How To Apply

The Honor Scholar Program at DePauw University is interested in the life of the mind, specifically, the life of your mind. What intellectual pursuits do you engage in beyond the classroom? What issues keep you thinking long after class is over? What do you find yourself doing in the little spare time you have as a high school senior?

Step 1 -  Application

*  Apply for admission to DePauw University.  If you have yet to apply, you may submit the general application to the Office of Admission.

*  Please respond to ONE of the following prompts in a 500 word essay sent as a MS Word attachment to honorscholar@depauw.edu or awelch@depauw.edu by February 1, 2008 (Please include your name, address, and telephone number at the top of your essay, double space text, and save the attachment as your last name first - i.e.:  Smith, Jane).

Prompt Option #1:

In 1837 Emerson delivered his address, "The American Scholar," to a gathering of the members of Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard University. “Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst.  What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire.  I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.  The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.  This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn.  The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates.  In this action, it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man.  In its essence, it is progressive.  The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind… They pin me down.  They look backward and not forward.  But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates… Books are for the scholar’s idle times.  When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings.  But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must, -- when the sun is hid, and the stars withdraw their shining, -- we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is.  We hear, that we may speak.”

Imagine Emerson’s address was read or overheard by an illiterate runaway slave, a Native American girl educated by whites in a missionary school, an immigrant Irish laborer living in the Bowery, or a well-educated white woman.  Assume one of these four perspectives and write a response to Emerson’s ideas on books, education, and “genius.”  You may write in persona, or you may write a critical essay speculating about the way your subject would have received Emerson’s message.  In either case, you should engage the text directly, responding to specific ideas.

Prompt Option #2:

Dr. Paul Farmer is a noted anthropologist and physician who works on the global impact of the AIDS epidemic on individual lives.  He has worked extensively in Cuba, Haiti and the United States and his work highlights some of the inequities inherent in the spread of the epidemic among certain populations.  He has been an advocate for the rights of HIV positive persons and investigates policies that discriminate between those in various socio-economic conditions.  His book, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor is one that illustrates in particular how age-old methods of quarantine are being used to effectively remove diseased persons from contemporary society and care policies.

HIV/AIDS is indiscriminate, it can affect and infect people of all walks of life.  However some people have greater “chances” of contracting the virus during their life course.  Why is this?  What kinds of measures could you put in place that might alter these chances of infection?  Specifically, address the idea of quarantine; is that an effective measure for the prevention of the disease?  Why? Why not? Is quarantine the equivalent of letting certain populations live and others die?  What ethical issues might arise in answer to such questions?

Step 2 - Interview

*  If your essay receives a positive review from our faculty committee, you will be invited to campus for a formal interview.

*  The result of this interview process then serves as the basis for extending invitations to students to participate in the Honor Scholar Program.

Should you have questions regarding the application process, please feel free to contact Amy Welch at 765-658-6575 or at awelch@depauw.edu.  Thank you!