Then there are those scholarships that are unusual but have no shortage of takers. Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa., has a $1,000 scholarship for left-handed students. David Letterman set up a $10,000 top award at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., for telecommunication students who have a creative mind. There are scholarships for tall people, short people and fat people.

Loyola University in Chicago has a scholarship for Catholics with the last name of Zolp, which is currently filled. The university has not had to do any extraordinary recruiting. "We've had quite a few Zolps come through," said Edward R. Moore, the university's scholarship director. "They seem to know about it."

But the scholarships that are the most restrictive often end up being a low priority for universities. "They're only as good as the person monitoring it," Mr. Donnelly said.

Consider the Leavenworth situation. In 1873, Elias W. Leavenworth, a former Syracuse mayor and a successful banker, published a genealogy that detailed his ancestors' accomplishments dating to the 1660's -- highlighting town leaders, entrepreneurs and pioneers from the East Coast to the Midwest.

But his generation of Leavenworths, he believed, had slipped into mediocrity. So in the genealogy, he included an open letter to his family that announced his intentions to set up scholarships at three prestigious schools: Yale, Hamilton College and the University of Michigan. His hope was to "stimulate the energies and ambitions" of future male Leavenworths for years to come, and that the funds never go unused.

The scholarships are still offered, 132 years later, at Hamilton and Yale. At the University of Michigan, the fate of the scholarship remains a mystery. Pamela W. Fowler, director of financial aid, said she could find no record of it.

In Syracuse, a faded copy of Elias Leavenworth's 1887 will is on file in Surrogate Court. But it only adds to the uncertainty. In the long, unwieldy document, Mr. Leavenworth made many bequests but then revoked or reduced some of them in codicils. He made clear that he had already started endowments at Yale and Hamilton, and asked that their balances be brought up to $10,000 each.