What is changing about the qualifications for getting and keeping the Roger Billings Scholarship?

The requirements to maintain the Roger Billings Scholarship are changing. Watching ScienceLive will no longer be a requirement. Instead, the scholarship is being refocused on its true purpose: supporting students who are willing to make a diligent, sustained effort to obtain a high-quality education.

Going forward, these are the criteria that will be evaluated:

• Original work. The student will do their own work and will not arrange for someone else to do it for them. This is the foundation everything else rests on.
• Regular, consistent study. We like to see a student sign in and work five days a week, spending time on the system, and meeting their daily study goals — which, for most students, takes three to four hours of study per weekday. We absolutely allow gaps for sickness and vacations. However, when a student stops signing in without explanation, we will send a written notice to the parents, and if the pattern does not improve, the student will lose the scholarship.
• Serious effort. The work itself must be a genuine effort to learn. Some students simply guess at answers repeatedly or enter careless, throwaway text into the Writing Tutor. We consider that behavior a waste of our scholarship funds, and it will put the scholarship at risk.
• A meaningful Acellus Student Journal. Beginning this fall, Acellus will collect all of a student’s writing, across all of their classes, into an annual Student Journal. Parents will be able to view this Journal at any time, and I encourage you to keep an eye on it — when students know their parents are reading, they take the work more seriously. At the high school level, we believe the Journal will become an important tool when students apply for college scholarships or for their first jobs. As this professional record accumulates year over year, we expect students to take real pride in what they have written.

I want to emphasize that none of these criteria are meant to be punitive. They describe exactly what a motivated student partnering with an engaged parent is already doing. The scholarship exists to reward and sustain that kind of effort.

One additional note: ScienceLive is not going away. Beginning next school year, ScienceLive will be offered as a regular course that students can take for a general science credit.

-r

As always, I welcome your comments below — in favor or in opposition. Your feedback has made Acellus better at every step, and I intend to keep it that way.

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