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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Black Press Scholarship

The Black Press Scholarship (valued at $5000) is given to University of Victoria Students who are enrolled in the Bachelor of Commerce program. Usually, two students from each of the school districts in British Columbia receive the scholarship.The preference is given to first year students who are entering the university right out of high school. However, just because you are a second, third or fourth year student at UVic, it does not mean that you should not apply. Sometimes, there are not enough qualified applicants that can receive this scholarship.

To be considered a qualified applicant, you usually need to be accepted into the business program upon entry into the university. You also should have a high academic average because that is one of the first things that people look for when searching for a winner. Another aspect of the scholarship is your involvement at your high school and in your community. Were you on the track team? Did you do fundraising for charity? If so, put that into your personal statement when submitting your application.

Your personal statement has to be well-written. You have to write something about yourself, and your goals. When talking about your goals, you should be clear on what you hope to achieve by being in the business program at UVic. It does not matter that you are unsure about what you want to do, or that you may change your mind later. The thing is, you cannot write "I don't know what I want to do, but I'm going into business to see where it takes me". You may also want to write about how well you did at school when it comes to academics. Did you receive any academic awards worth noting? Were you the top academic student? If so, put that in. There, you have your first paragraph.

In the next paragraph of your personal statement, you may talk about your community and school involvement. It is here that you discuss your athletic achievement, as well as whether or not you were a part of any school club. Examples include art club, drama club, school council, leadership group, anything...You should also mention if you were the top fundraiser for any charity, or if you were directly involved with any charity.

In the third paragraph, you may talk about what your interests are and what you like to do. Obviously, you want to highlight the good and not mention the bad.


For more information, check out this website: http://www.business.uvic.ca/undergraduate/prospective/blackpress/

GOOD LUCK!!

PS. I got this scholarship twice.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi there,

I was wondering how did you get the scholarship twice?

Also around when did they tell you the results of the scholarship?

Thank you.

Yana Hempler said...

I got the scholarship twice because I believe that no one else from my district who applied to the business program got accepted/their graduating average from grade 12 was not high enough to get the scholarship. As per the scholarship information, it indicates that if there are no grade 12 grads who qualify, then the scholarship is given to a person who is already in the BCOM program.

I found out about being nominated for the scholarship sometime in the early summer.