Scholars and scholarships (or, the reasons why some people apply)

Seen in the SoC BBS:

Over the years, the association of "good student - scholarship - fast track career" became so well entrenched that anyone who has not been given a scholarship of some type is automatically assumed to be not promising, making it all the more necessary for anyone with ambitious career goals to get a scholarship. The pattern reinforces itself. Some students would in fact accept a scholarship offer from an organization they actually do not plan to work for, just so that it is on their record that they were good enough to qualify. Often, scholarship holders are plotting an exit strategy long before they started work for the employer.