Courtney Romes Receives Major Scholarship from Michigan Tech

Gioia Cumicek, Staff Writer, Advanced Journalism

And the winner is. . . . senior Courtney Romes, recipient of The Leading Scholarship Award at Michigan Tech.

Romes first found out about this opportunity when she was at Michigan Tech for a Women in Engineering program over the summer, a program her mom encouraged her to pursue. 

Romes admits she was nervous about applying “because basically the prompt is to ask ‘an outstanding question’ and then answer it.”.

After many hours of thinking, she came up with her question and answer and wrote her essay. Along with the essay she needed a letter of recommendation from a teacher. She asked German teacher Frau Laaksonen.. 

On October 28 after Frau sent in the letter of recommendation, Romes received a text from someone at Michigan Techt saying they had exciting news and would love to call her when she had the time.

“I freaked out,” said Romes.

She then received a call saying that she had been chosen for the scholarship. 

She was one of 12 chosen out of 900 applicants. This puts her in a group of non-resident alumni legacy awardees. 

She is now invited on December 8-9 to Michigan Tech to spend the night on campus and go to a dinner and some activities. At the end of the night they will select three people to get a full ride. 

As of now she gets $10,000 a year towards her tuition. She will find out more about her benefits on October 8.

“I have wanted to go to Michigan Tech for a long time since my mom, dad and grandpa are alumni, and I have visited Houghton and the campus more than enough times throughout my life,” said Romes.

Romes advises those who are hesitant on whether they should apply for large scholarships or not “that it’s better to apply and not get it than it is to never apply and regret it later because you’ll never know how it’s gonna turn out.”