Philly area high schoolers pick up their knives to compete for culinary school scholarships

Careers through Culinary Arts Programs (C-CAP) annual cooking competition awards scholarships to high school students heading off to college. "We do get see C-CAP coming back to judge and they'll even step in if a student struggling ... and help them. It's not a competition where we want to see our students fail. We want them to finish, we want them to succeed," said program director Alyssa Termini. Read more Alyssa Termini
Careers through Culinary Arts Programs (C-CAP) annual cooking competition awards scholarships to high school students heading off to college. "We do get see C-CAP coming back to judge and they'll even step in if a student struggling ... and help them. It's not a competition where we want to see our students fail. We want them to finish, we want them to succeed," said program director Alyssa Termini. Read more Alyssa Termini

This year’s C-CAP competition will be executed a little differently, but the top prize — a full ride to culinary school — remains the same.

In recent years, cooking competitions have saturated television, pitting everyone from children to grandmothers against each other for a chance to win a pot of money and 15 minutes of fame. But that shouldn’t diminish a contest for an actual good cause: Careers through Culinary Arts Programs’ annual Cooking Competition for Scholarships, a high-stakes event for high school students aspiring to work as culinary professionals.

The 31-year-old C-CAP competition awards several prizes, including half- and full-tuition scholarships to Johnson & Wales, the Culinary Institute of America, and New York’s Culinary Institute at Monroe College. On Tuesday, 10 Philly-area competitors fired up their stoves together at Drexel University — the first time did so in person for over a year.

“We have five seniors competing this year, so we’re hoping to be able to award at least two or three of the national scholarships,” said Alyssa Termini, program director of C-CAP Philadelphia. The rest are still eligible for scholarships of at least $1,000 that can go toward tuition, fees, knife sets, housing, and meal plans, among other college expenses. (Juniors, meanwhile, compete for spots in culinary boot camp.)

This story originally written by Jenn Ladd, and can be read in its entirety at The Philadelphia Inquirer.