Oct 11, 2019 2 min read

Ian Anderson and Vincent Catanese, incoming freshman at Washington & Jefferson College have won $1,000 SAGE Scholars scholarships in a nationwide essay contest. Anderson and Catanese were two of the winning 100 scholarship recipients who wrote an exceptional essay.

Students from all over the country submitted essays on subjects such as how they overcame various academic challenges, prepared for the college process and what they were planning to do after graduation.

SAGE Scholars recently pledged $1 million in college scholarships over the next five years for students attending one of more than 400 private colleges and universities in the network. These scholarships are named “gap scholarships” with the goal of helping families fill in the gap between what they have to pay for their children to go to college and what colleges and universities can offer in terms of financial aid.

“These scholarships are important to me on many levels,” SAGE Scholars founder Dr. James B. Johnston said. “I know parents are excited when their children get accepted to college. However, that excitement is often replaced by an entirely different emotion when they receive the first tuition bill. So, I decided to offer students the chance to earn an additional $1,000, which will be given to them in the form of a check that can be put towards college tuition or college related expenses.”