do you see what I mean?

I'll give you the only example I know of. In my case, I am passionate about research and physics, and I guess i demonstrated that through my internships at NASA, my internship at JLab, and self studying physics topics outside the cirriculm. I'm sure it also helps to have reccommendations that show this passion as well, though I only sent in one. I have good friend that has almost perfect grades, strong SAT scores, and probably reccommendations that say he is "smart", but thats not what it takes (he didn't get Echols btw). The Scholars programs are not a numbers game, the numbers get you consideration, but then cuts are made by the other factors, passion and focus academicaly is a big one of those. Does that make sense?

vistany

That makes perfect sense. Thanks for providing the most cohesive explaination I have ever read. Aside from Recs, and blips on the resume that speak to that, what is the best way to communicate your passion? The obvious answer is essays, but it seems that essays that toot your own horn would be a turn off to adcoms. How can this be done in a balanced but effective way?
Thanks again for that great post ehiunno.

ehiunno

Now, vistany, that seems to be the money question. I don't feel 100% qualified to answer that with any degree of certainty, and honestly I don’t think anyone does.

Rec's are a very good start. If you can get your teacher to show that your passion for the field extends beyond the classroom, then that will be a plus. There’s a big difference between "this student knows history well" and "one time, this student engaged me in a debate concerning a topic we had not discussed, but that he/she had obviously studied in depth." Dean J has said 1000 times that they look for anecdotes rather than adjectives.

Blips on a resume help, but one good way to highlight them that I failed to use and regretted was not getting activity leader to write recs. If you have ec's that demonstrate that passion I was discussing, such as internships, its not enough just to have them on your resume. It would be a great idea to have, say a mentor or team lead or activity supervisor write it. In that case, they will have worked with you on a level directly involving your passion, and will be able to show the adcoms first hand experience with you that directly relates.

In the essays, your obviously not just going to want to brag (that much). You could write your essay regarding how you got involved in what you love, how it developed, and how it has influenced your decisions. In that case, you would highlight it with examples from your experiences but wouldn't just be bragging. Or you could talk about something you have learned from one of your experiences, again using examples but not bragging. Those are both great ways to highlight without tooting your own horn. Be creative, there are great ways to approach it.

Some examples: I wrote an essay on how being an audiophile instilled a desire to build and look at circuits, and developed every bit of love I currently have for EECS, I think I linked it back to encoding audio files and analog amplifier design. I wrote another essay on how my experience with bias shook my faith in the scientific method while I was working at NASA, and how it was ultimately restored.

So hopefully that will help a little bit. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, I am certainly no expert, but this is how I could see approaching it. And remember; don't be discouraged if you don’t get Echols. It is a very selective program and lots of brilliant people are denied it, you can always apply as a first year.

And also, in addition to this, you are also going to need to demonstrate a level of well roundedness that compliments this. They aren't going to free someone of area requirements that can't speak english well, or has never taken forign language, or is apathetic about math, etc.

sv3a

It's the numbers that decides Echols, mostly. It's pretty much the only tool that UVA has to attract kids from the upper private schools, since it doesn't hand out merit scholarships. However, there are some other factors that can influence the decision (essays, ec's). I'm not sure how Rodman works- it seems much more selective since proportionally there appear to be fewer rodman scholars to the size of the class.

quixotic.

"Aside from Recs, and blips on the resume that speak to that, what is the best way to communicate your passion? The obvious answer is essays, but it seems that essays that toot your own horn would be a turn off to adcoms. How can this be done in a balanced but effective way?"

I think that if you write an essay about something you're deeply interested in, there's no need to address your competency or excellence in said area. The way you treat the subject speaks for itself- especially if you have a unique perspective on why you enjoy what it is you enjoy- and you can avoid an essay that pats yourself on the back. This works better for some subjects than others, but I think as long as you write about something you love, your passion will show through. Lyotard never wrote about how much he loved literature, but his essays about postmodernism show his passion and aptitude for the subject.