Changes made to the way Presidential Scholarships are awarded will give the university more flexibility in distributing the scholarships, the academic pinnacle for incoming freshmen.

A record 453 potential students applied for the award this year, an increase from the 323 last year. This sharp increase in application numbers serves as an indicator to the university that it is doing the right things to attract more academic scholars.

Students have competed for either a half scholarship or full scholarship in past years, based on their ACT or SAT scores, however, students now will all compete for up to a full scholarship. The university has not established what the lowest scholarship award will be.

With the old system, the university could do one of three things for applicants: It could give them no scholarship, a half scholarship or a full scholarship. We believe the former methods of distributing the awards limited the university too much because students who were qualified for lesser amounts were left out.

Even if handing out more partial scholarships reduces the number of full scholarships awarded, we believe this will attract more gifted students to the university. Helping more students pay for college is beneficial to families and to the quality of incoming classes.

With enrollment numbers on the rise at ACU, a diverse scholarship program is necessary to meet the needs of growing freshmen classes. The university will now be able to hand out scholarships they deem appropriate based on a student’s credentials.

Additionally, the university will be holding these gifted scholars to a higher standard; recipients of the award will now be required to spend more time in the Honors College. This new standard for Presidential Scholars makes perfect sense for those who the university strives to hold to the “highest standards of academic success.”

Students who recieve the scholarship will now be required to spend the minimum amount of time necessary to participate in the Honors College and join an extracurricular activity. Last year students were only required to take Honors courses. They did not have to participate in the college itself or any extracurricular activities.

These moves will attract more gifted students and are good places to start enhancing the university’s credibility.