Award offers two semesters' tuition

A scholarship worth over $70,000 is available to qualified Penn students, and there's practically no application process.

The Roy and Diana Vagelos Science Challenge Award has been established to honor selected students in the sciences by paying their tuition and fees for up to two years at Penn. The first awards were given last year, but officials waited until recently to officially announce the program.

To qualify, students must be rising juniors or seniors in chemistry, physics, biochemistry or biophysics and have a GPA of at least 3.7. They must also plan on submatriculating into the Chemistry or Physics graduate programs.

The first four students to receive the Science Challenge Award were notified last spring, and three more were chosen this semester.

Students who qualify and choose to apply for the award may be surprised to find out that there is no formal application.

For example, all College senior and award recipient Jason Beiger had to do was send a letter stating his intent to submatriculate and his wish to be considered for the award.

Chemistry and Physics faculty members then got together to decide who would receive the award. They considered transcripts and discussed each individual student who had applied, Lu said.

It is one of many awards and programs that carry both the name and funding of Penn alumnus Roy Vagelos.

The award was officially announced at a ceremony Friday afternoon, showcasing the research of other students in programs named for Vagelos. The award's namesake was present to see the students' presentations.

This new award is the first of its kind at Penn, says Lu, who runs the Vagelos Program for Molecular Life Sciences, in which students can earn bachelor's and master's degrees in four years.

The "intention of Roy Vagelos and those of us involved in putting it together was to have Penn be competitive for students of the very best kind and to get more of them on campus," Lu said.

Lu serves on the selection committee for recipients of the Science Challenge Award.

He said the award provides an incentive for top science students accepted at other competitive schools to come to Penn.

The award was inspired by a similar one at Cornell University, which gives financial support to undergraduate students who want to conduct research in their fields of interest, Lu said.

According to College of Arts and Sciences Dean Dennis DeTurck, the new award "draws attention to the fact that it is possible to get serious advanced training in the sciences while still an undergraduate -- which is almost crucial to become a serious research scientist."

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