Lucas Palmer, future Waterloo student and Schulich scholarship winner
Lucas Palmer’s average is 99 per cent.
The Windsor high school student is also captain of his varsity volleyball team and he’s organized charity events that raised $11,000. Every student has to log 40 hours of community service to graduate – Palmer has done 550 hours.
Chloé Simms’ average is 95 per cent. She’s already started her own fair-trade organic coffee business and is a Kiwanis Key Leader. She’s a founding member of her school’s Tolerance Club and has volunteered 400 hours at a retirement home in her hometown of Pembroke, Ontario.
Both young people – top students by any measure – are coming to University of Waterloo next fall on prestigious Schulich Leader Scholarships, a $60,000 award for undergraduate students who plan to study in the areas of science, technology, engineering or math.
Schulich Leaders must show outstanding leadership in at least two of three criteria: academic excellence, financial need, or outstanding community, business or entrepreneurial leadership.
Amazing Waterloo mathematics
Palmer, who wants to study medicine in the future, says: “I’ve always dreamed of going to Waterloo because of its amazing mathematics program.”
He was also inspired by Waterloo’s co-op education program, the largest co-op program in the world.
“It’s really important for me to get good jobs on my resume before I graduate. I know there are lots of co-op opportunities for students in math and computer science,” says Palmer.
For Simms, who will join the Department of Physics and Astronomy in September, it was the opportunity to be part of a university with a strong reputation for entrepreneurialism and co-operative education. Simms, who has long dreamt of being an astronaut, was also drawn to state-of-the-art research facilities, like the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre and the Perimeter Institute.
Schulich Leader Scholarships are part of a $100 million gift in perpetuity on behalf of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and the S. Schulich Foundation.
