Scholarship Shawnee Mission Kicks Off for Shawnee Mission Seniors

This will be a week of surprises. The Shawnee Mission Education Foundation kicked off the annual Scholarship Shawnee Mission program by delivering offers to six Shawnee Mission North seniors.

“I’m speechless and wasn’t planning on crying this morning,” exclaimed Bella Zipf when representatives from the Shawnee Mission Education Foundation, SM North principals, and Mike Fulton, SMSD superintendent, knocked on her door.

Kim Hinkle, executive director for the Shawnee Mission Education Foundation, explained that Scholarship Shawnee Mission is a program where SMSD parents can opt in to share their student’s data with partner colleges and universities. “Much like athletes are recruited by colleges, we think our students who excel academically should be recruited, and through Scholarship SM they are,” Hinkle noted.

Shawnee Mission North received $265,126,924 in scholarship offers for their seniors.

This year’s announcements will be held differently than last year’s assemblies in gymnasiums. On Monday, a caravan traveled to six homes to present the scholarship offers to individual students, representing a class of recipients.

“I’ve been so worried about the cost of college,” Trinity Peterson shared. “This is amazing!”

The best part of the day was the student reactions, their genuine shock and surprise Dr. Jeremy Higgins noted.

“I know these scholarships take down barriers for our kids,” Higgins added.

The Foundation will be delivering scholarship letters to students from all five high schools this week. Letters will be mailed to all senior recipients. This year, scholarship offers are being made to SMSD students from more than 40 college and university partners.

“Scholarship Shawnee Mission offers incredible opportunities to our students and exemplifies our exceptional school district,” Dr. Mike Fulton said.