Carthage Scholarship Competition

(click on banner to see the beautiful Carthage campus on Lake Michigan) We're back from the land of snow and cold. Drew was a finalist in the Carthage College Lincoln Scholarship Program this weekend, so he and I headed to snowy Kenosha, WI on Fri/Sat for the activities.

We left on Fri for the 4 hr drive and got there in time to check into the hotel and explore a bit. Then on Fri night the college hosted a welcome reception for the finalists at our hotel, so we spent 2 hours there talking to faculty and admission staff, as well as some current students. Sat morning we were up early and off to campus at 7am for the day's events. We checked in and had a welcome session from the Carthage President, and they divided the finalists up into 3 groups for the competition, which consisted of a 50 minute timed essay writing on a topic revealed at that time (which wasn't as bad as Drew thought it could be), and then he had a 20 minute personal interview with 2 faculty members. He was happy to learn that one of his interviewers was head of the Education Dept, and they had a great conversation about why he wants to teach music instead of use his musical talents in a performance role. He felt the interview went very well, and that's all you can hope for!

While he was doing all of that, I sat through parent sessions telling me what essay question was being sprung on the finalists, what the interviews would be like and exactly what they are looking for in the students they will choose as the winners. There is a lot at stake for the kids, because the winners receive full tuition scholarships for 4 years ... which is worth a six-figure dollar amount, total.

Just for participating in the competition, Drew received $4000 in scholarship money to be used over his 4 years at Carthage, should he end up there and not be a recipient of one of the large awards.

After the competition they brought the kids and parents back together for lunch, and then we dashed off for 1pm music department activities. All music majors have to pass a music theory test to be accepted into the dept, so he was able to get that out of the way. Then we waited for his turn at a vocal audition, which is also worth a nice amount of scholarship dollars. The full tuition scholarship is much more of a long shot than these music dept dollars ... so this was very important ... and it was his first chance to sing in front of the music dept chair and faculty. It went very well, and they told him they really want him to come and be part of their dept.

Then we hit the road about 4pm and it took us 4.5 hours to drive through some snow, strong winds and marginal road conditions to get back to Galesburg, where Mitch and the kids were staying for TJ's basketball tourney. TJ had 3 games yesterday ... they won 2 and were eliminated in the 3rd game, so it was all free time by the time I got there. The kids were in the pool and having a great time when we arrived, and we hung out for a bit this morning and got back to Tremont about Noon. So the laundry is going and I'm playing catch up to get everyone ready for work and school tomorrow!

Next weekend Drew is a finalist in a similar competition at Eureka College, with the winning students also receiving full tuition scholarships. We are so proud that his background put him in these competitions, and happy that he just had the opportunity to interact with other students and faculty ... because at one of these schools, they will be his classmates and professors in just six short months!

I'm including a slide show of some scenes we found in Lake Geneva, WI when we made a pit stop on the way to Kenosha ... we found the ice fishing and vehicles on the frozen lake quite interesting. Plus there was an area with some really neat snow sculptures from a recent festival. The last pic is of Lake Michigan from a building on campus ... it was amazing to see the 10-15' high glaciers of ice that have built up on the beaches of Carthage College! Kenosha received about 14 inches of snow just last Wed, so we saw many snowpiles taller than our car and much higher than that. It gave Drew a good taste of what going a few hours North for college might bring! HA