Stamps and Presidential Virtual Information Session: October 26th

Hello, welcome everyone. We're just going to give a few seconds here just to allow people an opportunity to log on in.

Looks like a good chunk of already logged on in, so we're just going to give that that 10 seconds or so just so folks can kind of make sure that their sound settings are working and that everything is good to go.

But welcome. We're so happy to have you all here.

Alright.

What would you like for you?

Looks like our number has stopped ticking up a little bit. So I'm going to assume that everybody who's gonna log in on time has already logged in. So welcome. We're so happy to have you here. This is the Samsung presidential Scholarship info session, so we're going to go over a whole bunch of things for you and answer a whole bunch of your questions. So it's kind of give you an idea of who is here right now. My name is Laura Weisbaum. I am an academic advisor for the Honors College. What that means is I advise students on their academic course requirements, but also talk to them.

All sorts of different things. And what that also means is I wear a lot of hats in the Honors College, and So what I also do is I help manage the presidential and stamps scholarship application process. I also have a few other folks here with me, as you all can see. So I'm going to give them a moment to introduce themselves, starting off with Ryan and Ryan. I apologize, I don't know why your first name is lowercase.

That's OK, everybody. My name is Ryan McLaughlin. I'm the director of honors admissions and recruitment here at Georgia State. So I oversee the application and review process, as well as overall recruitment for honors.

We also have some current scholars who are here today, so I'm going to give them all a moment to introduce themselves. So if you just want to go in the order that you see your name, Barsha, we can start off with you.

Hi everyone. I hope you all can hear me. This like software is kind of weird. OK, I'm darsha. I'm varsha sudarsan. I'm a first year psychology major. I'm from Alpharetta, GA if any of you are from that area, but yeah.

Hi everyone, my name is Sarah McCray and I am a first year sociology student. I'm from Morrow, GA.

Hello everyone, my name is Maisha Ozman, I'm from Clarkston, GA and and I major in public health.

Awesome. Thank you all. So we're going to give everyone an opportunity later on to ask Mesa Varsha and surreal all bunch of different questions because as much as you might want to hear from myself or Ryan about all sorts of different different things, there are some questions that are just better answered by the students who are actually living the experience that you're wondering about. And so we're just going to kind of go over real quick what we're going to talk about today. So we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about the Honors College which is where the stamps and presidential scholarships.

Our house. We're gonna give you an overview of the scholarships, as well as the application process and deadlines, essentially everything that you need to know in order to submit an application. We're also going to give you lots of tips in order to strengthen your application, and then we're going to end off with a Q&A with our current scholars. We try to have about half of the session, so about 45 minutes, as a Q&A with our scholars, because they really do have some of the best information. And then we'll end it off just with any general questions.

That folks may have. So go ahead and hand it over to Ryan. He is going to talk about the Honors College as a whole, about Georgia State as a whole, and give you lots of information there.

Alright, thank you Laura and let me know if any point time y'all can't hear me. I just was trying to fix my microphone settings. But to talk about the Honors College overall, I think the best point to make when it comes to summarizing what we do is that we're a small college that gives you all of the programs and opportunities at a large public research university can give you. So of course Georgia State is an R1 research institution, which means plenty of opportunities for you, but carved a we we've carved a 1700s.

A student body out of a 30,000 person campus, downtown campus. Laura, did you want me to control these slides for this one or did you want to?

You can control them as you please. I think I gave you that access.

Yeah, I do. I just didn't want to mess with stuff if I didn't have the permission, OK. So as I mentioned before, student bodies, roughly 1800, we take about the top five to 7% of every incoming class. And you'll see here an idea of our first year profile for the 2022 class that enrolled this fall.

So 378 first year students, middle GPA between 3.93 and a 4.1 average class rank of about 12%. So you can kind of get an idea of what we're looking for when it comes to these things.

In terms of benefits, we offer priority registration, specialized academic advising. So Laura has already mentioned that her primary role is as an honors advisor, one of the many hats that she wears in our office. But she also assists you by basically being a second advisor that you can go to if you have questions, concerns and they have smaller accounts in their counterparts on campus. So that again helps you with accessibility. We have a computer lab with discounted printing, enhanced library privileges and merit based.

Powerships as well.

We also have dedicated honors college internship opportunities, dedicated research opportunities, scholarship and fellowship mentoring. So opportunities for you to work with faculty even outside of your AP components are we have discussion based.

Classes, smaller discussion based seminar classes as well, and honor student organization for you to join. So if you're interested in just sort of being part of a of a student body that puts together activities for the Honors College for other students to get involved and get to know each other, then that's a great place for you to do so. And we have dedicated space for honor students on the 2nd floor of.

Excuse me, I'm sorry. Centennial Hall?

And then you can see here some of the outcomes that we've had recently.

You know our students where they're going to grad school, we're going to the workforce or going for national scholarships and fellowship opportunities. We've been able to prepare them for these things. So that's where kind of all those benefits sort of gel together and create this opportunity. And then most of you, I've seen your names on submitted common applications, but just in case you don't know, because we're going to talk about applying for stamps and presidential here shortly, you need to make sure you do your common application by November 15th if you haven't done it already and complete.

That honors essay question within the common app. That is the way to apply for honors. So from there, I'll let Laura take over to talk about stamps. The presidential.

Awesome. Thank you, Ryan. Just so you know, we did have one person that seems like they couldn't see or hear you. I'm not sure if it's on their end or your end, but just kind of keep an eye on that. Alright. So I will dive into the stamps and presidential scholarship application process, so hopefully you all can hear and see me essentially when it comes to the stamps and presidential scholarship programs is 2 scholarships, but one application and one program, they are all under the same umbrella. The Stamp Scholarship is actually a brand new scholarship.

That we only just got a couple of months ago. And so we are rolling the Stamps scholarship program directly into the current presidential scholarship program and making it all one smooth seamless process for students to be able to apply to both scholarships all at once. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the eligibility, what they provide, how they're similar, how they're different. So when it comes to scholarship eligibility for both of the awards.

You have to be an incoming first year student who's planning to attend Georgia State on the Atlanta campus, not the perimeter campus for the first time next fall. Summer is allowed, but if you are awarded the scholarship or one of the scholarships, it will not apply until the fall semester begins. So you cannot be a transition transfer student, a graduate student. You cannot be a current student at Georgia State already. This is these are recruitment scholarships, and so we hope that.

