First Seidler Scholar finds a home at Cornell College
First-year Cornell College student Levi Thompson received a surprise during his senior year of high school that helped him discover Cornell College.
Levi had done some college searching, but he acknowledged he wasn’t finding what he wanted.
“When I was looking at schools it was less about what kind of opportunities it could give me and more about can I afford this? It was really hard for me to sit down and look at a piece of paper with a financial award and want to pay even $7,000-8,000 a year. That’s more money than I’ve even conceptualized at one time.”
But last spring Cornell College and the Seidler Foundation teamed up to help.
Unexpected surprises
It started when Levi received a letter telling him he won a large college scholarship from the Seidler Foundation a couple of months before graduation. Each year the foundation uses a rigorous selection process to award scholarships to a number of applicants from Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School.
This started in the late ’80s in honor of the late Evelyn Seidler, who taught at the school. Evelyn’s two daughters run the foundation with their father, Stanley. Stanley’s wife, Mary Bowman Seidler ’61, is a Cornell alum and long-time supporter of Cornell.
For Levi, that first scholarship is not where the surprises ended. A bit later, he received a second notice that he was receiving another opportunity.
“All of us in the admissions office at Cornell began working on this financial model and realized that if the Seidler Foundation and Cornell each did a little more than what we were already doing, we could offer a select number of students a full tuition, meal plan, on-campus housing, and fees scholarship between the two organizations, which also includes their federal and state aid,” said Cornell Vice President for Enrollment Wendy Beckemeyer.
Levi says he feels less stressed about the financial side of going to college. He only pays for any travel expenses he might have.
“Being a Seidler Scholar was an unexpected surprise,” said Shelly Thompson, Levi’s Mother. “Honestly, with the pandemic and a few other family reasons, Levi had just begun his college search when this opportunity came up. Cornell wasn’t even on our radar as Levi thought he wanted to go farther away from home at the time. After receiving the scholarship Levi took a tour with his academic decathlon coach from Jefferson and loved the campus and the idea of the block program and came home excited to share with us!”
The Future:
Levi is Cornell’s first Seidler Scholar, but Cornell is teaming up with the Seidler Foundation to continue the program.
“I think this partnership is unique because it’s an institution and a foundation working directly together to provide this exceptional academic opportunity and potential social mobility for these students because they will likely not have student debt when they graduate,” Beckemeyer said. “For Cornell, it’s a tremendous opportunity to serve our own community.”
Levi is planning to take this opportunity and help even more people as he seeks out a career in law. He’s already settling in as a member of the Cornell Mock Trial Team and is finding his home on the Hilltop.
“I always knew I needed to go to college,” Levi said. “I didn’t know how I was going to get there or where it was going to be but I knew I wanted to because I enjoy learning.”
Header Photo: Levi Thompson walking down the Ped Mall during the fall of 2023. Photo by Payton Anderson ’27.
