The Department of Physics is pleased to announce the Valentino Scholarship, which is an $8,000 per academic year scholarship awarded to one incoming student per year who plans to major in physics or engineering physics at The Ohio State University. This scholarship competition is open to any high school senior applying to Ohio State who has declared a major of physics or a pre-major of engineering physics.
Rules and Regulations
- Eligibility for this scholarship is limited to students enrolling in The Ohio State University in Autumn 2024 who will major in physics or engineering physics. To clarify, applicants do not need to have been admitted to OSU or have accepted an admissions offer by the Valentino application deadline as we understand these decisions can happen later. In order to receive the funding in the autumn, the scholarship awardee will need to accept their OSU admission offer and enroll in autumn classes - both of which will happen after the Valentino application deadline. If the scholarship awardee chooses to not attend OSU, or is not admitted to OSU, the scholarship will be given to a different student. The scholarship is open to both U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens and is not limited to residents of Ohio.
- This competition is not affiliated with the application process to The Ohio State University. All application materials for this scholarship, including high school transcript, must be sent to the address below to assure full consideration for the scholarship. Unlike the other requested materials, the committee does have access to view the ACT/SAT scores you've sent to the university so you will not need to resend your official test scores.
- The scholarship is renewable for up to 4 years as long as the student continues to make good progress toward a degree in physics or engineering physics.
- If the student withdraws from the physics or engineering physics major, or fails to make adequate progress toward a physics or engineering physics degree, the scholarship will be terminated.
- The scholarship recipient will be determined by a combination of high school courses and grades, letters of recommendation, SAT or ACT scores, and the online application completed by the applicant.
- The amount of this award will be added after any other non-need-based financial aid is awarded, up to the maximum allowed by The Ohio State University.
Scholarship Decision Timeline Expectations
Because the Valentino scholarship is awarded to only one student per year, the recipient of the scholarship will be given 10 days to accept or decline the scholarship. If the recipient declines, the student who was ranked #2 by the committee will be offered the scholarship and given time to accept or decline the scholarship, and so on. Once the scholarship is formally accepted by the scholarship recipient, the other applicants will be notified that they did not receive the scholarship. Our goal is to have all decisions finalized and all scholarship applicants notified by the May 1 university admissions acceptance deadline.
Required Application Materials
1. Online Application
2. Two letters of recommendation from people who know the applicant well. At least one letter must come from a high school teacher and the other can be from a teacher, or in exceptional cases, someone else qualified to evaluate the applicant's mathematical and scientific abilities. Please give the letter writers the letter writer instructions.
3. High school transcript sent by email to Lindsey Thaler at thaler.21@osu.edu (preferred method) or by mail to Lindsey Thaler; 1040 Physics Research Building; 191 W. Woodruff Avenue; Columbus, OH 43210
The 2024 application closed on Friday March 15. The 2025 application will open in January 2025.
For questions or further information, please contact Lindsey Thaler by email at thaler.21@osu.edu.