Congratulations to all of this year's Genesee County high school graduates! We wish you all a wonderful summer as you prepare for the next stage in your life, and we especially thank everyone who participated in this year's Wilsterman Scholarship application process. We know that last year was a very difficult one which brought much uncertainty in regard to the future, so it brought us much joy and hope to see so many of our Genesee County high school students putting in the time and effort to continue to pursue their goals in spite of everything. This was a record-breaking year for the Wilsterman Foundation, giving out more new scholarships than any previous year (a total of 146!) and bringing our total number of scholarships under administration to over 500(!) for the first time in the life of our Foundation.
We are still waiting to hear back from a few of our scholarship recipients with the requisite Information Form letting us know where they will be attending college, so, if you haven't seen a determination letter from us yet letting you know whether you were selected for a scholarship, please reach out to us so that we can try sending it again. And if you are one of our current scholarship recipients, we may still be waiting on a transcript update from you, so please do send us an email with your updated transcript when you get a chance!
We also have an important update in regard to our eligibility rules which may affect some of our current scholarship recipients as well as our new awardees. In the past we have most usually awarded scholarships for "up to four years or until you have received your bachelor’s degree, whichever comes first". We have decided to amend that rule to remove the stipulation regarding the bachelor’s degree. This essentially means that any Wilsterman Scholarship recipient can receive the scholarship for up to four years, regardless of whether that time be spent in undergraduate or graduate studies. As we have begun to receive more applications from students already in college, in order to be fair and at least give the opportunity for more students to receive the full $20,000 maximum scholarship amount over four years, we have decided that essentially every student receiving a scholarship will be treated the same. Regardless of how much college has already been completed, each new scholarship recipient will now be considered to be starting at "Year One" of their scholarship and can continue receiving the scholarship for up to four years as long as they remain enrolled and are continuing to pursue further educational goals. Although this new general rule will apply in most circumstances, the Advisory Committee does retain the right to amend scholarship amounts and durations for any reason. Please let us know if you have any questions about these changes or anything else.
Once again congratulations to this year's scholarship recipients - we wish you the absolute best as you begin your college careers are very excited to follow your successful academic journeys!
Sincerely,
The Wilsterman Foundation
