On his recent visit to Samford University, Mark speaks about the University’s new rigorous program for top notch students.
Check out the video to learn more about this honors program or read below the transcript:
Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant
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When I talked to the Dean of Admissions here at Samford, he told me about a new program, relatively new program anyway, a two year old program called University Fellows. This is a program for some of the best and the brightest of their applicant pool. They are providing very generous scholarships for those who are at the top of their class, at the top of their ACT scores, and developing a kind of school within a school, using the same curriculum as all the other Samford students, but really designed for those students who want to take it up a notch, who want to really do a great job.
Samford is not a selective college, it takes about—he said—80-85% of the students who apply and most of them are self-selected, but like every other college they want to be attractive to those very top notch kids.
Why is this important? Well for the very talented student, often there is competition—and here’s the carol —there is competition among universities for the top student. Competition in terms of money, and financial aid, merit aid that colleges are willing to give to you in order to attract you. So even though this is not a selective college, as a very selected student, you have an opportunity to sell yourself to the highest bidder. So if you like this kind of education, if you like the kind of faith based college that Samford is, if you could really stand this absolutely drop dead gorgeous campus, and you’re willing to be among peers, that, some of them may be really great like you, but others may not, you can get a very sweet financial aid package. You might even get a free college education. So a lot of what we do when I work with my clients is to find the right match. If you’re looking for financial aid then we need to select the right college for you where you have the best opportunity to get the money you need to reduce the cost of your college education.
