$37K for 140-Character Tweet

Paying for College
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<p>When it comes to college essays, I tend to believe that less is often more. But, according to USA Today, the University of Iowa has taken that philosophy to new “lengths.” They are sponsoring a contest for the best “Tweet” that answers the question “Why do you want to go to college?” in under 140 characters. Applicants can submit their entry in lieu of a second essay and win a scholarship to Iowa’s business school (worth $37,000). The deadline to enter is July 28th. See: [Why</a> you want to go to college: In 140 characters or less - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-07-12-university-iowa-tweet-scholarship_n.htm]Why”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-07-12-university-iowa-tweet-scholarship_n.htm) </p>

<p>This same article also lists several other competitions with cash/scholarship prizes for college-related Tweets.</p>

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<p>Hey, since my son just won a pair of autographed bball shoes with a prize tweet yesterday, I’m forwarding the article to him to see if he can turn his tweets into some scholarship $$s as well. Can’t hurt to try.</p>

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<p>Great idea, archiemom! And congrats on the shoes. I’m nearly 60 and the only thing I ever won was a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and that was 40 years ago. Now I see that one of the Twitter scholarships is offered by KFC. I wonder if there’s an age limit. ;)</p>

4

<p>“I wanna goto college cuz then I can make a lot of money and my mama can brag about me on CC.”</p>

<p>Hereby placed in the public domain, but if you use it and it wins, I’d appreciate a donation.</p>

5

<p>Not funny. But nice try.</p>

6

<p>The University of Iowa has a great business college, wonder who will be the lucky winner.</p>

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<p>Too bad the Short-and-Tweet Scholarship competition at scholarship.com ended May 31st.</p>

8

<p>I guess awarding a scholarship is pretty ridiculous but I believe Tufts University asks you in their application to write in a sentence why you want to go to Tufts.</p>

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<p>I think it’s an interesting idea. Colleges are always doing things that will make them stand out from the crowd, and why not involve the social network?</p>

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<p>dang thats alot of money</p>

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<p>^ Haha yes. </p>

<p>Really cool, but there’s no way to guarantee that the person who receives it actually deserves it.</p>

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<p>I think that the idea in general is intriguing, but seriously? Should we be rewarding so much money to someone who may or may not have written a single sentence? Probably not. I understand having students write extremely short essays (150-200 words), but not this.</p>

13

<p>why not…</p>

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<p>I think it’s brilliant. I think that we award scholarships to students who haven’t written their essays, so it would seem logical that they might award this scholarship to someone who hasn’t written the tweet.</p>

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<p>They offer scholarships for far dumber, less creative reasons, to I say have at it!</p>

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<p>Who knows, maybe we’ll find the modern Shakespeare…</p>

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<p>This is a business college, it is not a reward for creativity or academic performance as much as a marketing gimmick. Think of the number of students they can reach by this method. We are even discussing this on CC, I am sure many students are sending it to their friends “hey a simple way to win a big scholarship”.</p>

<p>To get the same amount of publicity using conventional means, they would need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions. Instead they are getting a lot more applicants then they would for a mere $37,000. That if you ask me is brilliant. May be students will really learn some useful skills in that school.</p>

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<p>Also remember this is only a substitute for the second essay, not the first one. So an applicant has to have good grades, scores etc. for that college, but it appears to make the application process so much simpler “just a tweet”. You may have the best tweet, but if you do not get admitted to the college, you do not get the money. And if other factors don’t match up you will not get admitted. May be I should take a class from the professor who thought of this.</p>