This is going to encourage some students to come to Georgia State if they're offered this awesome award. You also must be honors eligible. Ryan went through a few that we'll talk about that a little bit more tonight, and I'm sure some of you all will have some questions about that as well. When it comes to some of the differences, the stamp scholarship is only for in state students, but the presidential is for in-state, out-of-state, and international. So regardless of what you are, please.

To apply because the presidential catches everyone's stamps will only be considered for in state students though, so that is just something to be aware of.

Both of the awards provide a variety of different financial.

Benefits, I saw one question and that's actually really good. I'm going to answer that now that we're going to try to hold questions to certain points so we don't get too sidetracked. If you are dual enrollment at Georgia State, we do not count that as a current student because you are still in high school. You would still be coming to Georgia State as a new first year. I know it gets a little bit strange. So if you're dual enrollment do not worry about that. Please apply both the words provide the Constitution. Now if you are a Georgia resident and you're.

It's going to receive hope and Zell. We can't double up on tuition payments. And so you do receive your tuition through hope and Zell. But President John Stamps will provide the cost of mandatory student fees for the year, the cost of housing at the University of Commons rate, a yearly living expense stipend, and the opportunity to compete for a paid university assistantship program experience. And that's where you can actually work on campus to research, do really meaningful, impactful work, and get paid for that work.

And this is just the yearly rates, both the stamps and the presidential covers four years. And the stamps may even cover a little bit more if it's required by your program or perhaps if you're doing a dual degree. But.

If we get to that point, we can certainly discuss it some of the differences. So the presidential scholarship provides A1 time $2500 study abroad stipend specifically for study abroad. The Stamps Scholarship provides also a meal plan with seven day meal plan as well as a $10,000 enrichment fund which can be used for study about research or other enrichment activities. So it's a little bit more flexible in the use of those funds.

But both scholarships provide pure scholar community. Students come in essentially as a cohort, and they take what is called an Honors 1000 course their first fall semester, which is where they are taught by Dean Doctor Sarah Cook, and they receive mentoring from her and I'm sure, Mesa Varsha and surreal. Since they're all first years, they can maybe talk about that a little bit later. Our students also have a fall breakfast with the university president, Doctor Blake. Something else?

But we are starting up new that's not even on here is we are beginning monthly luncheons with university, different university leaders throughout the year. So we will be starting those soon. But essentially the presidential scholarship and the stamp scholarship, once we get our first cohort of students in here, it's a really nice small cohort. They have a GroupMe where they're able to ask all sorts of different questions and everyone, they're all shaking their heads where you know hopefully it feels like hopefully they'll agree with me that you come in and you have.

Get this ready made group of people that you can form friendships with. That's this really great connection to start off at Georgia State because we are a big university and so having this small close knit scholarship community can be really wonderful for students to feel like they're part of something and kind of get started on the right foot when they start at Georgia State.

Some of the requirements that our scholars have to maintain, they have to maintain at least a 3.5 GPA. They have to maintain full time student status. They have to meet yearly with Doctor Cook, who is the Dean of the Honors College. There's a variety of events that they are required to attend as well As for their first year they are required to live in the Honors College Living Learning community, which are the top five floors of the University Commons Residence hall, which are very nice, very much better than.

Up top six floors. OK, we are growing. Brian just put his fingers up to to give me the update. We're on the top six floors of university Commons. So a nice large honors community that presidential scholars and stamps scholars can be a part of in their first year. And then after their first year, they still get the funding for housing, but they can choose to either continue to live on campus or they can go off campus or whatever they may choose.

So let's get into application process and deadlines. So when it comes to the stamps and presidential scholarship application process, there are five total essays. There are 300 words each, so they're not super long and they're relatively short. And you have to submit one letter of recommendation that is different from the letter of recommendation or the reference that you might need when you're applying to the university. You want this letter of recommendation to be something that's specific to the stamps.

Presidential scholarship program. You've got to submit it on online.

When it comes to the deadlines. Oops.

Did someone steal away the access? Hey Ryan, can you Click to the next slide for me?

There we go. I don't know like see better now. So when it comes to deadlines, there's a 3 deadlines essentially to be aware of. In order to be a candidate for the stamps and presidential scholarship, we need to know if you're applying to the university. We need to know if you're admissible to the university. So one thing that you have to do is you have to complete OGSE or common application to Georgia State. Please also send your transcripts so that it is a complete application and so that we can evaluate.

Their candidacy for admission to the university that is due by November 15th at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. So for my out-of-state folks, please make sure that you take note of that. If you're in a different time zone, you also have to submit your application, and we also must receive your recommendation letter for the Samsung presidential Scholarship. Now, the recommendation letter is the only one that has a different deadline. We gave your recommenders a few extra days to get that in before the Thanksgiving holidays, so they need to get their letter.

And by N18, if you've not asked your recommender yet.

I encourage you to ask your recommender as soon as possible so that they have enough time to get this letter in for you. Going back to what Ryan was said, the November 15th deadline is also the priority deadline for the university, so regardless, it is a good idea to get your application in then anyway. Then you will actually be a candidate for many of the other scholarships that Georgia State may be able to offer you. When you submit by the priority deadline. After the priority deadline, that's when you know funds start running.

Out a little bit.

So as the timeline look like, so November is when you will submit everything, but then we need a little bit of time to go and sift through everyone's applications, read everything. So between November and February, we are just reading applications. We have a faculty committee that is going through and everyone's application will get read three times and then we figure out who we're going to invite to scholarship day. Scholarship Day is where you will.

Actually come and interview for the Samsung presidential scholarships. Mesa Varsha and surreal will probably have lots of things to talk about, their experience with scholarship say. But that's where you can come to campus, you can learn more about honors College, Georgia State. We go into that a little in a little bit more in a little bit. February 24th is the virtual day for any international candidates because you're located outside the country and we're certainly not going to deal with the difficulties of international travel.

For your interview, so we have a separate virtual day for those international candidates, but March 3rd is the mandatory scholarship. Say that's in person and for anybody who is located within the United States. Then around April, that is when we are going to select our scholars and then notify you as to whether or not you were awarded a scholarship.

