My son has the Haslam Leadership Scholars, Chancellor’s Honors, & Cook Grand Challenge Honors(engineering) under his JUST FOR YOU tab in his applicant portal. Just did a Quick Look at all 3 and I’m not seeing letter of recommendation requests for any of them. My son included the letter of recommendation with his UTK application because it’s one more personal thing to set you apart as long as you’re fairly certain the letter is positive. I don’t know if that’s the right move or not but that is our assumption. Chancellors’s looks like it has 2 essays, Haslam has a video plus a resume upload and Cook Grand has an essay. I hope this info helps. I am not familiar with how detailed the process goes for each of these honors programs past the initial application stage so there could be further requirements down the line, not sure. Good luck to your student!
Mine has the Haslam Leadership and Chancellor’s Honors applications too. Do you know if these are the only means to a merit scholarship, or are there others awarded without requiring additional applications? Mine is applying for nursing and is not sure she wants to add honors requirements on top of an already rigorous major.
There is an auto scholarship, The Volunteer scholarship, with amounts depending upon state residency and test score, minimum UTK GPA 3.8, which appears in your portal after they get your STAR report. There are other scholarships as well but this is the most common auto one. These amounts say based on the 2024/2025 year so I guess we’ll have to wait and see if amounts remain the same for this year’s cohort.
Thanks for this!!
Thank you! My daughter did attend some kind of honors info session where they did say there would be another LOR for honors but who knows? Things at UTK are changing rapidly and there have been many changes in honors.
Yes! My daughter’s guidance counselors just brought this change in ACT policy to the attention of the kids this week so this is a change and it is pretty significant for those kids going for the next level scholarship who thought they had all year. But, as you say, it’s not an unreasonable position, just a change.
This is good to know, thank you!!
Finally submitted over the weekend and portal updated. Daughter knows this one is a Reach school for her OOS, but still hoping for the best, but she has a good list of options other than UTK.
Major: Audiology and Speech Pathology
GPA: 3.82 UW/ 4.14 UTK Core (in portal)
SAT: 1200 (not taking again so this is why it is a real Reach)
EC’s: Competitive Dance 12+ years, Dance Teacher/Choreographer Senior year, Teaching Assistant (Soph, Junior), Summer Dance Camp Counselor 3 Summers, part-time Host at restaurant since 15, Wink 4 Pink officer, NHS, Summer internship at private Speech Therapy clinic
Coursework: 3 AP’s, 9 Honors, 2 DE, Education Training (includes in school placement with District SLP Senior year). Math completed through Calculus. Intro to Psych at CC over the Summer.
Compelling essay about the situation that inspired her search for a career helping others “find their voice” ie, speech therapy.
Should test the “holistic review” process. If she can get through the first pass review with her SAT score, the application materials really support her goals.
Good luck to everyone.
may be deferred to RD, but I do think will get in. Especially if not many above those stats applied form your high school.
Is there a way to submit a personal statement with app? The supporting statement prompt, ‘..adverse impact on your academic performance’ doesn’t align with a personal statement topic, so I wouldn’t think to upload it that way. Any suggestions? Thanks!
So I received this message “ XXX’s application is now being reviewed. Some applications are holistically reviewed by our admissions staff, who consider several factors before making an admissions decision. This can take some time, but we are working hard to review XXX’s application as fast and efficiently as possible!
The “some applications” part has me concerned. Thought they all were holistically reviewed. Any thoughts on this?
Interesting, here is the exact language from the email our daughter received from UTK:
“We wanted to let you know your application is moving through our review process! Each application is holistically reviewed, which means a lot of people read it and consider several factors before making an admissions decision. This can take some time, but we are working hard to review your application as fast and efficiently as possible.”
Are you in-state or out-of-state? We are OOS.
We are OOS and D26 received an email with the same exact wording as this.
We are OOS
Ugg. Why is ours different? Just the additional stress I need.
Maybe we will get that one once ours are “being reviewed” rather than “moving through the process” ?!? It is so hard to not pick apart everything and wonder and worry. Trust me I feel you.
Editing to add: Also, why send an email at all other than “your application is complete and a decision will be sent on 12/15”. Like why do they need to describe the process and add to the stress?? They already say what the process is on the website.
We never got a “moving through the process” version. Trying not to freak out but…..obviously not being successful. Maybe it is different advisors/regions? Can’t imagine why there would be different emails though.
Agree, Complete and you will find out on the 15th.
And one last thing- the deadline for EA isn’t even here yet so there are lots of applicants still to apply so again the fact they are sending emails out is weird to me. One would think they would wait until all EA apps are received.
We are out of state and here is the exact language my daughter received on August 30:
We wanted to let you know your application is moving through our review process! Each application is holistically reviewed, which means a lot of people read it and consider several factors before making an admissions decision. This can take some time, but we are working hard to review your application as fast and efficiently as possible.
I think that is odd wording especially since it isn’t rolling admissions but maybe that is what they send out of state applicants since in state has an automatic process?
My daughter is in state but she doesn’t have her STARS in yet so we don’t have any response like that of any kind.