2022 Scholarship Announcements

Thank you once again to all of our applicants from this past year and to all of the teachers, counselors, and other school staff who have spread the word about the Wilsterman Foundation, who wrote wonderful recommendation letters, and who helped and encouraged students to pursue their goals and ambitions! It was quite a year for us. After a considerable lull due in large part to the pandemic last year, we received significantly more application submissions than in any previous year, giving the Advisory Committee a steep jump from 242 applications to review last year up to 364 for 2022. And as much as we are thrilled to see so many students bouncing back so quickly from the discouragement and doubt brought on by COVID, the most difficult part is having to give the disappointing news to so many more deserving students that they unfortunately were not selected to receive a scholarship this year. While we did continue our trend of steadily increasing the number of scholarships we award each year, giving out 152, the major increase in applicants still meant that we were only able to award ~42% of applicants a scholarship, compared to over 60% of applicants receiving an award last year. We have heard from a number of these students who sent in excellent applications but who unfortunately did not end up receiving a scholarship simply due to such an excess of extremely excellent applications, and we understand the frustration and disappointment which comes with putting in a lot of hard work and not seeing it pay off. As our rules do allow for applications to be submitted for up to six years after graduation from high school, if circumstances or situations change or additional details can be added to their application which may make a positive impression on the Advisory Committee, these students may want to consider re-applying in future years. All that said, it was a wonderful year! Thank you once again to everyone who participated! 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! Best wishes and continued success to all of our new and current scholarship recipients! We are very proud of all of you! Keep up the hard work and we are sure you will all find that unbeatable joyful contentment which follows the achievement of a goal long struggled for! Warmest regards, The Wilsterman Foundation