This is kind of a a little bit of a snapshot of what scholarships they essentially looks like. We have a welcome from the Dean of the Honors College keynote speakers Q&A were current scholars then as well. You'll have your interview with some faculty members. We also have a lunch with remarks by President Blake. And then at the end we finish off with an optional tour of the Honors College. Lots of folks tend to skip that because after going through a day of interviewing.

They're pretty tired and we do not hold it against you. This is kind of also a we give a pared down version of this essentially for the international process.

So when it comes to your application, let's go over some tips and some things that you should think about including in your essays.

I cannot say this enough. Please write them in a cloud based system. Every year it happens where a student emails and it's close to the deadline or it's the day of the deadline and the dog spilled, you know was wagging their tail and spilled water on the laptop or suddenly in the laptop just stopped working or any other number of things. I've heard a lot of different reasons, but please just write them in a cloud based system and like Google Docs or something like that. So if something does happen to your physical computer, you've not lost your.

All your essays that you've been working on, I typically encourage students try to outline your answers so that you don't repeat yourself. You know if there are specific aspects that you want to talk about. Figure out the best answer to plug those responses into so that you're not kind of going back to the same. Well. Essentially, for answers, always refer back to the question being asked and just make sure that you are answering it. And sometimes students.

We'll take a left turn with their answer and it's we're kind of wondering. OK, well, you know.

Why are they saying this when the question is asking this totally other different thing that we're looking for? So always refer back and really think like am I answering this question?

And then use the entire word count. So you have 300 words per essay? Use the entire word count. If you're using all of it, you are using more time to make your case for why you are the best candidate for these scholarships. If you're only putting in a couple of sentences with someone else is putting in a couple of paragraphs well.

I don't know what couple of sentences could stand up to a couple of paragraphs of making a case for someone now. At the same time, don't just throw a whole bunch of fluff in there, right? You want it to be of substance and just be careful that it doesn't cut off in the text box. That happens every year to a couple of folks where they didn't realize they copied and pasted it over from their Google Docs or wherever they were working on it, and they just drop it into the box and move on to the next question. They don't realize that they were over the 300 words for that answer and.

It cuts off at the end and so we don't get that complete thought.

Um, after applying, will the scholarship application be sent? So the scholarship application is actually on our website right now. Ryan can probably put that into the link into the chat for you so that you can go ahead and start an application if you'd like.

Some more essay tips. Um, provide depth, you know, show. Don't tell. Really think like you know. Alright, I've got these couple of paragraphs answering this question. Can this be said by anybody or is this really unique to me and to my experience it's going to help me stand out? Or are these more so just like general statements that lots of students might be saying about what they might want to do or what they might be thinking when it comes to this answer?

Do some research to inform your answers too, and I say this specifically about the first one. The very first question asks you essentially why you wanna be a part of the Honors College or, you know, what makes you want to come here and do a little research on our website. But also, don't just copy and paste those on our website. We've written it, we know it's on it, and so take a look through our website and see what about the Honors College really intrigues you and interests you and makes you want to come here and then help.

Us understand that through the lens of you personalize those answers about why you want to come here to Georgia State into the Honors College. And then I think I said this before, but sell yourself. So think about your biggest accomplishments and figure out how to work those into the questions that we are asking.

Be authentic and be yourself, but definitely be presentable.

And you can't say this one enough, but please proofread it. Double check your spelling. Double check your grammar. Have multiple folks that are reading it for you? Seek feedback. And when I say seek feedback from good critics, I mean seek feedback from your harshest critics.

Do not give it to the person in your life who's gonna go Oh my God, this is so great. You're so smart. That's not what you need, OK? You need to give it to your harshest critic so that they can help tear it apart so that you can put changes into action that is going to make it better, so that hopefully it is better received. Because everybody can use feedback from other folks and we can always improve our writing. And so make sure to seek out your harshest critic, someone who's going to challenge you to make your application.

Better because you don't want your harsh feedback to come in the room where folks are determining who gets invited to scholars should say, or who gets the scholarship.

Some letter of recommendation tips. Um, pick people who know you best, know you for awhile, know you in different capacities so maybe they've seen you in different scenarios or different types of situations that helps them understand who you are.

And ask them to gear it towards the stamps or presidential scholarships. Whenever we read a letter of recommendation on a student and it specifically says, I recommend this student, you know so and so for the stamps and presidential scholarship, when that recommender has taken that time to make that personalized letter for that student, that means that we know that they are a really great candidate. Because, you know, not everyone will do that for just anyone, right? It's typically someone you know really well.

We really do have good things to say about.

Again, ask early, ask now you know it's about three weeks away from when the application is due, but three and a half. One from one letter of recommendation is to ask now, because they might be writing letters or recommendation for multiple people.

And then provide them everything that they need in order to write you a really good letter of recommendation. So information on the scholarship, your essay drafts, your resume. If they want to see all the things you've done, I've had an ask what they might need. I've had students that have said that their recommenders just ask them. Give me a bulleted list of your accomplishments or something like that. And so give them whatever is going to make it easy, because you certainly don't want them to sit at their computer and go, OK?

Varsha. What am I going to write about Varsha? You know, I'm not really. I don't really know her that well. You want them to sit down and be like, Oh my God, I have so much to say about Varsha.

When your when you put the information in about your recommender into the application, when you request them, you'll get an e-mail saying that we've requested them. Your recommender will get an e-mail. When they submit your letter of recommendation, you will get a confirmation e-mail that they have submitted. Your recommender will also get a confirmation e-mail that they have submitted as well. So before you panic, if you don't see that, check your junk, junk, and spam folders.

In your emails, you should have something there. If you have any difficulties with that, definitely feel free to reach out back out to us and then regardless of whether you get this, the stamps or the presidential scholarship sent them a thank you note. They took time out of their day in order to write this letter for you because they want to see you excel, they want to see you do well. Give them a thank you note regardless of the outcome.

And then some general tips.

Take your time on the application, all right. There are no brownie points for submitting it early. We're actually not even going to be reviewing applications until after the deadline until we have all of the applications in the pool. So take your time.

Make sure that it's good, but also don't wait until the last second. Submit it a couple days before the deadline is what I typically recommend, because if your Wi-Fi goes out the night of, or if the Internet is slow, or if power goes out, or any number of things can go wrong at the last second, give yourself a couple of days that if something happens, you're able to go to a coffee shop or go to school to, you know, the computer lab or something like that, somewhere where you can submit it or you can adjust your schedule to submit it.

