Better late than heartbroken

By Jalyn Hill
Corbin High School

It was June 21, a typical summer day in Pendleton County, Kentucky. Kelsey Kuessner was spending the day at her dad’s house, relaxing and baking cupcakes. The aroma of freshly baked cake was wafting through the house when the phone rang.
It was the kind of call that can change a life.
“I answered the phone and as soon as I heard, ‘Hello I am from the Governor’s Scholars Program. Do you have a second?’ my heart dropped. I ran outside so I could hear better and said “I have as many seconds as you want!”
The voice on the other end of the line informed Kelsey that there was a spot for her in the Governor’s Scholars Program at Bellarmine University in Louisville. A dream that had recently been shattered had just been revived.
“When I got off the phone I had to call my mom, and I immediately started crying because I was so happy. Since the Bellarmine session had already begun, I had completely given up on getting accepted there. So I was extremely surprised and overjoyed when they said I could still come three days after it started.”
Kelsey Kuessner, a 17-year-old rising senior at Pendleton County High School, was one of 2,000 students who applied for the Governor’s Scholars Program, a five-week college residency experience for Kentucky’s top students. She was also one of 75 who were not originally accepted but listed as alternates.
“I was extremely upset when I didn’t get in at first,” said Kelsey.
She immediately began a quest to make sure her name wasn’t lost in the long list of alternates. She wrote letters, sent emails, and made lots of phone calls to the GSP. But her determinations didn’t stop there. She also recruited other people to write letters and make phone calls for her on a daily basis.
“I pretty much bugged the crap out of them,” laughed Kelsey. And her persistence paid off.
The prestigious Governor’s Scholars Program is very difficult to get into. It accepts around 1,100 scholars from the 2,000 students who apply each year. Scholars spend five weeks at one of three college campuses – Murray State University, Centre College, or Bellarmine University—taking an intensive course of study, seminars and extracurricular activities. It’s a chance for rising seniors to figure out who they are and what they want to become, and to get an opportunity for scholarships at Kentucky colleges. Many students are brokenhearted when they don’t make the cut.
“Some alternates are very persistent. They call or email me every day,” said Aris Cedeño, Executive Director of the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program.
Alternates are not ranked, Cedeño said, because they may be called up to fill the special needs of the program.
“If a boy drops, we must replace him with a boy,” Cedeño said. “If a boy from Southeastern Kentucky drops then we much replace him with a boy from Southeastern Kentucky.”
GSP is all about dynamics and diversity. But being a determined alternate will work in your favor because it shows the staff of the program how much you want to be there. This year the staff was very compassionate towards alternates. GSP is over-booked by 26 scholars.
Being accepted at the last minute may be stressful and a bit of a hassle but it didn’t faze Kelsey. She was almost on the road before the phone call ended.
“This experience is even more awesome than I thought it was going to be, “she said. “I’m so grateful for this opportunity and would probably still be heartbroken if I hadn’t received that phone call.”