<p>I saw this article in the Houston Chronicle. They sound like great kids and have great stats. But if people are wondering where the admissions frenzy comes from, things like this seem to escalate it. Applying to “more than 50 schools” between the 2 of them? What’s with that? And why does anyone care what the total scholarship figure is? They can’t use it all. Ugh.</p>
<p>"Penn State. The University of Chicago. Cornell. The University of Georgia. Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>Logan Dawson stopped. He thought for a second. After naming eight schools, he turned to one of his high school administrators.</p>
<p>“Do you have the whole list?” he asked. “I can’t pull it out of my brain right now.”</p>
<p>That may be because the 17-year-old’s list of college acceptances is 26 schools long. His twin brother’s tally is almost as high Ryan Dawson opened 22 congratulatory letters this year inviting him to campuses across the country.</p>
<p>Along with those acceptances, the brothers received a combined $3.58 million in scholarship offers, in addition to $67,000 in outside scholarships.</p>
<p>“I’m happy for them, that the hard work they’ve put into their education I’m happy to see them get results,” said their mother, Lana Dawson, an auditor for the city of Birmingham who raised her twin sons as a single mom.</p>
<p>She watched Thursday as her only children walked across the stage as honor graduates of the Jefferson County International Baccalaureate School. Logan and Ryan, with respective 4.6 and 4.5 GPAs and 33 and 32 ACT scores, were ranked in the top 20 of their class. They both are National Achievement, Coca-Cola and Elks scholars.</p>
<p>The Dawsons applied to more than 50 schools combined because of their academic interests, finances and possible desire to swim in college. It was important to their mother that the twins have options."</p>
<p>Thanks for posting.</p>
<p>Wow!
The first thing that jumped out to me was: they are African American males (National Achievement scholars have to be African American). Nationally, the h.s. graduation rate for black males is 57%, and I believe that includes students who obtain GEDs, not regular diplomas.</p>
<p>Nationally, out of every 100 black males in kindergarten, only three make it through all grades of school and earn a college degree.</p>
<p>The second thing that jumped out for me is they were raised by a single mom, and financial aid was a big issue. Give that one twin accepted a full scholarship to North Carolina State, seems that finances, not trophy hunting, are why they applied to so many schools. Given their race, scores, and athletic ability, they probably were among the most highly recruited students in the country.</p>
<p>The third thing that jumped out was that she raised her kids to give back (something that’s in the rest of the article).</p>
<p>Remarkable family. I hope that they write a book about their family. I would love to read it and learn from it.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to the article that also shows their pictures.
[Newhouse</a> News Service - Super Students Offered $3.6 Million In Scholarships](<a href=“http://www.newhouse.com/super-students-offered-3.58-million-in-scholarships-2.html]Newhouse”>http://www.newhouse.com/super-students-offered-3.58-million-in-scholarships-2.html)</p>
<p>I can relate …</p>
<p>I applied to 8 schools, intending to apply to way more… I feel really guilty for taking advantage of the fee waiver, but I was really uncertain about where I would be accepted. If they applied on fee waiver I can certainly empathise.</p>
<p>Now I’m not black, I’m not a twin, my GPA wasn’t that high (though I had similar ACT scores), and I was accepted to 2 colleges out of the 9 I applied to, and so forth, but I can really empathise with everything else.</p>
<p>Are you sure these twins aren’t CC’ers? Haha.</p>
<p>galoisien,
You didn’t take advantage of the fee waiver. It wasn’t like you were applying to places you had no interest in attending. You made good use of the fee waiver, and also applied to a reasonable number of schools.
Congratulations on U VA. Excellent university in a wonderful location.
One of my good friends is moving there to teach at the law school.</p>
<p>Actually, you don’t have to be African American to be a National Achievement Scholar. Being almost any minority will do it. We have had several Hispanics and southeast Asian students in our area receive it. (They don’t recognize Asians from China, Japan, Tiawan or Korea.)</p>
<p>National Achievement Scholars are only for African Americans.
National Hispanic Scholars are for Hispanic Americans.
There is no special national scholarship program for students who are Asian American.
U.S. citizens of any race can qualify for the National Merit Scholarship Program.</p>
<p>"The National Achievement® Scholarship Program is an academic competition established in 1964 to provide recognition for outstanding Black American high school students. Black students may enter both the National Achievement Program and the National Merit® Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®) and meeting other published requirements for participation. "
[National</a> Merit Scholarship Corporation - NASP](<a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/nasp.php]National”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/nasp.php)</p>
<p>“National Hispanic Recognition Program (NHRP)
The College Board’s NHRP was initiated in 1983 to identify outstanding Hispanic high school students and to share information about these academically well-prepared students with subscribing colleges and universities. In order to be eligible, students must be at least one-quarter Hispanic. Each year the NHRP identifies approximately 3,300 of the highest scoring students from a nationwide total of 124,000 high school juniors who took the PSAT/NMSQT and designated themselves as Hispanic, as well as approximately 125 of the top scoring PAA students from Puerto Rico. The nationwide selection also includes students from Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and U.S. citizens attending international and APO schools.”
[NHRP</a> - National Hispanic Recognition Program - PSAT/NMSQT Scholarships & Recognition](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>Scholarships and Recognition with PSAT/NMSQT - SAT Suite)</p>
<p>We have a family in our district with a black dad, and a Mexican-born mom. Those kids qualified for both National Achievement and National Hispanic Scholar.</p>
<p>Similiar situation in my school, the valedictorian(s)? of the senior 08 class are twin brothers. Both take like all the same classes and have all the same stats relatively. Both accepted and attending Georgetown.</p>