But waiting until 11:59 PM, which people do all the time, it's not the best idea. And inevitably I'm the one who is awake, who's monitoring things. Inevitably at 12:01 I get like at least one e-mail that says someone was trying to submit it and can they please submit it late? But unfortunately, late applications are not accepted. This is a scholarship, but you know, we get hundreds of applications. We can't just flick it on and off for, you know, just a couple of people check your time zone.

That is something that sometimes gets folks as well. So we have a couple of questions here. I think Ryan has been answering lots of things in the chat, but there's one here for the same scholarship. Can the money being used for housing and the meal plan be put towards something else if we are living at home? So when it comes to the meal plan.

You're getting a meal plan whether you are living at home or not. When it comes to the hold on, Brian approved it and I didn't remember the first part when it comes to the housing.

If you want to live at home, if you live close enough, you essentially will just get that in the form of a refund. I had one student a few years ago who lived at home for the last three years of her undergrad, and she put all that money aside and she used it for graduate Graduate School, so that is what I would probably recommend there, so.

We're going to go ahead and turn it over to our scholar panel for Mensa, Varsha and surreal to answer whatever sort of questions that you may have. And if you also have questions for myself or brilliant, definitely feel free to ask. But it's a number of folks here, so feel free to let the questions fly, whether it is about their application process, what they did when they were applying that made them good candidates about their experience at scholarship say, or what their first few months at Georgia.

See. And being a presidential scholar and being in the Honors College have been like they can tell you maybe the best place to get food, best study spots, perhaps. Whatever questions that you have, feel free to ask. So I'll go ahead and ask a question just while folks are maybe typing so we don't have any dead air since we just got through the application tips. Mesa Varsha so real what sort of application tips do you all have for those who?

Might be applying right now.

Feel for whoever wants to go 1st. Jump in.

Can you hear me OK?

Yes, it's a little bit crackly for me. I don't know if it is for anyone else.

They only.

My son.

We can, but it's a little bit crackly.

OK.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it was a little messed up for me. You may have to come out and jump back in. We'll just have to do just now, but.

OK.

OK, I'll rejoin.

Alright, we'll start off with Barshi. Thank you were reaching for your mute button.

Yeah, OK. So hi guys. So for me personally, when I was writing my application, I thought it was really, it was really helpful for me to sit down with someone who knows me really really well and brainstorm ideas for those, like, essay topics. So if you haven't already started writing for your essay topics and you're sitting there and you have no idea what to write, which was me too, don't worry, that was that was me. Maybe sit down with your like parent or your mom. I sat down with my mom personally. We sat down together for an hour.

And you know, they're gonna know you better than anyone else in this world. Like my mom, my mom's my best friend. She knows me better than anyone. So we were sitting together and we brainstormed ideas and like, and I think a tip that was on the thing was, have people, like, review it? Yes, definitely have people review it. I had around six people review my essays before I turned it in, and all of them were really mean to me. But that's good because you get you get good quality content out of that. So those are probably two of my biggest tips for you all.

Hello everyone. So one of my biggest tip I would say is to take time to think about the question and reflect about it. Make sure that you understand the question well and when when it comes time to answering it, make sure you pick an answer that really stands out, something that says a lot about your character. And don't focus a lot about your grades because your grades are already in your application. Your SAT scores and your GPA that's those are already in your application.

And and they know about it. So make sure you're answering the questions about you, something unique about you and also adding to what version is said. I would say to have a lot of people look at it, your English teachers or anyone that knows you very well, give them your application and let them give you feedbacks on it.

Yes, I definitely agree with both of those points, and definitely make sure that you like makes a set point out something unique about yourself. Be honest and truthful about who you are as a person, and use that space to describe yourself. Use that space to reflect something that's not in your application.

Awesome. Thank you all. Yes, I am unmuted. So one thing that I was thinking about is you all were talking about get someone who knows you really well. It reminded me one of our seniors, Veda. I remember her talking about how she actually gave her application to her mom to bring to work to give to a coworker to have her coworker read it because her coworker didn't know her at all because she wanted the perspective of someone also.

Who had never met her, which is gonna be everyone on the committee as well. So I always remember that as being a really good strategy for feedback as well is to have someone maybe you know read it who doesn't know you very well because then they can tell you where they might need more information on your application process.

So for me personally, I thought scholarship day was really fun. I don't know if everyone else thought that, but I had a great time. I honestly had a blast. So the beginning of scholarship Day starts out with you have like a panel interview. At least for I don't know if this is the exact. I feel like I'm going to say a format and it might not be like this again. Oh no.

So one question in here is what is the interview process like? So do one or a few if you want to talk about the scholarship day process and what that looks like for you.

So we we had like a panel interview. We got to see current presidential scholars talk about their experiences, which was really cool. We heard from Doctor Cook and some of the other like also from.

Doctor Nichols, amazing person. I love these two people. Oh my goodness. And you get to hear from all of these amazing people. And then those are some of the people who will be interviewing you for your, like, interviews. So then after all of that, you get into these little groups, OK, this will be 4 different groups. Y'all. OK. You sit down, there's gonna be other people at your table and you're gonna have a fishbowl discussion. So there's a little fishbowl, and they'll send it around and you get to pick a question and then you, like, talk about it and everyone else talks about it too. So it's that part. It's not super stressful because you're talking.

I found it really fun because you're talking with other like minded people who are also really, really amazing. Like surreal and mice that were both in my interview group and honestly, they're OK.

She real nice. You guys can't hear me because I don't want you guys to get an eco blast. But two of the most amazing people I've ever met. But so they were actually in my group. So you can see other people, you can build each other up, you can learn a lot from everyone. I've learned a lot from surreal from her interview as well. And then you have your personal interviews, which they'll get you and put you into different rooms. And I think Laura actually did one of my interviews, yeah.

Me.

I think it was you and doctor tone who did my interview, and they'll just ask, yes.

OK.

I did not interview you. I'm running around behind the scenes making sure everything is good. I.

I don't know, because at the end I think I asked someone and they said that you interviewed me because I didn't know everyone's names, that there was a blur.

OK.

More Lori.

