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| University of Maryland College Park |
The Board of Trustees of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship
and Excellence in Education Foundation recently announced the awarding of 252 Goldwater
Scholarships for the 2016-17 academic year to US undergraduate sophomores
and juniors.
And in case you’re not familiar with this program, these
scholarships represent the “gold standard” for undergraduate achievement in
fields of science, mathematics and engineering. Not only are they the source of
significant bragging rights for the various institutions represented among the
winners, but they are quite frequently an important stepping stone toward
significant financial support for postgraduate education. PhD programs in STEM areas and important
fellowship providers such as the National Science
Foundation, the Department of Defense,
and the Hertz Foundation,
consider Goldwater awards among the most prestigious of national undergraduate
awards for young scientists.
The one- and two-year scholarships are set up to cover the
cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500. They were originally designed to “alleviate a
critical current and future shortage of highly qualified scientists,
mathematicians, and engineers.” In today’s
terms, a more realistic statement of purpose would be to provide “a continuing
source” of highly qualified individuals to those fields of study and research. While
the money isn’t huge, the prestige is enormous and undergrads in STEM fields
compete hard for nominations based on their research, internships, and work in relevant
industries.
This year’s Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of
academic merit from a field of 1,150 students who were nominated by the institutional
representatives of 415 colleges nationwide.
Among these, 144 of the Scholars were men and 108 were women, and
virtually all intend to obtain a PhD as their degree objective. Thirty Scholars
were math majors, 157 were science and related majors, 59 were majoring in
engineering and six were computer science majors. And for the record, many have dual majors in
a variety of mathematics, science, engineering and computer disciplines.
Since its first award in 1989, the Goldwater Foundation has
distributed 7,680 scholarships totaling approximately 48 million dollars. And
these award-winners go on to do great things. Recent Scholars have been awarded
86 Rhodes Scholarships, 125 Marshall Awards, and 134 Churchill Scholarships, in
addition to winning other distinguished national fellowships.
For many prospective Goldwater Scholars, the competition is
most intense at the institutional level.
Colleges establish their own nomination criteria and procedures
to determine the extent to which individual students have the commitment and
potential to make significant contributions to their fields. Students who plan
to study medicine are only eligible if they plan a research career rather
than a career as a practicing physician.
Four-year institutions may nominate up to four current sophomores or
juniors.
For the second
consecutive year, the University of
Maryland-College Park was a big winner among competing local colleges and
universities with four Goldwater Scholars. The College
of William and Mary, Johns Hopkins University
and the University of Maryland Baltimore County
had three each, while Washington and Lee
University, Christopher Newport University,
James Madison University, Hampden-Sydney College, and Virginia Tech each had one Goldwater Scholar.
In addition to Maryland, the only other universities
receiving the maximum of four Goldwater awards are Cornell University, Stanford University, the University of North Texas, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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