Viele Scholarship 2024-2025

Description

The Viele Scholarship program, administered by The Sigma Phi Society and the Francis S. Viele Scholarship Trust, is one of the largest fraternal scholarship programs in the world.  It represents and embodies Sigma Phi's deep and abiding commitment to the pursuit of Truth through scholarly endeavor. Approximately 40-50% of applicants are awarded scholarships from the Viele Scholarship Trust each year, so any conscientious applicant has a reasonable likelihood of receiving substantial funding.

Eligibility

Sigma Phi brothers who are enrolled full-time in any undergraduate or (are or will be enrolled in any) graduate program are encouraged to apply for a scholarship.  Specifically, the scholarship is limited to those brothers who, at the time awards are made, shall be: 

• Initiated members of Sigma Phi Society (including recently initiated brothers) who are in good standing in the Society, and are enrolled as full-time matriculated students at an institution of higher learning which is accredited by one of the six regional accrediting agencies in the U.S.A. (or has received comparable accreditation status abroad), and are in good standing at their instituation (i.e., not on academic or other probation), and are candidates for a bachelor's or higher degree.

Note that, in general, graduate students in full-time degree programs are eligible for Viele scholarship awards whereas those pursuing a professional certification or in a part-time program are not. Graduate students who attend a college where there is an undergraduate chapter of Sigma Phi are also eligible for the Viele Mentors Program, where additional money may be awarded in return for mentorship provided by the graduate student to the undergraduate chapter.

WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE ALL ELIGIBLE BROTHERS TO APPLY!

Selection Process

The criteria on which applications are judged fall broadly into the following three areas:

 

• Scholarship - Both the achievement of scholarly excellence and the demonstration of academic aptitude and career potential.
  
  
• Service - Attitude toward and demonstrated commitment and service to the community and Sigma Phi Society, including its ideals, chapters, members, facilities, and activities.
  
  
• Need - Individual and family financial need as demonstrated by the cost of the applicant's academic program and ability to pay as shown on a FAFSA Student Aid Report (SAR) or College Board Financial Aid Profile.
  
  From time to time, the Selection Committee receives  "merit-only" applications, i.e., an application containing no information on the applicant's ability to pay, explicitly indicated as such.  The Committee may, under extraordinary circumstances and at its sole discretion, consider such applications for an award. Merit-only awards are smaller than need-based awards and must demonstrate outstanding performance on all other aspects of the application.

While most successful applicants will demonstrate strength along all three dimensions, such balance is not required.  Relative weakness on one dimension (e.g., pledges and recently initiated brothers who have not had much time to demonstrate service to Sigma Phi), can be compensated for with exceptional performance on other aspects of the application.  Applicants are reviewed against the criteria on an individual basis.  While the standards are applied rigorously and consistently, they are not applied in a rigid or mechanistic fashion. 

Applications are reviewed and awards are made by a Selection Committee composed of members of the Sigma Phi Standing and Advisory Committee and other graduate members of the Society.  Membership on the committee changes over time as various brothers express interest in participating.  Typically there are five or six members on the committee, representing as many chapters of the Society.

Each and every application is reviewed in detail by each and every member of the Committee.  The Committee then meets (generally in June or July) to discuss each and every application and, through a vigorous process of give-and-take, reach a consensus on the distribution of awards.  Graduate members of the Society who are not members of the Selection Committee sometimes observe the review process.  Overall, the process is open, fair, reasonable, thorough, rigorous, and non-discriminatory. 

Although some degree of balance is desired in the distribution of awards among chapters, initiation years, majors, active versus graduate members, and other factors, such desire does not trump the Committee's careful, studied, collective judgment regarding the merit of each individual application. 

Because the Committee reviews and judges written applications for the Viele Scholarship, applicants should not assume Selection Commitee members have any familiarity with them, their activities, their merits, or any other information not reflected in the application itself.  Indeed, as a means of ensuring fair and equitable distribution of awards, the Committee generally eschews consideration of factors that may be personally known by any Selection Committee member but are not included in the written application. 

It is always helpful for alumni boards review the applications prior to submission:  to check the applications for completeness, to give the applicants advice on how to improve their essays, to provide letters of recommendation, and the like.  We highly encourage such collaboration between active and alumni brothers.  When this has been done at various chapters in the past, the success rate of applicants getting scholarships has increased dramatically.  

Given the extreme care with which each and every application is evaluated and the distribution of awards is determined, decisions made by the Selection Committee are final and not subject to reconsideration, appeal, or review. Decisions about awards are announced to applicants in late July or August.   

Requirements

The application consists of the following elements:

A competed on-line application form with all required fields populated

The following documents (which can be uploaded into the application)

• A three-page essay
• A letter of recommendation
• Copies of transcripts
• Documentation from your university or college stating the estimated cost of attending/being enrolled in your academic program
• Certification that you are on good standing with the college/university (or for first year graduate students a copy of your admission letter)

Applications are due (must be submitted electronically) by Wednesday, May 15, 2024.  Late or incomplete applications will not be considered.  

IMPORTANT NOTE: You do not need to complete your application in a single session.  You can save your work and come back to it to complete it.  In order to make sure your work is saved, please make sure to hit the "Next" button or "Save" (gray text) at the bottom of any page you have filled out.  Clicking on either one of these buttons/text will save your work up to that point in the application.

Questions?
For technical questions related to the application tool/process, please contact Marshall Solem, F'79 at msolem@zs.com.  For questions about the substance/content of the application (including eligibility), please contact Glenn George, C'82 at ggeorge001@yahoo.com.


BSL,
Glenn R. George, Ph.D., C'82
Chairman, Viele Scholarship Selection Committee

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