There's a couple other Lauras who are in that committee, though, so it's probably why.

I'm so sorry about that.

No, that's OK. It's OK. It's it's a big day. You're meeting lots of new people.

It is, but it's not stressful. Guys. Don't think of it as super stressful. Um, go in there. Y'all are amazing. You'll have your individual interviews to ask you four or five questions. You'll just have a really nice conversation. I had a great time, I'm sure surreal and myself hopefully did as well. And then you get a huge dinner, not dinner, lunch. And it's great. 10 on 10 guys. It's super fun. Don't stress out about it.

OK, so adding to that, naturally I'm a very shy person. So before the interview I was very nervous. I came here early and I was very nervous. But as the interview went on, I wasn't nervous anymore because it was so my trend and it was, it was relaxed, especially with the fishbowl. We were passing questions around and some of the questions were even funny and.

The questions do require some critical thinking and things like that, but it was really fun. That was for the Fish Bowl, which was.

A lot of them, students and two staff members. And then for the personal interview, it was very fun for me because I had someone, the person that was interviewing me was a professor.

From a professor that teaches one of my a professor that teaches the major that I'm interested in. So we had a lot of meaningful conversations about my major and things that were going in around the world. So it was an interview, but it felt like a like a normal conversation.

Surreal. Did you have anything to add?

I think y'all did a great job covering like the whole experience of scholarship day, but if I had to say anything, I would just say that it's definitely.

It's going to be like nothing you've ever experienced before because of so many people and so many high places. Like like they were talking about the dinner or the lunch. I actually sat with the Dean of the law school and I want to be, I'm going to be a public defense attorney. So that was an amazing experience to me. So you definitely get to meet a lot of people in high places and it's just so many opportunities for you to be your best self. So I would say definitely.

I understand that although these people aren't high places, they're still just people, and you are there for a reason and you just have to show them that reason why you can't why they invited you.

Thank you. Awesome. You guys have such great insight. Alright, so one question we do have here is will you also stay with other freshmen in the Commons housing or is it just honor students in general? So if you are awarded the stamps or presidential scholarship, you are required to stay in the honors Living Learning community of?

The University Commons, which are the top six floors of the University Commons and the Honors Living Learning community is not restricted to just first years. It is to any honor student that wants to be living in the Commons that year. And so you could be living down the hall from a bunch of freshmen, but you could also be living near a bunch of, you know, softwares or juniors or seniors if there are any. Generally a trends that as students get older they tend to move off campus.

Um, but Mesa versus real? Do you maybe wanna talk about your experiences these past few months of living on campus, in the University of Commons and in the Honors Living Learning community and what that's been like?

I definitely love living on campus.

I so once y'all get to Georgia State, you'll be able to choose. You'll have the option to choose your roommate so you can.

Choose to live in a dorm with other freshmen, but also there's just a lot of freshmen in Commons in general. So it's definitely a lot of opportunities to meet people in the same class as you, but also opportunities to meet people in different classes. But living on campus is amazing because there's so many things to do in Atlanta in general, and like you can't get around with Marta or you can walk if you don't have your car. And also there's so much stuff to do on Georgia State.

Campus like it's always something to do. And though even be events like within the dorms hosted by like the Honors Living Learning Community, they actually host events also. So it'll be like student LED events taking place and you can go there, have fun, meet other people and yeah, it's just always something going on. It's amazing.

Yeah, it really is amazing living here. So our dorms are also set up in a way where you have your own kitchen. So I'm personally, I'm a vegetarian, so it's sometimes kind of difficult for me to eat out all the time. So I love that I have my kitchen because I can go and cook a meal or like heat something up that I brought from home. It's really nice. You also basically get your own type of personal bathroom, so you share a bathroom with one other person. So it's really nice. I also, I think, I I love my roommates, I think.

You're wonderful, definitely. My greatest supporter is currently. I love them.

And yes, you can you you choose your own roommates or you can randomize your roommates. I choose two out of the three roommates, but I love all all three of them. They're amazing. And really, it is really amazing living in university Commons, since you're so close to everything. Our dining hall is literally just a couple, like a couple like feet away from us. I think we're like 100 feet away from the dining dining hall. We also have a Dunkin' Donuts right near us. There's like a there's a sweet stack, so like an ice cream store.

Um, every there's everything that you need near you, and also the people who you like live near. And your RA's amazing people, they really care about you. They really love you, my son, surreal, surreal, are also on the same floor as me. So I see them sometimes, and they're on the elevators and it's really nice. We all go and hang out in the community room, which is really nice since all of the presidential scholars are in the same building. If you want to meet up before class or something before like or your scholarship class to like, discuss something.

Before class we always hog up one of the community rooms and we sit there for an hour and talk about.

Life in general. And then we also talk about what we need to talk about for class. But yeah, it's really awesome living on campus. Y'all will absolutely love it.

Adding to that, I would say living in university Commons is.

It's very fun and especially the people, the people are just amazing and it's good that you live with people who are just like you freshmen and and you share a lot of common things with them. And in addition, we have every floor has a study room and it has a really good view from the top. You could see the city from so many angles and it's very beautiful and yeah.

I was actually going to ask that does anyone from their room have a good view that they can turn their laptop around? Just to give folks a peek of what it looks like outside.

If you don't have like curtains up or anything like that.

Offer.

I actually, I I love looking at the sky, so I always have my window open. I feel like this is an amazing view. It really looks great in the living room too.

I just love, I love it. I love looking at the city and it looks amazing at night.

Alright.

1st.

Thank you for that. I love having someone just turned their laptop around and just show us outside of a window so you can see how actually in the city you actually are. Alright, so we have a couple of other questions in here as folks are answering questions. Definitely feel free that there's some more questions into the chat. Either our students here will be able to answer them or Ryan will be able to answer them. So is there anything we should prepare for the interviews?

Um, so I'll turn that over to Mesa Varsha and surreal. Is there anything unique that y'all did to prepare for the interviews?

Um, so I prepared for the interviews. In a way. My mom searched up like pageant, like the beauty pageant questions. And my mom was just asking me those questions because, like those beauty pageant questions are, they were pretty similar to the fishbowl discussion questions. Surprisingly so. So that was how I practiced for me. I sometimes struggle with articulating my words and like being enthusiastic.

At times, so I was just trying to like, you know, just be yourself.

