The Park Scholarships program is excited to announce the following updates to the Park Scholarship program based on feedback from a variety of stakeholders and our own assessments of program activities.
Enrichment:
- Eliminated the Civic Engagement Initiatives to clear space for Park Scholars to dive more deeply into individual service pursuits. We will replace this with some kind of expectation related to service.
- Shortened our first-year seminar from two hours to one.
- Adding some sessions for all or most Park Scholars. They include:
- A Campus Conversations Project week twice a year from the second year on.
- A Park Faculty Scholar seminar once every semester after the first.
- A Park Alumni seminar for all scholars held once a year.
- The Racial Equity Institute Groundwater session will now be held every other year and be attended jointly by freshmen and sophomores (rather than being held every year for freshmen only), which will decrease the cost while maintaining content for all scholars.
- Reduced or eliminated some of our leadership training sessions two years ago and replaced them with having all Park Scholars complete the NC State Student Leadership & Engagement office’s Leadership Development Program certificate or NC State’s Oaks Leadership Scholars Program or Social Innovation Fellows program.
- We are moving the Park Enrichment Grant application process to a new platform (provided via NC State’s Office of Research and Innovation) to streamline this experience for students.
Academic Policies:
- Reduced the number of credit hours required to 12 per semester.
- Moved our GPA requirement to be based on cumulative GPA (and dropped the semester GPA requirement), and scholars who do not meet the requirement in the first year will not be placed on probation but will enter “academic support” status, receiving guidance from staff but without scholarship renewal in jeopardy.
Recruiting and Selection:
- Removed the endorsement process (high school endorsement and self-endorsement). To apply, students can now click the big APPLY HERE button on our website and immediately get started. This change will make the application process both seem and actually BE more approachable, reducing a potential hurdle for candidates, particularly those with fewer resources. We have already received very positive feedback from high school counselors about this change.
- Moved to a new software system, Slate. While this change won’t be directly apparent to most users, it will ultimately create a more elegant, streamlined experience for applicants and our volunteer Selection Committee members, and it creates better integration with NC State Undergraduate Admissions.
- Took steps to simplify the application process, such as only allowing two recommendations (instead of allowing 2-4) and shortening some of the application’s questions.
Read the full email to Park Scholarships students and faculty scholars here. Questions? Contact Park_Scholars@ncsu.edu.