Scholarships - do unis care about extra-curricular? (1 Viewer)

[LoveHateSchool]

Hi!

I was wondering if universities placed a great deal of emphasis on extra-curricular? I'm looking at applying for USYD's merit scholarship for 95+ ATAR in the engineering or architecture faculty. I think I can probably tick off the academic box (i.e. 95+ ATAR) but was also wondering how much emphasis they placed on extra curricular because I'm planning on doing some more.

Currently, these are my extra curriculars (for year 12 only)
- Leadership: SRC
- Sport: badminton (non competitive) and touch football

I'm thinking of also doing netball next year, after the touch season finishes. Not sure if this is enough??

And please post experiences about applying for scholarships, not only for USYD, but other universities as well Thanks!!

USYD merit the cut off is essentially nominal-most people applying will likely be 95+ candidates. They wouldn't shortlist a candidate that they thought would get less than 95. The ECs are of big importance, as well as good interview skills.

Now there are some scholarships were the mark is all that matters (i.e people with X+ ATAR get this scholarship, rural with Y+ ATAR get this schol) but many of the scholarships you apply for whether university based, faculty based etc. will ask a bit about ECs.

Do you need to write an application? What was the interview like? (Or have you not done it yet?)



Do activities during high school count? Not necessarily in year 12, but in junior years and year 11? I helped my friend organise a public speaking event for BeyondBlue and did some volunteer work in year 9, as well as event coordination in year 11+12 (forgot I was part of formal committee lmao).

Yes you write a 1 A4 page personal statement, plus fill in the details sheet that asks you your subs and ranks and all that (copy of your report as well).

You need to write a personal statement about yourself/achievements/whatever and hand in certain things like your report with subject ranks. The interview was actually a group interview (5 people for 1 interviewer) and they just asked us questions about either things in our application or current events in science (I applied for B.Science).

Yeah change in format for this year evidentially, it was a panel of 3 per one person when I went for Adv Sci.

When they 95+, they really mean 99+. If you get 99+ and have those good extra-curriculars, then you have a good chance. There will be students with that so it's pretty obvious who they will choose, 95 and good extra-curriculars or 99 and good extra-curriculars.

Having said that, you should still apply. You never know what may happen.

Arr but it's not necessarily as cut and dry as that. Merit does actually have people get it at the lower brackets of the 95-99.95. Someone with a 97 with stellar, stellar ECs would trump a 99+ with good just from what I observed. Viewing it as an all round thing is best, because both are considered, marks and ECs. Also ECs relevant to the faculty you are going for probably give a little boost more. Or knowing how to frame your ECs in that way

Also if you got a 95 with great EAS disadvantage over someone at a top private school with a 99 or a 97 at a rank 650 rural school compared to a 98 at a selective...these things may play in. The score again is a threshold. Everyone with a reasonable chance of clearing the bottom ATAR should apply if they have a few ECs.

These applications are obviously prior to students receiving their ATARs. They will get an estimate based on their ranks or whatever. Yes, someone might have gotten an ATAR of 96, but maybe their estimate was 99. Maybe that Olympiad student got an estimate of 98 for whatever reason. You have neither proved nor disproved what I said. The Olympiad is a great extra-curricular. The 96 ATAR student must have had something else to show. Presumably there was an interview, so yes, it does depend on that as well. But to even be offered an interview, there must be something to draw you out of the 1000+ applications. No one is going to read everyone's application in full, no matter how unfair or unethical that may seem. A good differentiator is your ATAR, but at that stage, an ATAR estimate. That may reduce the applications to 50, and then they read your application in detail.

If there was no interview, then my point still stands that there must be a vetting process, and the 96 ATAR student must have had something significant as well.

Always put my estimate as 95+ or ~97 lol and obvs the ~97 was pretty on the money In USYD merit, they actually asked what my ATAR would probs be and I said 97. As I said the ECs are pretty important, as these are even offered before you get final scores. (And talking broader than this one specific scholarship, some UNSW, UMELB, ANU schols act with a higher weighting on EC/circumstance with the ATAR the mere cut off).

Do the uni's base offers out on the report marks and stuff? What happens if you get a 94? (awks)

It'd be awks, but they'd be fairly good at estimating generally. Not cruel enough to give a conditional offer to someone that would not make the ATAR.

 

[huongtrinh]

I didn't get interview offered for merit scholarship at USyd at this stage, does that mean I don't have any chance for this scholarship? (I did my HSC this year). Thanks a lot!