But also like, you know, be clear so they can understand what you're saying. So just like practice some general public speaking maybe.

Something that I did to prepare for the interview. It was just looking at my life and looking back at my application. And I looked back at my other accomplishments and just thought about them because I wanted to also bring bring things that I didn't mention in my in my application. Just to add that whenever a question pops up about accomplishment so that I wouldn't be talking about this something that I just thought about in my applications.

One thing that I will just add is we're comfortable shoes. We do have you do a little bit of walking around and so I certainly don't want anybody to be in uncomfortable shoes. We do ask that you come up, you know, an interview attire, but that doesn't mean that you have to be wearing, you know, heels if you're not really a heels person or something like that, we're comfortable shoes. Alright, so one other question kind of in the same line of some of the things that we were just talking about but.

Maybe this will spark a different idea in some of you. What tips or examples would you have to best express yourself in the interviews and on your essay? So maybe we can focus more about the essay. Perhaps since you all have talked about the interviews a lot, you know what are some maybe examples or things that you perhaps put into your essay that you helped.

You think helped you stand out? I don't know if any of you had time to review your application before this.

And I definitely think for your essay specifically, make sure and I'm sure that your English teachers have told you this before, but make sure that you have a hook and a creative way to pull them into your essay. And I would definitely say, keep a common theme. Like for my essay I spoke about like hardships that I've experienced and I start, I like, I begin my essay.

I've witnessed many tragedies. Like, that's that's a crazy way to start an essay because it's like, whoa, what is this girl about to talk about? And I started talking about how like.

I I was using a lot of metaphors. I think figurative language definitely spices up. But I was saying, like, I've seen a graveyard of dreams, right? So that was my introduction. And then.

Throughout my essay, I I explained how I overcame those hardships and the things that I've done, the inspiration that my family has given me. And then in the conclusion, I talked about how I can dig up graves and plant seeds in their places. So I'm keeping a common theme throughout the essay and this figurative language. That's interesting. And I'm also still speaking about myself. So. And you don't always have to talk about hardships.

Also, I know a lot of people do do that, but you can talk about anything, but just make it interesting and make it.

Definitely use figure language like make it attention catching.

I would also say to add some narration tour stories. I meant your essay and for example if if you're writing about, if you're writing that you are a hard worker and an ambitious person, it would be helpful if you could give an example from your life.

At a certain point and when you were hard working or or where you were ambitious about something, so include some narration, some examples from your life, because it's stories are are very powerful and they stick with the person that is reading your application so.

Look, it cools them up. Some stories if you can, and tie that back to the main theme of your of your essay.

I feel like this one's pretty obvious, but it's OK to like, make yourself sound really good. You can talk about your achievements and things like that without people thinking you're bragging about yourself. That's what your essays and your interviews for, for you to go brag about yourself, because you're all like amazingly accomplished people and you have a lot of things that make you stick out from other people. So this is an opportunity for you guys to talk about that and talk about it with a group of people who are also really, really accomplished.

And to write about it in your essays. So, you know, don't think that you're like being egotistical. You're not. Don't worry.

Awesome. Thank you all. So one question we have is how many out-of-state students are part of the presidential program? So we have about 30 students in the presidential program right now. And I want to say I was sitting here trying to think of everyone. I think there's about five that are out of state. One of them is actually technically is not technically is an international student from India. And I think I saw that someone is tuning in from India. So definitely please make sure to get your application.

Another question that we have here can you all speak to campus safety and what helps you feel safe as a student scholar in the city?

We have some folks who may be coming from more rural areas in Georgia or in other parts of the country, may not necessarily be familiar with Atlanta and downtown living.

I personally feel really, really safe here. There are police officers, first of all everywhere on campus who are there to keep you safe. There's also the live safe app, which I've actually used on multiple occasions. So there's two really awesome things about the live safe app. One of them is that if you're walking somewhere to another place, it's late at night, you're scared. You can ask for a police escort who will either like drive you in their police car, back to your dorm, or wherever you need to go, or we'll just like essentially.

Walk with you back to your dorm. I've actually, I've used it on one. I've used it once. I was in the library really late and I was really scared of walking outside by myself and it was really, really helpful. Another aspect of the live safe app is that you can have someone watch you walk. So a lot of times I'll either send it over to my roommate or I'll send it over to my mom and my mom or my roommate can, like, watch me walk. Or just having them on like Find My iPhone. You know, I there's a lot of good safety.

Things here guys.

Adding to that, I would say to make a lot of friends and walk together with your friends, especially if you have classes with them. For example, I have a I have a class that I have with my roommate, and so every Tuesdays and Thursdays we walk to class together and we come from class together, and we also have the life 360 app which monitors our location with our roommates, so.

Every time I know where my roommates are and they know of my, of my, of my location. So if anything were to happen, I know that someone actually know where I am and can call help if if I need help.

Awesome. Thank you all. So doesn't look like we have any questions in the chat at the moment. So if you all are thinking of any certainly feel free to drop them in so that may solve our shows we're looking to answer. Also if you have questions for Ryan or I about you know specifics of the program or the application process, certainly feel free to ask those as well. I guess I will go ahead and ask a question to you all. What are some of the things that made you feel like Georgia?

Stay in the honors. College was where you needed to be. What made you come here? Perhaps over other places that you were considering for college?

I'm definitely. I definitely feel like.

Georgia State location in Atlanta was a major component of why I came to Georgia State, because it's literally in the center of everything like you can. Like I was talking about earlier, you can go a lot of places. A lot of places are in walkable distance or you can use Marta to get to places, but also it's like a connection hub like at linen general. So there's so many opportunities to meet different people in your.

Future career field and there's so many opportunities to do things that you want to do in the future. So that was what really drew me to Atlanta and then Georgia State. It has to be the dorms. Like honestly, the dorms are amazing. Virtual was talking about how like we have a kitchen and like you only share your bathroom or one person. Like these are some high quality dorms. And I just, I love it. Like I love the living experience, especially for freshmen.

A lot of schools have lower quality dorms, but Georgia State, all the dorms are pretty great. So I think that's.

Those two months.

