Twenty-six high school students have been awarded the university’s premier academic scholarship, the Foundation Fellowship. The fellowship, established in 1972 by trustees of the UGA Foundation, provides a full scholarship, travel-study grants, academic conference and research grants, dinner-seminars, and a host of other extracurricular educational opportunities.
The 26 winners were among 62 finalists from Georgia and beyond who were on campus Feb. 20-21 for a weekend of interviews and other activities. All 62 finalists were awarded a Bernard Ramsey Honors Scholarship upon their arrival on campus, and then went on to compete for the Fellowship. The Ramsey Scholarship is worth $4,000 for in-state students and $6,500 for out-of-state students, plus a $2,000 travel-study grant (and an out-of-state tuition waiver for out-of-state students).
All of the finalists had superb academic credentials, according to Jere Morehead, associate provost and director of the Honors and Foundation Fellows Programs. The average SAT score for the finalists was 1517, and the average for the 26 awardees was a remarkable 1526, with four scoring a perfect 1600.
“It is clear that we are now able to compete for the very best students from around the country,” Morehead says.
The Foundation Fellowship is increasingly seen as one of the most prized and competitive undergraduate scholarships in the country, and this year 34 percent of the almost 900 applications were from out of state. Steve Elliott-Gower, associate director of the Honors and Foundation Fellows Program, says the greatest asset of the program is the sense of community among the 90 or so Foundation Fellows.
“The students who come to our program find themselves among their intellectual peers, and are thrilled to discover other students who are as smart, energetic, creative and intellectually curious as they are,” says Elliott-Gower. “It’s a great thing to see.”
