How to apply for the Alfie Scholars Program

The Alfie Scholars program application is no joke, and neither are our scholars’ visions for making positive change in the world!

Learn from three scholars how they approached the application process, including the personal statement, social issues essays, and civility reflection.

If you’re a big dreamer who is looking for a cohort of students who will cheer you on as you complete your bachelor’s degree at Seattle University, look no further than the Alfie Scholars program. Learn more about the application process at alfiescholars.org/apply

Transcript

The application I did in a week because I wasn't accepted to Seattle U. until a week prior to the application being due. So I just thought if I'm not good enough for the school, I'm not going to be good enough for the scholarship. What's the point in even applying to it or even working towards it because the college is not going to accept me. What's the point, really? And when I got accepted a week before I was like, “Oh, woah!”

You know when I, when I applied [to] it, I didn't have everything all together. I remember like part of my recommendation wasn't finished, and I got a grace where I was told, “You know you can always do these things later.” So they were, the committee was. very kind and compassionate and in allowing me to do things in [an] incremental way.

I actually started the application really early on because that's like, kind of like my only chance to go to school in Seattle U., like in Seattle.

I was stressed because I was like, I'm on the spot. You know, I'll be asked these questions. How will I respond to them? I was nervous. But then I meet with people who are smiling, who are like, “Hello, how are you?” So much joy and celebration and, you know, empowering. I felt it was like a chat. I didn't feel the stress that I had prior to coming, at the time of the interviews for example. So, and that also helped, you know it helped ease how I'm going to respond and not having you know nervous or stress or something like that.

So when I looked at the application, I immediately was a little bit overwhelmed with the essays and the topics that I wanted to learn about because I really had to do a lot of self-reflection to really pinpoint what was important to me. I sat down, wrote drafts, pinpointed down what mattered to me, what I wanted to talk about, which points I wanted to hit, which points I wanted to keep working in terms of the rest of my life, of course, as social issues and civility and everything that mattered to me. And then kind of stripped that down into small paragraphs 'cause the essays are not 20 pages, which is fine. But I think, yeah, for me, the application was just that, was locking myself in a room and really thinking and doing the sermon which is one of the things that I loved about Seattle U., too, that they like prioritized the sermon which is like, ugh, I love doing that. I did that already for long, a long period of time but I absolutely love that.

I started very early. I reached out to foremost Alfie scholars and luckily they got back to me, and they were very helpful. She was just very encouraging. That was very helpful in terms of, like, building my confidence. I think that’s one of the biggest things I lacked when I was filling out the application. And she also, I think she was just very encouraging, and she shared her story with me, and I found our stories were very similar. So that gave me a lot of, like, encouragement.

But also something particularly I remember is, I reached out to the former Alfies, Chhavi and Richard who we went to, Richard and I went to the same college together. So I reached out to him, and he was willing to sit down with me and ease my worries a bit. So I think getting connected to people and asking them questions like that. you know, if you know a student or a teacher or an advisor, somebody who can boost your confidence and talk to you about a particular application or something you're interested in. I think I would encourage that, which is really nice. So that's also something that helped me.