More than 25 university scholarship offers have flooded in over the past week for St Paul’s Collegiate School’s 2016 graduates as a result of students’ sheer hard work and the extensive support process currently in place at the school.
Peter Hampton, Deputy Headmaster of St Paul’s, explained that the school starts the application process early – well ahead of Year 13 – to ensure deadlines are met and that students meet the scholarship criteria.
“We start the process early, we are cognisant of deadlines and we have staff in our school who are responsible for supporting our students through the application process,” he said.
“We also have a high calibre of teachers who offer extra tutorials for our students and we offer a scholarship group and other special academic programmes that ensure our students reach their academic potential.”
This year, the school helped more than 70 students submit scholarship applications – more than 50 percent of the Year 13 cohort.
“We invest a lot of our time into helping our students apply for scholarships. We help them by writing testimonials, providing advice on what they need to do to meet criteria and make sure they are applying for scholarships that match their strengths,” Hampton said.
Although the school provides a solid support system for scholarship applications, Hampton says the biggest reason for the large number of scholarship offers is that students have worked hard to meet the scholarship criteria.
“We focus heavily right through from the junior school on encouraging our students to gather experience in the four cornerstones – academic, sport, culture and service and/or leadership – and they take this advice on board because there is a nice ethos here, it’s cool to be brainy at our school, it’s cool to be involved and try your best.”
“This kind of well-rounded experience is what makes our students stand out compared to students of other schools who are equally academically capable but perhaps who don’t have dimensions within their portfolio.”
In 2015, 20 of the school’s graduates received tertiary scholarships.
2016 scholarship recipients
- Serena Lim-Strutt – Otago University ($45,000), Victoria University ($25,000), University of Auckland ($20,000), University of Waikato ($20,000)
- Teri Wathen-Smith – University of Waikato Te Paewai o te Rangi ($25,000)
- Garrick Du Toit – University of Waikato Hillary Scholarship ($25,000)
- Katie Trigg – University of Waikato Hillary Scholarship ($25,000)
- Blair Foster – University of Auckland ($20,000), Victoria University ($5000)
- Fizzi Whale – University of Auckland ($20,000)
- Jade Henley-Smith – Auckland University of Technology ($20,000)
- McKinley Vollebregt – Otago University Maori and Pacific Scholarship ($10,000)
- Pianika Taylor – Otago University Maori and Pacific Scholarship ($10,000)
- Sam Porritt – Lincoln University Sports Scholarship
- Connor Collins – Lincoln University Sports Scholarship
- Alastair Blackett – Otago University ($6000)
- Nick Hansen – Canterbury University ($5000)
- Lauren Ring – University of Canterbury Emerging Leaders Scholarship ($6000), Otago University Leaders of Tomorrow ($6000)
- Ben McColgan – Massey University Future Leaders ($5000)
- Connor Gordon – Otago University Future Leaders ($6000)
- Tom Yarrall – Otago University Future Leaders ($6000) and University of Auckland Business and Economics ($3000)
- Jimmy Christey – Otago University Leaders of Tomorrow ($6000)
- Ben Negus – Victoria University ($5000)
