Next summer, he will have the chance to design and participate in a public service project such as working overseas in a developing country. In the summer before third year, Ramsay will have the chance to pick a place and a topic to study anywhere in the world. In his final year, Ramsay will work in business. He hopes is to get on with MTV in the United Kingdom and combine his love of music with the chance to learn something about business.
"I'm pretty into music and stuff, and I think it would a fun environment and good experience," he said.
Ramsay qualified for the scholarship through top marks, his participation as a bass player in the All in Good Time jazz group - which regularly performed at community fundraisers - his success as a wrestler - which included winning the high school wrestling provincials, and being president of the Pen High student council.
His application was picked as one of the top 10 of the 750 sent in across Canada. A week after he went through two hours of one-on-one and panel interviews, Ramsay learned he was one of just three Canadians picked for the scholarship.
Although he doesn't know for sure what he will study, Ramsay said he is leaning towards the arts, but has two years of general studies ahead to make up his mind.
Kaitlin Klamut, who graduated from Princess Margaret secondary school, was offered a $24,000 Simon Fraser University entrance scholarship and smaller scholarships to Carleton, the University of Alberta and the University of Victoria. But in the, she end settled on a $36,000 Queen's Chancellor scholarship to study engineering at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.
"I'm looking at biomedical (engineering) - it's sort of like kinesiology, but a bit different obviously," she said. "I like working with people."
In addition to earning a grade point average in the high 90s, Klamut played on the school soccer, basketball and volleyball teams.
She also worked in the community on projects such as the West Bench Tree Fruit project - through which volunteers pick fruit from trees donated by property owners for local charities, and the City of Penticton literacy committee. Klamut also had to write an essay on one of her role models - in her case, it was Oprah Winfrey.
Another Pen High student did take SFU up on their offer of a $24,000 entrance scholarship. Jordan Robinson, who is also the female valedictorian for the 2006 Pen High grad class, said she almost started to cry when she first heard she won the Gordon M. Shrum B.C. secondary school entrance scholarship.
Robinson was selected for the award from hundreds of applicants by an 11-person scholarship review committee. To be considered for the award, Robinson earned the required 95 per cent grade point average and demonstrated leadership skills and community involvement such as her work as a candy striper at Penticton Regional Hospital, and involvement in the 10,000 Tonight food drive, the Okanagan International Children's Festival and Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life.
Although Robinson has studied the sciences, like Ramsay, she hopes to discover what she wants to study once she samples some of what post-secondary school has to offer.
Amelia Boultbee, who graduated from Princess Margaret, and Daniel Ming, a former Pen High student who now attends St. Michael's University school, each picked up $4,000 Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation local entrance awards.
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