Advising Support Pays Off for Students

Jennie LaMonte advises students on scholarships and fellowships. Photo by David Hunt.

NC State University offers exceptional support for students like Brian Clark who are seeking scholarships and fellowships to enhance their academic experience. Jennie LaMonte, director of the Fellowship Advising Office at the university, helps more than 600 students a year navigate the often confusing process of researching opportunities, filling out applications and preparing for interviews.

"If they can dream it and it can be turned into a plan, the chances are really good that they can achieve it," says LaMonte.

She's right. NC State students are earning some of the most prestigious awards available. Four students earned Goldwater Scholarships last year – the maximum number allowed for a single institution. And NC State also boasted a Fulbright Scholar, eight Gates-Millennium Scholars, nine National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows, and three National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellows, to name a few. Students were also named as finalists for the Rhodes Scholarship, Truman Scholarship and Gates-Cambridge Scholarship.

NC State maintains a database – called the Fellowship Advising Net Gizmo (FANG) – that gives students access to detailed information about a wide range of opportunities, from the American Association of University Women Fellowship to the Chinese Zhonghua Scholarship.

The university's emphasis on advising helps students compete against their counterparts at Ivy League institutions.

"We're attempting to put a virtual infrastructure in place so that our students have some of the advantages and resources that are available at universities like Harvard and Stanford. It's a way of leveling the playing field," LaMonte says. "It shouldn't be a mystery, what it takes to compete and win in these competitions."

Links:

• Fellowship Advising Office

• Goldwater Scholars