1) The application process is, as with all major scholarship processes, very competitive, but that shouldn't dissuade you. After all, there has to be someone who wins it every year!

2) The Loran Award process definitely looks at both elements in every activity. With that said, you're definitely better off being President of one organization than being a general member of five!

3) The idea behind the sponsored and direct pool is that they generally encourage candidates to go through the Sponsored stream, so that at the very least the candidate has been vetted by the school's administration or guidance counsellor as someone worthy to be nominated by the school. With that said, there are some schools that refuse to sponsor any candidates, or may sponsor other students over you, and that is why the Direct Pool exists, so that just because your school did not sponsor you, you are not immediately out of the running. There are always Direct Pool winners every year, and I honestly feel that if you are 'meant' for this scholarship, it doesn't matter which stream you apply through, your application will be noticed.

4) On average, 3500 students from across Canada apply every year, and 30 students are selected to be Loran scholars.

5) There is a general but not strictly defined geographical distribution of scholars based on population. There is no quota that Ontario must represent 1/3 of the scholars, for example.

I will have to respectfully decline, not because I don't want to help, but because I do not want to influence the way you develop the rest of your high school activities and interests. There is no right or wrong way to pursue this, no right or wrong activity (its not like Student Council President is a must, or that you must play five instruments). I am also not going to be one of the Loran Award judges, so what I may think as a great application they may not, and vice versa! If you look through profiles of past winners, you will see their interests and achievements are extremely diverse, so there is no criteria or general guideline that I can give to the Loran Award.

My honest advice is to pursue your life as you would, regardless of whether you are looking to apply for the Loran Award. It's great that you are very interested in it, and do keep it in mind, but develop your activities and your interests around what you want in life and are passionate about. There are many strong candidates every year that unfortunately are not selected for the Loran Award, just because only so many can win, and the last thing you want is to have "shaped your life" around it and not get it after.

If there's anything I may comment on for the Loran Award, it is that the academic requirement of 85% is just that - after your academic average is above 85%, it does not play a role in determining who is a Loran scholar. I don't believe the judges will even see your academic average, they just see that you have passed that requirement.

Best of luck! I'd be happy to answer any other questions you or others may have about the Loran Award!

I have seen some changes over the years, as they gather feedback from scholarship winners and finalists on how they felt the application could improve. They are not major changes though, more re-phrasing of certain questions.

If you look at the Loran Award, they ask about your involvement from the past 3 school years - so since you're applying in grade 12, they ask about gr 12, gr 11 and gr 10. I didn't even include other things I did in grade 9 in my application. So don't worry, honestly grade 11 is primetime for doing stuff. What they think is all up to how you come off in your application. And most scholarship people love people who pilot things/are founders of clubs and stuff. Granted, I didn't get it, but I did most of my big stuff after I applied for Loran in grade 12.