More than 500 students across the state are contenders for the Haslam Scholarship at UT Knoxville on an annual basis, but only 15 are chosen for the prestigious honor.
And Bearden has one of those 15.
Senior Lexi Roth was one of the 15 selected from the Class of 2025. The scholarship includes full tuition, room and board, and study abroad after the student successfully completes their freshman year.
The application process includes multiple steps from video submissions to on campus interviews.
“To apply, there was an essay and a video submission, then they did an online interview through Zoom if you made it past the video submission,” Roth said. “After the Zoom, they invited you for a weekend to come to UTK campus to do more interviews and then they chose.”
Other than the student’s GPA, leadership and teamwork skills are main priorities for this scholarship.
“When I went to UT for the in-person interviews, some of them were group exercises so having to work in groups of people was hard sometimes,” Roth said. “They’re really focused on leadership.”
It is also important for students to show who they are as people in their applications, not only academic achievements. Roth spoke on her Hungarian culture with her mom and her travels in the world, which she believes helped her in the application process.
“Not only trying to sell yourself based on your grades and your GPA, but selling yourself as a whole well-rounded student is the most important part,” Roth said. “Be as much of yourself in essays as you can be, and don’t only talk about academic achievements because I talked about my culture with my mom and I talked about how I can speak another language and where I’ve been in the world.”
Roth gives advice to students on what she thinks is most important when applying for a prestigious scholarship like this one.
“I think definitely AP courses,” she said. “I think that’s one of the biggest things and also volunteering because they’re very focused on giving back.”