FAYETTEVILLE – Bryant High School graduates Jake Price and Bobbie Sandidge were among 78 exceptional students to receive prestigious Honors College Fellowships from the University of Arkansas Honors College.
This class, one of the strongest in recent memory, includes 24 National Merit Scholars. The students achieved an average high school GPA of 4.18 and boast an ACT score of nearly 34, placing them in the 99th percentile nationwide.
“More than 80 percent of our new fellows hail from Arkansas and over a quarter of them will be first-generation college students,” said Noah Pittman, assistant dean of the Honors College. “These students are being recruited by top schools from coast to coast so we are very proud of our ability to attract the best scholars every year. Their intellectual curiosity and commitment to service will undoubtedly make them leaders in our community.”
The Honors College Fellowships were made possible by a portion of the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation’s $300 million gift to the university in 2002. The fellowship application process is rigorous. Students must score at least 32 on the ACT exam and have a 3.8 grade point average to apply, and Honors College administrators review each student application for evidence of intellectual curiosity, leadership potential and community involvement. The selection process also involves a writing test and campus interview for finalists in early March.
The members of this distinguished class are pursuing interests in biomedical engineering, history, biochemistry, food science and music, among others, and have earned a wide variety of honors during their early years. Some have already begun to engage in research: William Baker of North Little Rock, for example, worked with researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to test the effectiveness of a drug to reduce the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome. He was one of five fellows to be named on the Arkansas Times All-Stars Team, along with Amrit Kannan, Anastasia Mills, Abigail Pickhardt and Dylan Thompson.
The Honors College fellowship of $70,000 largely covers tuition, books, room and board, and registration over four years, granting these students the freedom to pursue original research, study abroad and other academic interests. The fellowship funds can also be combined with other scholarships and grants, such as the more than $1 million in study abroad and research grants that the Honors College awards to students each year.
Including this latest group, a total of 1,095 students have benefited from the Honors College Fellowship program. Recent fellows include Truman Scholars, Goldwater Scholars and even an NCAA Division I national champion in the indoor pole vault. Alumni are building careers in competitive fields like engineering, medicine, teaching and criminology.
