Coolidge Scholarship 2020

user_717654
Fri, 26 Jun 2020 02:03:36 +0000

@palm12312 absolutely!
I definitely had comparatively weak stats. My school doesn’t have a strong focus on testing, and it’s small so I had only taken 1 AP exam at the time of applying. I had a 1420 PSAT, a 5 in APUSH, and a 790 on the US History subject test.

My ECs are pretty chaotic and not strategic, but I’ve done a fair number of things.
I was editor of my school newspaper for a year (appointed in 9th grade) and had a political column during that time.
I’m VP of drama club and in jazz band, and I had some minor awards in both.
I interned with my town’s mayor and edited technical city documents over the summer.
I’m a member of my town’s Democratic committee and was a delegate to the state democratic convention.
I’m in my church’s youth group; I have an elected position and I traveled to Transylvania with them last summer.
I’ve been public speaking since I was very young in a lot of places.
I won a regional Scholastic Art and Writing award in 7th grade.
I wrote a novel on my own time in 9th grade.

Here’s how I approached the essays:
For the personal one, I tried to come up with a general thesis instead of just listing a bunch of things that interested in me. I talked about how my different interests (politics, writing, foreign languages) were all preparing me for one career.
For the one about the budget, I connected it to actual examples (I talked about Social Security) and a general philosophy.
For both about Coolidge, I put a lot of effort into being nonpartisan. I’m pretty liberal personally (and my application kind of had a political bent because my life does), so I spoke either about Coolidge’s philosophy without saying whether I agreed or I contrasted him with modern politicians in general, not a single party.

I think my letters of rec were definitely a strong point as well. I had one from a teacher who I am extremely close with, and who spoke about ECs that I didn’t put on my resume because they hadn’t actually happened yet. My other letter was from the mayor of my town.

I have no idea what parts of the application are more important and which are less. I definitely think mine was strong because of my writing, broad scope of ECs, and the fact that my stuff is pretty connected in a lot of ways (I think my thesis in my ‘stuff I’m interested in’ essay corresponded well with political analysis in my other essays, letters of rec from a civics teacher and politician, and a bunch of political ECs).