A Creston High School senior will be saving nearly $100,000 over the next four years after receiving the highest possible scholarship at an Iowa university.
Alli Thomsen, the daughter of John and Linda Thomsen of Creston, has been awarded the Presidential Scholarship at Grand View University in Des Moines. The renewable scholarship will fully cover tuition for up to four years for Thomsen, who said the private liberal arts college has been a favorite throughout her college application process.
“I visited Grand View actually my junior year and loved it,” she said. “It’s always been my No. 1 choice.”
But Grand View doesn’t just give those full-tuition scholarships away. After her acceptance to the university, Thomsen received word she had qualified to attend Scholarship Day, an event held Nov. 15 at the university. As part of the day, scholarship applicants wrote an essay and participated in a one-on-one interview, with several scholarships available.
Eighty-three other high school seniors attended the day, and Thomsen said about 15 were competing for the same scholarship she was.
Thomsen said the essay portion, which asked her to write an essay in 50 minutes about how she defined the word “future,” was the most nervewracking part of the process.
“It was kind of a broad question, and I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to write about a first,” she said. “But once I started writing, I was good. And I wasn’t nervous for the interview because I like talking.”
Following Scholarship Day, Thomsen had to wait to receive word of the results. The call came in early December, while she was shopping in Wal-Mart. She said she teared up a little when she was told she’d won, then went home and immediately told her family.
“I thought I was excited until I told them,” Alli said. “Obviously, they’re like my biggest fans. They were happy.”
Thomsen’s mom, Linda, was particularly ecstatic.
“I screamed when she told me and did a little dance around the living room,” Linda said.
Alli’s father, John, said while he wasn’t shocked that she was the one chosen for the award, he was still surprised and very happy.
“We are just extremely proud of all of her hard work,” John said. “It’s kind of neat to get that kind of recognition for that. You know, for sports and all the other things you do you get a lot of recognition, but the academics side of things, those things usually aren’t recognized as much. I think that kind of made her feel like she was getting something a little extra special for all of her hard work.”
Alli, who is involved in multiple sports at Creston High School and is president of the school’s Future Business Leaders of America club, said her future plans include studying pre-medical with her eyes toward a career in dentistry. She said she hasn’t decided whether she will pursue any sports in college yet.