Students in UD’s Ronald E. McNair Scholars and University Undergraduate Scholars programs have continued their record of excellence by once again achieving a 100 percent success rate for getting into, and obtaining funding for, the graduate schools of their choice.

The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program honors the African-American astronaut who died in the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986. The University Undergraduate Scholars Program helps students from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds get into graduate programs of their choice and obtain funding. University Undergraduate Scholars is modeled on the McNair program.

“The University of Delaware’s McNair Scholars Program has set and sustained the highest standard of success in the nation, and the Undergraduate Scholars program was created to enable more UD students to prepare for graduate study,” Provost Dan Rich says. “The University is proud of the continuing success of the students in matriculating for graduate study.”

Thirteen graduating seniors in the McNair program and five students in the University Undergraduate Scholars program have applied to and been accepted by graduate schools.

Seven graduating McNair and University Undergraduate Scholars will be coming to UD for graduate school. Others will be attending graduate schools at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Ohio State University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Other graduate school accepting McNair and University Undergraduate Scholars include the University of Maryland at College Park, as well as Syracuse, Fordham, SUNY at Stony Brook, Rutgers, Wayne State, Johns Hopkins and Akron universities.

Maria Palacas, program director, said that nine former McNair students have completed master’s degree programs and have successfully applied to and received funding for doctoral studies.

“McNair and University Undergraduate Scholars participants represent the pluralistic society in which we live. Our scholars value personal and professional excellences, intellectual exchange and debate and the uniqueness of the individual in a global society,” Palacas said. “Through service and leadership, the McNair and University Undergraduate scholars have enriched the UD community. Our scholars promise to offer the same to the graduate programs they will enter in fall 2005.”