For me, I love the people here. I know I was talking previously about Dean Cook and Doctor Nichols, but just the people in here, like at the Honors College in general are amazing. I see Laura and Ryan like all the time. When I go over to the Honors College, I hang out there a lot. Guys I know that sounds really nerd. Like of me, I am a nerd. But the Honors College just has a great community. Everyone there, like, they're so sweet. You will find like older honors.

College, because friends, I would like to say friends, there's like Sidney Price. She was, she's well, she graduated I think now. But she's still at the Honors College. And I see her and she's always his smiley and she makes me happy.

But, you know, it's it's a really amazing place. You wouldn't think that you would be able to have like a one-on-one interaction with the Dean of a college. But Doctor Cook is in her office. You can go knock on her door. Usually her door is open, like 99% of the time it's open and you can just walk in. And she's always so happy to see us. So it's really the people and everyone's accessible. Everyone cares about you. Yeah, we all care about you.

In addition to what's the real say I, I would say the location because Geyser is located at this location where there are a lot of those major companies are located in here and they are good resources for us because.

They got they can offer students internship because I was considering interning with the CDC and and CNN and they're all not very far from here. And the second thing would be the research program and MSM measures. So I have a lot of interest in research and.

In honors College, it is very possible to get it research position anytime. And right now I'm doing a UAP program which is a research program offered by the Honors College and that is something that I really value about the Honors College.

Awesome. Thank you all. Yeah, something that I always will talk to students that NASA reminded me of is just the location of Georgia State is very different from a lot of other universities. And, you know, if you want to go to a university that's more of a college town, if you find that that's your scene, go for it. But that's going to be a very different experience from the experience that a Georgia State student has where they're going to class and they're literally walking on the sidewalk next to folks who are.

Going to work at a Fortune 500 company that's in the building right over from where their classroom is. I we had a a student and a couple of years ago that was in a sandwich shop over on Broad Street and he was just sitting there eating a sandwich and he had his textbook sitting on the table right next to him and someone sat down in a suit. Also getting a sandwich in the sandwich shop. Saw the textbook, struck up a conversation. He wound up getting an offered an internship.

Just while he was sitting there eating a sandwich, because the people who work at these companies in these organizations are located right here. We have like Mesa was saying, the CDC is here, CNN is here, we have the capital right down the street. So any of our, you know, public policy, political science majors, this is a great location to be in. Whereas when you're in a college town, when you're in some other university locations, you have to have recruiters kind of come to you. And so it's a different experience where you're not going to just.

Run into someone like that just sitting in a sandwich shop like you can do here at Georgia State. So when it comes to your experiences here on campus, one question that I did have for the three of you is that honors 1000 courses that you all take with Doctor Cook. Would you all be able to enlighten everyone as to what that is, what you do in that class, and what that experience has been like?

Nobody jumped first.

Yeah. Can you hear me OK?

So yeah.

Our our Honor seminar is really amazing.

They have some books to read over the summer, which I enjoy reading. So it was, it was good and the books were very insightful. We wrote, cast the cast. What is it? I think it's called the OR the origins of our discontents. Yes, it was. And it's a book about like the history of racism in America, so very insightful and we've had very insightful conversations on the book as well. So it's kind of like that same energy of our.

Interview process, the fishbowl questions like we're talking to people with amazing ideas, people who care about their education, people who want to make change in the world. So it's basically that, and for our every week like it's pretty amazing. Another book we read this over the summer or we're still currently reading is Pro Social, which is basically a book on how to.

Build connections within groups and how to build connections from groups to other groups. So we're learning how to be.

People in the world that are inspiring change, people in the world that don't just accept the status quo, but actually challenge it in order to create better outcomes. So it's really amazing. It's a great experience to be able to talk to your peers who are focused on the bigger picture, and also to speak with Doctor Cook like she has great ideas as well. She's always picking our brains and challenging us to see.

What we can do to be better people and to make a better world?

Yeah, I think surreal perfectly explained. Ohh sorry myself. I think surreal perfectly explained what our classes what we do in our classes. It's really amazing you get in there. It's it's like a discussion based type of class. You're not like taking notes or anything unless you're taking notes about what we're talking about. But it's it's not like your standard lecture type of class as more like discussion based class and again like the people are amazing you're going to be surrounded. I I'm close friends that I think every single like.

In our in our group of presidential scholars think I'm close with every single one of you guys.

Everyone is super sweet. Doctor Cook is absolutely amazing. She's one of I have so much respect for her and she just.

And she's very down to Earth. You're not gonna feel like you're talking to the Dean of the Honors College when you're talking to her. She's so sweet, an amazing person, and your class is going to be super fun as well.

OK, so adding to what version? And several state I really enjoyed the clause because Doctor Cook, she's a very knowledgeable individual and she's always up in to talk to us about anything. And this is the only class that we as presidential scholars have together. So it's the ten of us from this cohort, the ten of us in the same class, and we just really talk about the books. But sometimes we go off topic and talk about.

Things that are currently happening and.

Yeah, just have a lot of meaningful discussions and we also had a guest speaker last week and.

We also talk about things that are happening now and what we can do. So it's it's a very.

It's very discussion based class. That is very fun, yeah.

Awesome. Thank you. So kind of along the same vein, one question that I have for you all again, and this is a question that we typically get a lot during orientation. Can you all talk a little bit about the differences that you see in an honors section of a course as opposed to the regular section of the course and kind of how they are different or the same in your opinion?

Yeah. So I have an honors English class right now. So that's my other honors class. Other than my other than the scholarship class. So we'll have to take. So you're my by at least for me, my honors English class. It's a lot more reading and writing. I have an essay due every single week and I not to like scare you guys. Oh my goodness. It's it's super fun. The class is amazing. I have a doctor think for my professor. She's an incredibly knowledgeable person. She's.

Amazing. And so the classes are very group discussion based. You'll read around 200 to 300 pages before coming to the class and then you'll discuss what you read and then at the end of the week you'll essentially have like one discussion like small essay type of thing you need to write. So compared to my other classes which are more like lecture based classes where I'll go into class, I'll be taking notes the entire class. My honors class is more I read beforehand I come to class, I talk about what I read.

So more discussion based. Also your classes are a lot smaller, so your honors level classes. My honors English class only has think 20 kids compared to some of my other classes like my global perspectives class which has around 208 kids, so a lot smaller. So the professor knows you by name. I saw Doctor Fink at a coffee shop the other day, she sat down on my booth and we were talking for like 20 minutes. So you have a one-on-one personal connection with your professors as well. So it's really amazing.

