The Voice sat down Melissa Foy (COL ‘03), the program director of the Georgetown Scholarship Program, to talk about the progress of the growing program.
I understand that you graduated from the College in 2003. What made you want to come back here and work for GSP?
I was working in D.C. and I found that the work that I was doing was not rewarding personally. I actually looked into a job in admissions because I thought, “I love Georgetown.” It’s easy for me to talk about how great Georgetown is and it would be great to travel and talk to people about the University. So when I came here to interview for the admissions position, I had face time with the dean of admissions, and of all the things we talked about he said that they were looking to launch a new thing called the Georgetown Scholarship Program. (https://thecenturionreport.com/)
How do you think GSP is helping incorporate a more socio-economically and ethnically diverse population into the University?
GSP brings 150 students to Georgetown each year that otherwise might not have been able to afford it. This makes a dent in diversifying our campus socio-economically, racially, even geographically because our students are from all over the country. When you add this scholarship on top of it, the yield skyrockets.
In this day and age when you look at the whole cost of attendance, unless we have competitive scholarships, we will only cater to a certain part of the population and I think that anybody who truly loves Georgetown would understand that that’s not the best thing for the University.
Quite frankly, it’s selfish—it’s better for the University to get these students than to lose them to other schools.
What do you consider the most important development in GSP this academic year?
The biggest thing in the GSP world this year is the fact that we have more students than ever before. Even last year we were at 530, this year we’re at 640. These are the biggest numbers we’ve ever had in the program. And also I think we’re understanding which programs work and help students the best, and also maximizing the resources we have—better streamlining and making the program more efficient.
