How to Apply for the Schulich Leader Scholarship

Hi friends, welcome to the second post of a series of 3 on The Big Three. It’s Louis-Philippe (Schulich Leader at McGill University), Cole Roberts (Schulich Leader at the University of Calgary), and Shubh Patel (Schulich Leader at University of Calgary). This is an updated post of LP’s series of 3 on The Big Three covering the Schulich Leader scholarship.

If you are currently a Schulich Leader nominee, feel free to sign up for our services and gain valuable guidance to services such as essay editing and mentorship to improve your Schulich Leader scholarship application. Please stay tuned for a webinar we will be hosting in partnership with The Schulich Foundation at the end of January 2021. The webinar will feature Schulich Leaders from across Canada who will deliver their insights and experiences from the application process and will be available to give ‘tips and tricks’, as well as answer any questions you may have.

Take a seat and grab some coffee (or tea, no judgement here), we are starting!

Wait, you said “Schulich”?

The scholarship fund was created in 2012 and is worth 200 million dollars, all thanks to the guy who created the scholarship fund, Mr. Seymour Schulich. He is a businessman who made his fortune in the oil business, investments, and mining. He decided to invest his money in the development of Canadian and Israeli STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) leaders. Indeed, the Schulich Leader Scholarship (SLS) is also given in some Israeli universities.

Who is the SLS For?

As I mentioned earlier, the scholarship is for students entering a STEM-related field in university. You must be graduating from either a high school or CÉGEP. The student must also NOT plan to pursue studies in medicine afterwards… The scholarship is for people with a strong sense of entrepreneurship outside of the medical field (e.g., Doctor, Nurse, Dentist, Psychologist, Pharmacist, Optometrist, etc.). Moreover, new guidelines for the selection process state that the recipients must not plan for a career as professors in academia. In addition to this, an ideal Schulich Leader candidate should not focus on activism (environmental, political and societal). The selection committees search for students with an excellent academic record and strong leadership achievements. Moreover, Schulich Leaders often have experience in research or have done science projects even before entering university. To evaluate who would make a good leader, the Schulich Foundation asks applicants to base their application on the demonstration of two pillars: academic excellence and leadership.

The first pillar is somewhat subjective because academic excellence can take a different twist depending on your situation. If you do nothing but study, a 90% average might not be so impressive. However, if you are engaged and/or have a lot of responsibilities towards your family or an organization, a 90% average might be a very good standing. To give you an idea, lots of Schulich Leaders I have spoken to graduated high school with averages above 92%, and a good chunk of them even above 95%. For the nomination of a candidate, it is up to the school to define what “academic excellence” means. Nonetheless, the higher your grade average, the better it looks on your application, especially if you are very involved in projects.

The second pillar is about leadership, whether it be entrepreneurial or within the community. I would say that here is where an applicant has the most room to play with. For your application, you must demonstrate that you have the capacity to lead a project and a team to the desired outcome. For example, a lot of Leaders I know have started businesses. A few of them were also part of the Cadets program, where they took on leadership positions in their unit or squadron. Here again, the definition of leadership is very broad, but it is not so much the number of things you have done that matters, but how you did those things and how they impacted your learning. Schulich Leaders often take part in global minded initiatives.

Finally, the financial situation of the applicant will be strongly considered. It can be specified in a box called “extenuating circumstance” during your application. Applicants can mention any circumstance that they feel is relevant to their application, but economic circumstances will be specifically considered in addition to the two pillars.

What is the Selection Process?

Be happy, reader, because it is much less convoluted than the LORAN Scholarship. To be eligible, you must be nominated by your school. High schools can nominate one graduating student, and CÉGEPs can nominate two. I suggest speaking to your guidance counselor to get nominated. The deadline is usually near the end of January.

If you are nominated, you will receive an email to fill in the online forms of the SLS application. As opposed to the LORAN Scholarship, the SLS questions are disclosed to everyone. You must provide:

• Three 50 word texts on your greatest achievements;
• A 600-word essay explaining why you should win;
• An OPTIONAL 250-word essay outlining extenuating circumstances;
• 50 words on where you see yourself in ten years;
• Two SINGLE PAGE reference letters;
• A copy of your last academic report;
• A headshot picture of you.

As mentioned, the 250-word essay is optional and you don’t need to write one if you have nothing to write about. This is where you might justify a lower GPA.

Once the application is sent, there is nothing much else you can do. As opposed to the LORAN Scholarship, where you decide which university you go to if you win, for the SLS it is the university that selects you. You can apply to any university you want from the bank of partner universities, but you don’t get to keep the scholarship if you decide to go to another university than the one that offered you the scholarship. Each university has a somewhat different selection criteria, but they are roughly similar. Some consider that applying to many universities increases your chances of being selected. It’s up to you in the end, but consider that applying for university costs money that could be used somewhere else. Pick wisely.

If you do win the scholarship, you will be contacted directly by the university. The SLS Facebook and Twitter pages publish the information on which universities released their offers as soon as the offers are sent.

To compare the selection process to the one of the LORAN scholarship, the SLS process is a bit more impersonal. You don’t get to interact much with other nominees unless you already know them. The feedback you get on your application is also a lot less direct, since the universities rarely contact those who did not get it to announce the news. It’s all a question of balance; the SLS has many other great aspects, which you can find below.

Cheers to Your Success

The Money

A very positive aspect of the SLS is that it’s a what-you-see-is-what-you-get scholarship. The website clearly advertises that engineering recipients get $100,000 and science recipients get $80,000. Moreover, it is a direct deposit in your account once every year. Yeah, stonks.

Networking and Activities

On the negative side, the website of the SLS is not very clear as to what comes with this sum of money. Do you get a mentor? Do you get to meet other leaders? I learned most of what was “included” in being a Schulich Leader after receiving the scholarship and speaking with other recipients. Just like the LORAN, you get access to a very nice network of people, old Leaders and new alike. The website has a section for Leaders to log in, with which they can access a directory of all Leaders since the creation of the scholarship. There is also a yearly convention that regroups all Leaders to network and attend talks.

Other Goodies

As opposed to the LORAN scholarship, the SLS does not include a mentor in the “package.” However, some universities offer to pair you with a mentor for your first year at university. There is also a Schulich Leader “Team Lead” at each university, who is responsible for organizing activities promoting team spirit.

Of course, the title of “Schulich Leader” is also something of importance that can open a few doors for you. Due to your network, you can also increase your chances of getting nice internships during the summer.

Maintaining the Scholarship

Surprisingly for an academic excellence scholarship, the requirements to maintain the scholarship are very low. As per the scholarship requirements, you only need to pass your classes (some universities ask that you maintain a certain GPA). You can also be removed from the scholarship program if you commit a felony (I trust you not to do that), leave your STEM studies for non-STEM fields, or quit studying full time.

As for the payment, you get the full amount even if you only do a 3 year degree. For instance, a science student doing his degree in 3 years would still receive $80,000. They will receive $20,000 each year for 3 years, with a nice graduation present of the remaining $20,000.

Closing Thoughts

In essence, the Schulich Leader Scholarship is pretty simple: it is designed to maximize the recipients’ chances of success by paying for their studies and housing. It also does not set restrictions on the maximum amount of money that you can receive from other sources. As a scholarship, it is much less demanding to maintain than the LORAN Scholarship, but you also get less support and mentorship. It is more geared towards easing your studies than transforming you as a person. On the flip side, the community of Leaders is incredible! You will certainly feel compelled to work on projects with them and each and every one of them will teach you something valuable.