OK.

Um, adding to that, we would say the size of the class for my regular classes is just really like a lecture. Like first estate, it has hundreds of students and I don't usually talk a lot with the professor or ask a lot of questions because.

Because the professor is just trying to get through the the presentation. But for my honors courses, they're usually 12 students or 15 students, but no more than 20. And as a shy person, that really helps them, helps me become a lot more.

Become a lot more relaxed and be able to talk a lot with the students and just discuss a lot of the material. And I also noticed that the Honors courses are like more challenging and they're they're also.

They tell you as a student, which is something that you would want, so it's a lot.

It's a lot more discussion based and yeah.

So I'll ask one more question with the hopes that someone else in the in our chat will have some questions they want to ask. Otherwise we'll glide this home. What are some things that you all are maybe looking towards for the future different experiences that you're hoping to join that you're interested in maybe leadership roles or things like that that you're interested in getting as part of your Georgia State or honors or presidential experience?

I would definitely say studying abroad since we do get that stipend or that portion another scholarship as a part of our scholarship for studying abroad.

I'm just so excited to travel the world and like learn something new in the process. I think it's going to be amazing. And also just internship opportunities like the Honors College, they they're always advertising internship opportunities. So I'm excited for that. I actually there's one today, the Library of Congress.

So I'll be applying for that soon and I think it's going to be amazing.

Yeah. For me as well, the research opportunities here are amazing. We like our our college itself, like Georgia State as a whole, is built a lot on research. So I think all of us here have like a university assistantship program. I I personally love my AP. I work with Doctor Burnett, Doctor B, with the Anthropology department. So we're researching racialized violence in the United States. So you're learning amazing things like not not mazing.

Like really depressing things, but you are learning just a sheer, like quality of work and it's really changes your perspective on your everyday life. When you're just walking through the streets and you know you, you're looking at more like racialized violence every day than you think.

And Oh my goodness, I had another point. I was going to say, but I just it just completely slipped out of my brain.

Yes.

We can go to Mesa and then come back to you so you can remember.

OK, so one thing that I'm hoping to accomplish here in the Honors College is to get another restrict position. Right now I do have a restricted position, but it's not.

But it's not part of my field of study. I have a research position with the criminal Justice Department, but I hope to get to get one in a stem so that I can develop some experience in my field. And another thing that I'm looking forward to is hopefully doing a study abroad this summer or maybe next year.

Where would you all like to study abroad, if you're planning on doing that. That's one of the questions that we have at Varsha. I don't know if you remember the other point. We can go to you first if you remembered it.

Yes, I my memory is doing great today. I remembered it and then I forgot again. But I can answer your question about where I'd like to study abroad. So I've actually gone to two of the we've had this study abroad fairs on campus so far. And so I've been going to those. And there's also a huge website where you can look at this is also available to you guys if you want to see where you want to study abroad later in the future. There's like a website you can go in, you can search up certain countries, you can put in your major to see what you want.

Study abroad. For me personally, I would love to study abroad. The Hague, it's an Amsterdam. So The Hague is it has the UN Court of Justice and the It's this is actually an honors college experience there. It's literally called The Hague and it's part of the Honors College Study Abroad program.

And you can go and you would work in the UN International Court of Justice, which I think is pretty amazing.

But yeah, that would be for me and I love Amsterdam. I've always wanted to visit and it's been my dream to go bike riding through tulips because I think they'd be really cute, but yeah.

I would like to study abroad in Germany or in Denmark because I I'm very passionate about healthcare inequality and countries like Germany and Denmark say they do have a healthcare system in which every citizen has access to it. So I would like to study there so that I can learn more about how they're doing that.

I'm not sure where I want to study your bribe yet. I would like to go somewhere either in South America or Africa, but I don't know which specific country yet.

Oh, and Laura, I remembered what I was going to say.

OK, so for me personally, for my future plans at Georgia State, I would like to join hopefully the 3 + 3 program at Georgia State. So this for those of you who aren't familiar with it. If you would like to potentially maybe be a lawyer in the future, you can be a part of Georgia State's 3 + 3 program through Georgia State Law School. So you will have three years of your undergraduate and then you would have three years of law school. So essentially you'd be finishing law school and your undergraduate in six years.

Instead of seven years and if you have the presidential scholarship, this is super, super nice because your first year of law school would be paid by your presidential scholarship.

So you would technically only be paying for two years of law school. So yeah so BA JD program 3 + 3 yeah.

Well, awesome. Thank you all. And it doesn't seem like we have any other questions from the group. So I want to be respectful of your time since I know that you all have. Maybe I think midterm time is kind of passing a little bit, but I'm sure you all have perhaps homework assignments and things that you all have to get to. So one thing I did just want to say is if you have not started an application, please make sure to start your application. You can.

Actually begin it and then return to it later at any point. So do not feel like you have to complete it all in one sitting. That link that I am dropping into the chat right now is the link to the stamps and presidential website. And so if you click the big red button on that page, that is where you can actually begin a stamps on presidential scholarship application. Ryan is also putting in some different honors events so if you wanted to come and check out some more information.

The honors, please click that link and register for those events. Brian, did you have something at?

Yep. I also want to say because I know this tends to be a question that we get even though we didn't get it this time, honors decisions are scheduled to be released by mid-december. So if you have applied, you will hear from us with honors first and then we'll continue going into the spring and we'll hear from presidential at the timeline that Laura spoke up. So just be aware of that.

Of that timeline.

Awesome. And if you have any questions at any point after today, definitely feel free to reach out to us at scholars@gsu.edu. We are more than happy to answer your questions about the stamps and presidential scholarship program. I just wanted to take a moment to thank Mesa Varsha and surreal for taking time out of their busy schedule to help us do this because there's so many different questions that we get, but you all are just so much more suited to answer for students who are wondering about them. And thank you, Ryan for taking time.

Thank you all for participating. Hopefully you've gotten some good information out of this. We will be sending the recording around within the next week, so please take keep an eye out for that in case there was anything you wanted to refer back to any of the responses here that you wanted to listen to again, we will e-mail that recording out to you, but until then hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week and.

Hopefully we'll see an application from you all soon. Bye now. Have a good night.