KFC offers $20,000 scholarship for college-hopeful with best tweet

Forget entrance essays: If you're looking for a few extra dollars for college, you might want to dial in your ability to express yourself in 140 characters or less. KFC just announced that it bestow a $20,000 scholarship on the person who blasts out the single best tweet between now...

By Laura Shunk

November 19, 2010

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Forget entrance essays: If you're looking for a few extra dollars for college, you might want to dial in your ability to express yourself in 140 characters or less. KFC just announced that it bestow a $20,000 scholarship on the person who blasts out the single best tweet between now and November 26.

Why Twitter? Turns out the fried chicken chain is capitalizing on social networking and expanding its audience at the same time. Because kids don't want to write statements anymore -- they just want to fire off short summaries of the moment to the universe.

So KFC is taking a flyer, looking for a tweet that's creative and articulate in explaining exactly why the student is deserving of the scholarship. Entrants should affix the appropriate hashtag, #KFCscholar.

Of the 75 scholarships that KFC gives away this year, this will be the only one based on a tweet.

The winner will be announced on December 1.

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Laura Shunk was Westword's restaurant critic from 2010 to 2012; she's also been food editor at the Village Voice and a dining columnist in Beijing. Her toughest assignment had her drinking ten martinis and eating ten Caesar salads over the course of 48 hours. She still drinks martinis, but remains lukewarm on Caesar salads.

Contact: Laura Shunk

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