Waynesburg University has created a scholarship for high school students to apply for which covers all tuition and fees. The Founders Scholarship is awarded to three students from Pennsylvania and is also considered to be a competitive scholarship along with the Bonner and Stover scholarships according to Dr. Shari Payne, vice president for enrollment.
“This competitive opportunity allows us to support some of the best and brightest in Pennsylvania,” Director of Admissions Jackie Palko said. “Waynesburg has a long history of providing a top-quality education and this scholarship program continues that tradition.”
The first student to accept the Founders Scholarship is Hope Bidleman from Windber Area High School. Bidleman will be a freshman at Waynesburg next year and plans on majoring in biology [pre-dentistry]. In addition, Bidleman will be a member of the volleyball team.
“The reason we created the scholarship is because we had applications from very talented students, but we only had full tuition scholarship and it’s for Ohio residents only,” Payne said.
The second student to accept the Founders Scholarship is Briston Bennett from Mount Morris, Pennsylvania. Payne said Bennett plans to major in psychology next year.
“We are very excited to have him on campus,” she said.
The third student recipient hasn’t accepted it the scholarship yet and has until May 1 to do so.
According to Payne, if they don’t accept it by then, the scholarship will be awarded to another student. More than 40 students applied, and that number was then shrunk down to 16 students to be interviewed for the scholarship opportunity.
“For [the Founders scholarship] we weren’t just looking to give a scholarship to the three best students,” Payne said. “But to give it to the three best students who would come and make a contribution to our campus and be leaders on our campus.”
According to Payne and Palko, recipients of the Founders scholarship must have at least a 3.5 GPA, score 1200 or higher on the Evidence-Based Reading, Writing and Math sections of the SAT or a composite score of 26 on the ACT.
“We think that the Founders process opened up the university to really high-quality applicants,” Payne said. “Through having a chance to compete for the reward we got to show them all the things that we are able to offer,”
Payne added that out of the 16 students who were interviewed, 10 have already committed to Waynesburg for next year. and she believes that one more will enroll soon.
“That’s not a bad commitment rate,” she said. “So we really pleased at the effectiveness of this scholarship and we think that we are going to get some great student on campus. We can’t wait.”