Congratulations to David Cook, last night's winner on American Idol. 

Americna Idol is a close example to how the scholarship world works and I think it helps students understand that "everyone" in not a winner.  One person wins.  The other contestants may still be successful and I hope they learn from the experience to improve their approach or delivery in the future but the bottom line is ONE person wins.

To recap the journey for those who don't watch American Idol:

Tens of thousands of hopeful singers apply or audition

A chosen few make it to Hollywood week, based on the decisions of the judges

The cast of characters is further winnowed to 24 contestants, again by the judges

And, then, America votes week by week, eliminating the people with the lowest number of votes.

In the case of scholarships, America is not voting, but the elimination process is very similar.  First round is eliminating people who applied but don't even qualify.  Next round is judging the applicants on who best matches the criteria.  The next round is reading the applications carefully and assigning some type of ranking system (using a judging criteria) to distill the list of top candidates.  At this stage, much like Davd and David, you have very highly qualified people.  If you have two scholarships to distribute you could awared both but if you have only one scholarship how will you determine who is the best of the best?  As a scholarship judge, you might ask for an interview, an additional essay question, you might more closely examine the supoprting documents.  It's tough and scholarship committees often wrangle with this decision (unless a clear, unequivocal winner emerges).

Remember that the scholarship committee can only judge you based on the information, audition or image you have presented to them - make sure it is your best!