The Scholarship Competition

The Johnson Scholarship competition takes place in two stages. The first stage is the review of applications, which begins in early December and continues until mid-January. The Scholarship Committee's goal is to narrow down the applicants to a pool of 200 finalists to invite to stage two, the on-campus competition. Finalists are notified in late January, and are invited to attend the on-campus competition which will take place from Sunday, March 3 until Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Once finalists register for the on-campus competition, we begin making travel and accommodation arrangements for them.

Finalists must attend the competition in order to win a Johnson Scholarship or other merit-based scholarships at W & L (with the exception of regional scholarships). If you are coming from outside a reasonable driving distance, W & L will fly you to the competition at our expense, and will reimburse you any incidental travel expenses. If you are driving to the competition, we will also reimburse your travel expenses.

Once on campus, finalists stay in residence halls with current students, and have a full schedule of events planned for them including classes, receptions, open houses, tours, and meals both on campus and in town. A series of interviews with faculty, current Johnson Scholars and admissions constitutes the actual competition.

We fully realize that Johnson Scholarship finalists will have many options when it comes time to choose a college. Therefore, just as we are utilizing the on-campus competition as a way to learn more about the finalists before making our final determination about who the winners will be, we encourage finalists to use their time on campus wisely to learn more about W&L to help them determine whether or not W & L is a good fit for their college plans.