Draft:Robert W. Woodruff Scholarship - Emory University

Overview
The Woodruff Scholarship, named after American businessman, former Coca-Cola president, and philanthropist Robert W. Woodruff, is the founding scholarship of Emory University and the Emory University Scholars Program. It is the school’s most prestigious and competitive award, covering the full cost of tuition, room, board, and mandatory fees for four years of undergraduate education study. The incoming cohort of roughly 20 students represent the top 0.2% of the Scholars Program applicant pool each year of around 11,000 applicants.

Woodruff donated $105 million to Emory in 1979 to fund the scholarship, with one of his hopes being to draw Ivy League-bound students to Emory instead. Since 1981, many incoming students have turned down schools such as Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Harvard, and Yale in lieu of the full-ride Woodruff Scholarship.

Applicants are selected on the basis of academic excellence, talent, and selfless commitment to real-world impact across many diverse areas in society, including but not limited to: research and discovery, arts and culture, policy and justice work, and innovation and entrepreneurship, being the pioneers for future social change.