Paul Tarell Family Scholarship

This scholarship exists for a specific kind of student: the one whose transcript doesn’t tell the whole story.

Plenty of awards reward the cleanest record. This one is for the students who kept going when the record got messy — who carried something heavy, whether a health setback, a hard season at home, or money that ran short, and stayed pointed at their education anyway.

We think that’s the trait worth backing. Not because hardship is noble on its own, but because what a person does inside it shows something a score can’t: whether they’ll keep moving toward what matters when stopping would be easier. That quality carries people through college, through work, and through the stretches of a life that don’t go to plan.

So we’re not looking for the most dramatic story. We’re asking how you faced yours — what it cost, what it taught you, and who you’ve become since. Adversity takes many forms, and we read each one on its own terms.

If that sounds like you, my family and I would be glad to hear from you. We started the Paul Tarell Family Scholarship to tell students who’ve come through something real the same thing, plainly: your story, and your perseverance, matter.