Jordan Rule, a senior at Libertyville High School, received a full ride to Utah State when she received the Ambassador Scholarship; a rewarding result for giving 110%.
“It started off in December, when my sister in-law was like ‘Hey, you should go for the scholarship. It’s really intense but you should go for it.’ And I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into,” Rule explained.
Being an ambassador means that Rule will tour the country and promote the college; in addition, she will also be part of every school event (dances, sports events, etc.). To get the scholarship, Rule first had to put together a portfolio. It had a one page application, an essay on why she wants to be an ambassador, two pages, front and back, of a collage of pictures that represent who she is (including accomplishments and awards), 2 letters of recommendation and her resumé. To put her best foot forward, Rule went to Utah State to hand it in herself; the welcome was not what she expected. She was told not to be devastated if she didn’t get the position because of the highly competitive nature of the contest to get the ambassador scholarship; only about 20 applicants out of around 600 get the scholarship; this year, there were 630 portfolios submitted.
Rule was 1 out of only 120 students who were called back for a video interview. The interview, like every other step in the process to get the scholarship, was nothing short of stressful. Questions were fired at Rule, who had a limited amount of time to answer each question; some responses had 75 seconds, others had 40.
“That was seriously so stressful. I prepared for that like crazy,” Rule said. “For five hours, my dad was just throwing questions at me.”
After the video interview, Rule was invited out to campus, where she had to deliver a four minute presentation on something she’s passionate about; to make matters worse, the college called her only a week before the trip. In addition to the planned presentation, she had to give an impromptu presentation; Rule was told the prompt and had 10 (they actually cut her off at 7) minutes to prepare. Both of these presentations were given in front of the college committee.
“The whole day, they showed us around campus and we did our presentation,” Rule explained. “By the end of the day I was so exhausted because I had to be on my A-game the whole day. I’ve never had to stay focused for that long.”
She was told the college would call her in about 2 weeks if she received the scholarship. A week and a half passed. Rule was convinced she was not going to get the scholarship. Her parents, however, were not.
“I went to go work out with my dad and I came back home and there was a package my mom had hung up on the back door with a spotlight on it. I was like ‘what the heck is this?’ and then I was like ‘oh my gosh. Is this the package telling me I got it?’ I took it off the door and I walked in and there were balloons all over the kitchen and this huge poster,” Rule narrated, laughing. “[My mom] had known for three days that I had gotten it. They called her and they were like ‘Yeah, we want you to surprise her, so you can get it on camera and send it to us.’ I just started bawling. It was the best feeling ever.”
In addition to being an ambassador of the school, Rule got a full ride to Utah State, full tuition and completely paid for student expenses.
“I was super excited for her because I could tell how excited she was. She’s put in a lot of work to get it. It’s great to see her accomplishing her goal.” said senior Maddie Anderson, one of Rule’s friends.
There were 630 portfolios, 120 video interviews, 75 campus presentations and around 20 students chosen.
“I put so much work into this. It’s very rare that you can say that you’ve put 100% of your effort into something, but when you do, its the best feeling ever.” Jordan said. “If you don’t get it, its okay, because you’ve done all you can.”
