Congrats to your son! And great guidance, too!

 

Thank you.

I just found out my wife was a Governor's Scholar. We both attended Berea College (which is full scholarship for all students). Funny, we have been married for 10 years in August and this thread caused me to learn that little tidbit.

^ Let's hope she hasn't been harboring any deeper, darker secrets for the last decade...

I attended GSP and for any of you with kids in high school now, I STRONGLY recommend applying for the program. It was a great experience and really helped in gaining scholarship money.

 

I, too, am a GSP alum (Center '91) and it was an amazing experience. :thumb:

My kid went to the mailbox today.......

:dancingpa

Busy summer ahead with the Governor's Scholar Program.

GSP is an awesome program. Every student who makes it into GSP is very deserving. Every student selected to GSP gets free tuition to whichever Kentucky public college they choose. I have one huge pet peeve about GSP.

 

Students recognized for GSP should make a committment that if they receive this award, they will attend a school in Kentucky. If they choose a Kentucky private college over public, that is OK with me. I find it very irritating watching students receive GSP and then throw free college tuition into the garbage and go to an out of state school. Academic scholarship dollars are very hard to come by and it is hard to watch a student toss aside a scholarship while other very smart, hard working, equally deserving students receive minimal scholarship dollars. Furthermore, a big purpose of the program is to keep talent in the state yet thousands of dollars in scholarship funds never get used every year because GSP scholars go to out of state schools. I don't know how you enforce this, but I feel you should sign a Kentucky committment letter along with the application. If you can't commit to Kentucky, you shouldn't apply. My goal would be for 100% utilization of GSP scholarships every year.

I understand your point. That is our plan. We are so grateful, as this is our college funding solution for the first of 5. Her eyes are set on post graduate programs, so she wants a debt free undergrad experience because she will likely have plenty of loans later on. We are thrilled.

 

On the other hand...

You mentioned you think they should sign a Kentucky committment letter when they apply for GSP. Applications for GSP must be completed in December of their Junior year.

If you compare to kids who receive athletic scholarships, those kids don't have to make that decision and sign on and commit until later in their senior year, right?

 

I agree let's use all the GSP money for kids committed to a Kentucky school.

 

But let's also remember that these are kids who maybe do not know what they want at midpoint of Junior year. They see an opportunity to go for scholarship money with a deadline looming, so the priority at that point is to bust their tail getting those pages and pages and pages of application completed, with several essays and letters of recomendation to meet that GSP deadline--all by Dec. 1st of Junior year.

^ I had some very nice out of state options I could have gone to, but I couldn't reason passing up the free tuition. So I pretty much agree with the sentiment. On the same note though, I'm sure the fact that I was a Governor's Scholar helped my chances at getting accepted to some of those out of state schools.

 

Also, I don't know if it's changed, but at UK you also must get a 30 on the ACT to get free tuition if you're a Governor's Scholar. A 32 makes you a prime candidate for the Singletary (full ride plus stipend).

GSP is an awesome program. Every student who makes it into GSP is very deserving. Every student selected to GSP gets free tuition to whichever Kentucky public college they choose. I have one huge pet peeve about GSP.

 

Students recognized for GSP should make a committment that if they receive this award, they will attend a school in Kentucky. If they choose a Kentucky private college over public, that is OK with me. I find it very irritating watching students receive GSP and then throw free college tuition into the garbage and go to an out of state school. Academic scholarship dollars are very hard to come by and it is hard to watch a student toss aside a scholarship while other very smart, hard working, equally deserving students receive minimal scholarship dollars. Furthermore, a big purpose of the program is to keep talent in the state yet thousands of dollars in scholarship funds never get used every year because GSP scholars go to out of state schools. I don't know how you enforce this, but I feel you should sign a Kentucky committment letter along with the application. If you can't commit to Kentucky, you shouldn't apply. My goal would be for 100% utilization of GSP scholarships every year.

 

I strongly disagree. The GSP program is NOT about earning college money. Further, the scholarship that most schools offer is in line with scholarships that are routinely awarded to students that don't go to GSP that have high ACT scores and solid GPAs, in addition to other things.

 

When the Governor's Scholars Program started, no automatic scholarships were awarded anywhere and I wish that it had stayed that way. I was a Governor's Scholar and was awarded a full scholarship to WKU not as an automatic result of GSP. I attended GSP for the experienece.