<p>I’ve noticed that a lot of people are in the program. But when I look at the numbers of people who have successfully completed the program and received certificates at graduation, there are relatively few. I’m guessing that this is because of the difficulty of getting 7 Benjamin Franklin seminars completed by the end of graduation and some other reasons.</p>
<p>My question is, do the people who are in this program get any benefit if they don’t end up completing it? Does this distinction show up in their transcript in any way(ex. for graduate schools) even though they haven’t completed it yet? So would students applying for graduate/professional schools during their junior year still get any benefit from being in the BFS program?</p>
<p>And at the end, is there some sort of committee that reviews a student’s profile to see if he should be awarded a certificate? or is it basically guaranteed if he stuck to the program requirements?</p>
<p>If you meet the requirements (7 or 8 seminars and the senior research, I believe, or that may be JWS) you get the certificate, no questions asked.</p>
<p>100% of the benefit comes before graduation, however. The benefit is in the classes, and the classmates. There is also some recruiting done that targets BFS/JWS first (but very little). The whole point of the program really is the classes, the social events, and the community of the program - there’s no “prestige” attached, the marking on your transcript is trivial (and looks ■■■■■■■■: I’ve had people ask me w.t.f. “Benjamin Franklin Scholar” means), and you can choose to drop the program at any time - that is, stay in it until graduation and just not get the graduation asterisk.</p>
<p>However, if grad school is your target, the program can help you get research done while an undergrad, which is very crucial to graduate school admissions.</p>