Flinn Scholars

Big changes are coming to the SAT in spring 2016.

The longstanding penalty for guessing wrong will disappear, just like obscure vocabulary words. The essay will be optional. And the scoring will return to a 1,600-point scale. In addition to the test changes, a new program will give low-income students fee waivers to allow them to apply to four colleges at no charge.

The new exam will be introduced in spring 2016.

Here are the changes, as presented by the New York Times:

• Instead of arcane “SAT words” (“depreciatory,” “membranous”), the vocabulary definitions on the new exam will be those of words commonly used in college courses, such as “synthesis” and “empirical.”
• The essay, required since 2005, will become optional. Those who choose to write an essay will be asked to read a passage and analyze the ways its author used evidence, reasoning and stylistic elements to build an argument.
• The guessing penalty, in which points are deducted for incorrect answers, will be eliminated.
• The overall scoring will return to the old 1,600-point scale, based on a top score of 800 in reading and math. The essay will have a separate score.
• Math questions will focus on three areas: linear equations; complex equations or functions; and ratios, percentages and proportional reasoning. Calculators will be permitted on only part of the math section.
• Every exam will include, in the reading and writing section, source documents from a broad range of disciplines, including science and social studies, and on some questions, students will be asked to select the quotation from the text that supports the answer they have chosen.
• Every exam will include a reading passage either from one of the nation’s “founding documents,” such as the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights, or from one of the important discussions of such texts, such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “Letter From Birmingham Jail.”

Read More: A new SAT aims to realign with schoolwork

Flinn ScholarsFlinn

The Flinn Foundation’s “Action and Impact” report presents the organization’s current grantmaking priorities and activities that are making an impact across Arizona through the biosciences, civic leadership, arts and culture, and the Flinn Scholars program.

Flinn Scholars

Three Flinn Scholars have been named University of Arizona Pillars of Excellence, the highest honor for a student bestowed upon by the university.

Congratulations to Scholars Leah Edwards (’10), Daniel Fried (’10), and Paul Thomson (’11), three of the 12 students and alumni honored for their academic achievements during a ceremony on February 13. Eight faculty members were also honored.

Edwards is a Flinn and Udall Scholar who will be graduating with a double major in political science and environmental and water resources.

Fried is a Flinn, Goldwater and Churchill Scholar majoring in computer science, mathematics and information science.

Thomson is a Flinn Scholar studying acting and Africana studies.

Read More: UA Honors 'Pillars' of Research, Teaching, Engagement

Flinn Scholars

The application window for the 2014 Flinn Scholarship has closed.

All applicants for the scholarship will receive a status notification via email in mid-December. Interviews for approximately 75 semifinalists will take place Friday, January 10 and Saturday, January 11. Interviews for approximately 40 finalists will take place Friday, February 28, and Saturday, March 1.

Flinn Scholars

A few weeks ago, one of the applicants for the 2014 Flinn Scholarship wrote me and asked a simple question: "Is it okay to be creative when I answer the essay prompts?"

Below is my response. There's no reason it shouldn't be available to anyone who's working on the Flinn Scholarship application:

You're absolutely on the right track with the essays, in this sense: There are straightforward, fairly easy ways to answer any of the three questions, and sometimes we've been rather prescriptive in terms of what we're expecting an essay to address.

We will probably receive 400 sets of essays that take those straightforward approaches, even with the "commencement address" prompt. The better among these essays will demonstrate that the writer has thought about the prompts and answered the questions they explicitly contain; these will be unremarkable essays that don't hurt the rest of the writer's application. The less-distinguished among these essays will be confusing, rushed, ungrammatical, and/or inauthentic. These essays will make it almost impossible to advance the writer's application into the second round of our review process.

So, you should most definitely find *some* way to make your essays creatively distinctive. Certainly, there is opportunity to do that with the "commencement address" prompt; much will change in the world in 40 years; you will change, too. We will get *lots* of essays written from the perspectives of politicians and doctors and entrepreneurs. Probably quite a bit fewer written from the perspectives of parents, community activists, classroom teachers, artists, ex-cons, professional magicians, or victims of terrorism, shark attacks, or Martian abductions. There's so much you can do.

