Randall D. Ledford Scholarships in Physics

Wake Forest University

The Randall D. Ledford Scholarship I in Physics

The Department of Physics awards the Randall Ledford Scholarship I once every four years to a high school student interested in majoring in Physics at Wake Forest University. This is a four-year half-tuition scholarship awarded to a promising incoming physics major attending Wake Forest University. The award is worth a minimum of $108,000, and anyone is eligible to apply during the year it is available. The next time we will be able to accept applications is in the fall of 2019 for a scholarship to be awarded to a student entering in the fall of 2020.

The Randall D. Ledford Scholarship II in Physics

The Department of Physics awards the Randall Ledford Scholarship II once every four years to a high school student interested in majoring in Physics at Wake Forest University. This is a four-year merit scholarship awarded to a promising incoming physics major attending Wake Forest University. The award is worth a minimum of $44,000 and only students who are attending high school in North Carolina are eligible to apply during the year it is available. The next time we will be able to accept applications is in the fall of 2021 for a scholarship to be awarded to a student entering in the fall of 2022.

How to Apply

To apply for this award:

• Complete the Wake Forest University application for admission either in paper or online. See http://admissions.wfu.edu.
• At least one recommendation should come from someone who can comment on your potential in science.
• Include a brief letter asking to be considered for the Ledford Scholarship, describing how you became interested in science, describing your career aspirations, and describing how this scholarship will benefit you. Please send your brief letter to:

Ledford Scholarship
Department of Physics
Olin Physical Laboratory
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7507

Physics at Wake Forest University

Wake Forest offers unsurpassed opportunities for students who wish to study physics. Wake Forest combines the values and emphasis on close faculty-student interaction that is characteristic of small colleges, while offering the opportunity to engage in research with internationally recognized scientists.

At Wake Forest, nearly all your classes will be small, and your physics classes will average only fifteen students. More important than class size is what happens outside the classroom. Your teachers are accessible; our faculty come here because they sought what we so uniquely offer - an opportunity to balance teaching and research, a place where they can continue to make new scientific discoveries while still having time to work one-on-one with undergraduates aspiring to become scientists.

You will be encouraged to participate in research. We do not require it, but most of our students choose to pursue this experience. You will not just read about science - you will become a scientist. There is a good chance that you will co-author a publication or present a scientific paper at a national meeting.

We have special grants available to allow you to stay here for the summer working on research. Other grants fund student travel to national meetings to present their work. You will be able to work with biophysicists who are probing the fundamental processes of life, astrophysicists who are modeling things from the beginning of the universe to the creation of gravity waves during black hole collisions, solid state physicists who are laying the groundwork for the next generation of lasers and radiation detectors. You will have an opportunity to work, not only with our own fourteen physics faculty, but also with the scientists from around the world who frequently visit to collaborate and use our facilities.

We have remarkable facilities, from perhaps the world's top short-pulse laser lab (featured on the cover of Laser Focus World) to a leading center for nanotechnology that has already spun off two companies, one for solar electricity and the other for efficient lighting, to the speedy DEACNET parallel scientific supercomputing cluster used by the computational physicists in the department. And these facilities are all available to our undergraduates.

Smaller universities have historically been the most effective at preparing future scientists, as demonstrated by the demographics of those who hold doctorates in physics. Wake Forest, with its rare blend of outstanding facilities, extraordinary faculty, and small college values, is uniquely suited to develop in students a passion for learning and exploration that is the hallmark of all great scientists.

The University

Wake Forest is unusual. Those familiar with our reputation are often surprised to find how small we are. We have over 4,500 undergraduates, making us the third smallest NCAA Division IA school. All our classes (except for some one-credit labs) are taught by faculty, not by graduate students. The beautiful 340-acre campus in Winston-Salem, NC is perhaps the most technologically advanced in the country. Every entering student gets a hot notebook computer with upgrades throughout the undergraduate period. Our campus has complete wireless coverage with speedy 802.11n networks.

Our student body has a tradition of community service, from building houses for Habitat for Humanity to working with the City of Joy. The University seeks students who have the ability and the desire to make a difference in the world.

Questions?

Want to find out more about our department or the scholarship? Please come and visit. We can coordinate your visit with our admissions office and a campus tour. Give me a call, write, or send e-mail:

Daniel Kim-Shapiro, Ph.D.	shapiro@wfu.edu
Department of Physics	Tel : (336) 758-4993
Olin Physical Laboratory	Fax: (336) 758-6142
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem, NC 27109

 

For more information on Wake Forest and Winston-Salem, please visit:

• Campus tours
• The Department of Physics home page
• Wake Forest University
• City of Winston-Salem