For the first time in Yeshiva University's history, a full academic scholarship will be offered to incoming students for the fall 2002 semester. The Distinguished Scholarship Selection Committee, still unsure as to how many prospective students will be offered this new award, is currently sifting through the candidates in a process that may last until early April.

Under the original Distinguished Scholars Program, the only scholarships available to students were in denominations of ten, five, and three thousand dollars. Responding to skyrocketing tuition and Yeshiva's need to attract the best students, and as a result of restructuring their current budget as well as conducting additional fundraising, the administration is attempting to provide awards for every student who has achieved academic excellence. The new scholarship will be awarded based solely on academic merit and will be available only to incoming freshman and Israel returnees.

According to Dr. Joanne Jacobson, chair of the DSP Selection Committee, the augmented scholarship program is meant to accompany and counterbalance the latest tuition increases. "Our guiding principle, in keeping with the fundamental goal of the Distinguished Scholars Program, is simple," Jacobson revealed. "We seek to use these scholarships to attract the very best students to Yeshiva University. As tuition costs rise, the scholarship stipends need to rise as well if we wish to retain their effectiveness as recruitment tools -- to compete with other top schools in attracting excellent students."

The idea behind academic scholarships has always been to attract the brightest minds possible and to entice them to attend Yeshiva. "In the mid eighties, academic scholarships were introduced to the students at Yeshiva and as a result had remarkable effects," past DSP Selection Committee chair Rabbi Dr. Michael Hecht remarked.

He elucidated that after the scholarship's introduction, more women chose to attend Stern College instead of Barnard and Columbia, while men "began to turn down Princeton and other Ivy League institutions in order to attend Yeshiva. Both the men and the women felt the need to come to Yeshiva because they understood how important Limud Hatorah is, and now they had the means to make it a possibility."

Currently, the annual tuition for Yeshiva University, including tuition, room and board, plus all additional fees is $24,980. The full scholarship will include the cost of tuition for up to four years on campus, although it will not include any other additional fees and costs. Even if tuition rises during the student's four-year tenure, the scholarship will rise together with it in order to accommodate the student's needs.

Director of Admissions Michael Kranzler explained that the new full scholarship "will work the same way here [at Yeshiva] as it does at any other selective university." Hoping to be able to provide as much money as is needed, Kranzler, along with the DSP Committee, "will decide on who will receive a scholarship and then properly allocate the funds necessary." Nothing was done, however, until after February 15th, the scholarship application deadline. "We are committed to do what we can for all students, so students that are admitted can afford to attend. This feeling is even stronger for students who are contenders for our academic scholarships," Kranzler said. The DSP committee will select its scholars by April 1st.