Video: Tips for the Scholarship Application – Millennium Excellence Awards
Series: Tips for the Scholarship Application
Name: Millennium Excellence Awards
Length: ~31 minutes
Requires: Adobe Flash Player
Important Links: Scholarship Website, Application Form
NOTE: It may take a minute or two to load depending on your browser.
Additional Info. on the Challenging Task / Project Essay
I had a bit of a brain fart when thinking about good examples to use for this section during the video (see the pause when I start talking about “designing a machine” =P). But to be clear, I’m not saying that you need to have discovered a potential treatment for attacking cancer cells or anything to that degree to do well in this section (I surely didn’t have an example like that!) – it was just an example of a science project that was in my head at the moment. Any type of science fair project or business you’ve created would be good examples, along with many other things.
The key thing to realize is that you want to talk about a challenge that is relevant to the Millennium application – so your challenge should deal with leadership, innovation, and/or community service. So while a personal hobby like learning to play the guitar might technically answer the question, I don’t think it would be a strong answer. The reason why a science project, for example, works better is that although conducting a novel science project is also a type of hobby, successful science projects are usually original and innovative to some degree – so it is at least relevant to a criteria of the Millennium scholarship.
Questions?
If you have any further questions about the Millennium Excellence Awards, please leave a comment, and I will do my best to answer them!
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Comments
thanks again!
this question is a little unrelated but:
you mentioned that they called back your referee. I have a clear idea of the person (referee A) I would like to choose for this application. However, for a past scholarship application, I didn’t think this through AS WELL and although I chose a referee who knew me well (referee B), I don’t think referee B knows me as well OR is as capable of articulating ideas as referee A. Do other scholarships call back the referees? If so, is there nothing I can do now about the past scholarship application?
Hey Teel,
The Millennium is actually the only scholarship I know of that may call your referee.
So I wouldn`t worry too much about the other application. Which one was it though, if I may ask?
Hey Josh!
Very helpful video, I’m typing up the application right now…and doing my best to *impressively* fill up the boxes. The ‘novel science project’ was a really good idea; I have a similar example, and wouldn’t have thought to write about it if you hadn’t mentioned it!
Oh and uh… I was having some literal difficulty in filling out the activity boxes. The boxes have no formatting, and adobe (at least my version) can’t change the font size. Is there a smart way to fill them out neatly that I’m missing? It seems impossible to keep the #/position/years columns straight.
Btw, I burst out laughing when the phone started ringing.
“Uh- sorry about that, just ignore that.”
-ring ring!-
*Josh tackles phone*
=P Thanks again, and keep up the amazing work!
I sent in my application on Friday, JUST before the post office’s closing time. I hope they don’t count it against me because I sent it last minute!
Hey Joshua,
I just stumbled across your website, and you have done some very excellent work with your scholarship tips and videos. I just wish I had seen this video before I sent in my application. Fortunately I did do very similiar things as what you suggested.
I just have one question. Are all finalists for awards contacted for a phone interview? If not, then what determines if you will get an interview or not (is it based on the level of award they are considering you for or whether there’s something unclear in your application) Finally, do you remember the approximate dates for the interviews? Also, do you have any tips to offer for the phone interviews?
Thanks a lot! I wish you all the luck in your med school interviews!
Hey Josh,
Did you hear that the Millenium foundation is closing next year? This means they won’t be giving out scholarships to next year’s graduating class. This is really disappointing to me because I’m going into grade 12 next year and was hoping to apply to this Scholarship. =(. This was one of the easier ones too because it didn’t require an interview.
Other than that, thanks for all the help on this site, although it’s too bad I can’t make use of this video =P
That was very helpful. Please keep up all this excellent work!