You are on the scholarship committee at a university. Your university has one $5,000 p/a Equity and Access scholarship to award to a commencing medical student. This scholarship is intended to provide financial assistance to students who have experienced significant socio-economic or other disadvantage affecting their education. The scholarship is intended to be awarded on the basis of need, to a student who might otherwise have trouble accessing university, and will benefit from financial support. However, the Dean has made it clear that he does not want the scholarship to go to a student who is likely to drop out. Of the students who applied, you have a shortlist of 4 remaining candidates. Who do you recommend for the scholarship? Argue the case for them.
Manjarieis a 25 year old woman who came to Australia as a political refugee. She has 2 children, aged 4 and 6, and is a single parent. She had started a medical degree in her country of origin, but discontinued when fled the country. She recently completed year 12 at tafe as a full time student. She says that she would like to work with women and children, and especially with refugees, with whom she does a lot of volunteer work. She has a CSP place in your med school.
Jaydyn is a 19 year old man from an Aboriginal background. He left home, and dropped out of high school, when he was 13, working intermittently as a labourer, before returning to school at the age of 17. His ATAR was just below the cut-off, but was adjusted to account for attending a disadvantaged high school. He did very well at the interview, and was offered a CSP place at your school. Jaydyn says that returning to school and being able to catch up enough to do well-enough in the exams made him realise that he was truly talented at science, and his dream is to do medical research.
Chris is an 18 year old woman. She comes from an extremely rural background, and had a disrupted education, largely completed by School of the Air, she has little experience of classroom learning. Chris's father is the only doctor in her region, and she has often "helped out" with his work. Her dream is to join the Royal Flying Doctors. She was offered an BMP place at your university, and she has applied for a bonded rural scholarship as well. If she accepts the rural bonded scholarship, she cannot accept your scholarship, it will be returned, and go to the next candidate on the list.
Tony is an 18 year old man who attended a selective high school, and achieved a perfect ATAR. His parents live abroad, and provide sporadic financial and emotional support, but he has been living independently for most of the last 3 years. He is the only applicant who is not wholly dependant on a Centrelink allowance. He has a CSP place in your course. He has an older sister who has a moderate intellectual disability; she lives in supported accomadation, but her brother visits 2 or 3 times a week and has not insignificant carer responsibilities. Tony says he wants to specialise in paediatrics, and work with disabled children.
I think the three major criteria should be in this order:
1) Basis of need (The scholarship is intended for applicants who experienced financial disadvantage / any other socio-economic disadvantage which affected their education)
2) "Prospect-of-Success" (How will the person benefit from it, how will the scholarship change the person's life)
3) The Likelihood of the student dropping out of university.
Now, just judging from the Basis of Need, it is clear, that the top three applicants would be:
Manjarie,
Jaydyn and
Chris, as all three of them are wholly dependent on Centrelink allowance, and thus are in financial need. Unfortunately
Tony does not qualify for financial disadvantage, which is why I think his application should be considered last. (Also, criteria 2 does not support him, as he would benefit from this scholarship the least, because his parents are already providing much-needed financial and emotional support).
As for any other socio-economic disadvantage, 3 of them have definitely experienced it.
Manajarie had a huge disruption to her schooling due to reasons beyond her control, and
Chris has experienced great isolation during her schooling which would surely have affected her education. As for
Jaydyn, he went to a disadvantaged high school. It would also be useful to explore further the reasons which made him drop out of school at such an early age. Perhaps he was bullied, or maybe his family needed financial assistance and forced him to work instead of finishing school - these would be the kind of reasons which would support the fact that he experienced a socio-economic disadvantage.
I want to make a point, that I am not comparing the strength of the student's disadvantages. This is because no other person besides them can ever understand the extent to which they were disadvantaged by a particular factor. Hence, I cannot judge whether
Chris's rural isolation is more "serious" than
Jaydyn's disadvantaged high school.
All 3 of them are also wholly dependent on Centrelink, but then again, I cannot compare their Cntr allowance, because it would be different due to some factors, which I don't want to affect my judgement (ie. number of dependents, Aboriginal or not, age, rent assistance, refuge). And my reason for not using these factors, is because they are simply unfair to other applicants, and are very subjective. I want to promote equal and fair opportunity, no matter what the ethnicity, age, no. of kids, value to society, dreams for the future are. (which is why I find the majority of info about who they want to be in the future irrelevant) Imagine if the scholarship recipients were chosen by these criteria, it would be impossible to adequately and fairly justify my decision! I cannot penalize applicants for not having children (they might be too young!), or not receiving rent assistance (they might be living with parents!). Thus, even though the Cntr allowance will be different, I consider all 3 applicants equal at this stage.
As for Criteria 2, all 3 applicants would benefit greatly from the scholarship, so "Prospect-of-Success" is present in all three of them. Again, I cannot judge who would benefit more or less. I can simply tick the box, that all 3 of them would benefit from this scholarship.
And as for the last criteria, I would have to speak to the Dean of the school personally. I can understand how important the funds are to university, and that they might be very scarce, but noone should have the right to judge the "likelihood" of someone dropping out. This is absolutely unpredictable! Even the students who are notorious for swapping from one degree to another, have the ability to finish a particular degree, and MANY of them do! Thus, I would try to sensibly outline my reasons for not considering Criteria 3 to the Dean, and hope that he would understand. I could also mention, that the university should be known for giving fair opportunity to every applicant, and this is the moral value which needs to be supported.
As for the solution, if the scholarship was not open yet, I would ask the Dean to add a REASONABLE 3rd criteria. Perhaps we could rename the scholarship to "Disadvantaged with families to support", or "Disadvantaged Aboriginal". Only then, I could use other factors such as presence of dependents, ethnicity, etc. to choose the scholarship recipient.
BUT SINCE, the scholarship has already been opened, and the potential recipients have been chosen, there is only one way to decide.... Random selection time!!! :nanner: Put the 3 names in the hat (Chris, Jaydyn, Manjarie) and voila! Problem solved.
*** in the future, before a scholarship is opened, it would be very useful to revise how reasonable to criteria are to save all this trouble