There is room for the other two prompts to yield creative responses as well. For the "compromise" prompt, I hope that we'll receive essays that talk about group dynamics in school settings, in extracurricular activities like marching band and athletics, in religious organizations, in local politics, in junior-high student council, and on and on. I hope that some of the essays will reveal the writers' senses of humor, or emotional depth, or courage, or sense of personal moral strength. I hope some will be written in the third person. I hope they'll all take the question seriously.

For the challenge question, I know we'll get lots of responses about education, immigration, divisiveness in politics, health care, and economic development--as we should. Those are essential issues confronting our state. I really hope we'll also get responses about less well-known issues about which the writer really knows something important, issues in which the writer has a meaningful stake but about which the writer can still think and argue dispassionately. 

Hope that helps.

Flinn Scholars

Applicants for the Flinn Scholarship must submit scores from either the ACT or the SAT (or both). Our target minimum scores are 29 on the ACT or 1300 on the SAT (reading and math sections only, not writing).

Can you submit an application if your scores don't quite meet these minimums, but the rest of your application is exceptionally strong? Yes.

We review every application we receive, and occasionally an applicant becomes a Flinn Scholar with a score below our threshold. But this is rare; each year hundreds of applicants have scores well above our minimums.

What if you haven't yet taken the ACT or SAT, or have taken one of these exams but feel like you could do better? There is still time!

The final ACT that counts for our process will be administered on September 21. Students who take this exam can use Code 2175 to send their scores directly to the Flinn Scholars Program.

The final SAT that counts for our process will be administered on October 5. The deadline to register for this exam is right around the corner: Monday, September 23.

Students who take the October 5 SAT can use Code 2175 to send their scores directly to the Flinn Scholars Program. Although scores from this exam will be posted after our application deadline, we can add these scores to an applicant's file.

Flinn Scholars

Marla Smith-Nilson, a Flinn Scholar from the Class of 1987, is a SELF Magazine Women Doing Good Honoree for her work with Water 1st, a nonprofit she founded to bring clean water to impoverished communities around the world.

Flinn Scholars

This year has seen several Flinn Scholars--current and alumni--awarded nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships allowing them to pursue further study and research at their universities or abroad.

Flinn Scholars

Trick question.

Sure, there are far more Flinn Scholar alums with PhDs, MDs, JDs, and MBAs than in the general population. But how they get there, or to whatever other destination, is a unique story, every time.

Late last night, I heard from alum Ke Wu ('06), one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, and big-hearted people you'll ever meet. She let me know the next step in her "typical path." I'll let the post from the Public Interest Law Center at NYU speak for itself:

Ke Wu
Filomen M. D’Agostino Scholar for Women or Children

Ke was born in Wuhan, China and raised in Tucson, Arizona. A graduate of University High School, she has been deeply influenced by the liberating potential of a progressive public education. While studying biochemistry as a Flinn Scholar at Arizona State University, Ke travelled around the world investigating education initiatives on a Circumnavigators Club Foundation Grant. This research inspired her to deepen her understanding of issues in domestic education, leading her to join Teach For America after graduating in 2010.

As a chemistry teacher at John C. Fremont High School in South Los Angeles, she witnessed how school reconstitution, followed by large budget cuts, left students disillusioned with schooling. In response, she engaged students in discussions about the role of social inequity in education. These discussions shaped her role as the Academic Decathlon coach, through which she witnessed the transformation of her decathletes into social justice advocates. These experiences, along with the prolific encouragement of her students, led her to pursue an MPhil in Education on a Gates Cambridge Scholarship and now, a law degree. With a legal background, she hopes to improve the capabilities of all children, starting with the right to equal access to education opportunities.

Flinn Scholars

Every summer since 2000, Flinn Scholars have marked the end of their first year of college with a group study-abroad seminar. This year featured the most significant change since the three-week seminar’s introduction: After a 12-year run with Budapest, Hungary as home base, the seminar has moved to China. Here are reflections from three members of the first class of Scholars to travel to China together.