Collegiettes™ can now score thousands worth in scholarships in less than 140 characters.
Tweeting your way to a scholarship might have seemed crazy five years ago, but in recent years with the advent of social media and recognition by college admission boards, a college applicant’s social tech-savviness is becoming more and more important.
There are scholarships announced almost daily by ScholarshipPositions via their Twitter page @newscholarships.
In the trend of Tweet scholarships, joining The Short and Tweet Scholarship and The Twitter 140 Scholarship, the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business announced their new application option. They will award their full-tuition financial award package, valued at more than $37,000, to the student who best creatively answers in a single Tweet.
Applicants simply answer one question via Twitter: “What makes you an exceptional Tippie Full-Time MBA candidate and future MBA hire? Creativity Encouraged.”
“We wanted to do something a little bit different in our applications so we could get to know our students at a deeper level,” Jodi Schafer, the Tippie School of Management’s director of recruiting and admissions told Business Week. “Since social networking is so prominent in business today, we thought this would be a creative way students could showcase their abilities and unique qualifications.”
The business school is taking a more modern alternative to the traditional essay, which requires up to an 800- to 900- word response.
“This would give us a lot more depth and show us more about a candidate than an essay would show,” Schafer said to the Iowa-Press Citizen.
Students need to be admitted to the fall program to be eligible for the financial award package, Schafer said. The admissions board is welcoming applications that showcase all sorts of online networking. Students can use their Tweet applications for uploading a link to their blogs, Facebook profiles, or online resumes. For students who opt into their Twitter contest, the school will waive application fees. However, students can still opt to write a traditional application essay in response to the question.
Schafer said that if the program is successful, the school anticipates making it a mandatory part of the application process.
The school will be accepting entries until July 28 and the winner will be announced on August 1.
Send your Tweets to @TippieMBAIowa on Twitter. For more information on the application Tweet, visit their website.
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