New $10K entrance scholarships target “top students”

King’s will be able to provide three $10,000 scholarships for first-years starting in September 2014.
King’s announced the Donald R. Sobey scholarships on Thursday, Dec. 5. Sobey’s family donated $2 million in hopes that the scholarships, now the largest at King’s, “will contribute to King’s’ ability to attract the best and brightest liberal arts students in Canada,” said Sobey’s son Rob.
The $10,000 value is a minimum amount. President George Cooper announced that the school is starting with three spots next September, and that number will increase. He later told the Watch that eight students could receive the scholarship in future years.
Cooper hopes the scholarship will help with recruitment.
“Even if they don’t win a Sobey scholarship, they might win some other scholarship or bursary or they might just come to King’s anyway, having been exposed through the Sobey scholarship,” Cooper said.
“The benefit of this gift is megaphoned many times over.”
The KTS Red Room was packed past the 141-person maximum capacity with students who will either graduate or be in upper-year programs next year. Though they gave the announcement a standing ovation, they are ineligible for what Cooper called “the largest gift from an individual in the 225-year history of the University of King’s College.”
“(Donald R. Sobey) felt that it’s important to get those top students initially exposed to a good university,” said Cooper.
“There will be other upper-year scholarships that really good students will be able to get, or bursaries, or both. But the trick is to get students into university in the first place, really good students who perhaps can’t afford it.”
The scholarships are available to students across Canada, however, preference will be given to Atlantic Canadian students with strong academics, leadership and community or school involvement.
Donald R. Sobey received an honourary doctorate from King’s in May.