<p>I'm sorry to turn here instead of the financial aid board, however the breadth and depth of all your knowledge never ceases to amaze me, and I figured I might have better luck here. Anyway I've recently seen a lot of posts regarding "outside" scholarships, and I was shocked to see that some students were able to win quite a large sum of money this way (Voronwe's child come to mind. I think she said he/she received $30,000 in outside scholarships? That's incredible!) </p>
<p>I've been doing quite a bit of scholarship searching myself, through the guidance office at my high school, fastweb.com and other similar websites, google, and the local papers. However most of the scholarships I've found I either: 1) don't qualify for 2) are only $500 or less (I have applied to a few $1,000 ones and even one or two $500 ones or 3) are HUGE national scholarships that I apply for knowing full and well that I'm probably not going to receive it. </p>
<p>Truth be told, at this point, it looks like I could receive a maximum of a few thousand/year in outside scholarships (if I'm lucky). My question is, am I missing something? Where is everyone finding these scholarships to apply for? I was accepted EA at my first choice (Georgetown), and while I am applying for financial aid, it seems rather likely that we will not receive any. I'm more than willing to fill out the applications (so long as their not ridiculously long), however I just need to know where to look!</p>
<p>Thank you very much for any advice or guidance!
Lauren</p>
<p>I've looked at fastweb in terms of newspaper journalism scholarships/awards for my son. I found that some of the awards needs some experience in college newspapers and some of the awards are probably winnable only in the final year or junior year of college. For freshmen and sophomores, some of them would be a stretch. And then some are for people with demonstrated financial need; my son wouldn't fall into that category. And some are for URMs and we don't fall into that category. For example, Hearst Memorial Scholarship. </p>
<p>Then there are scholarships which are very competitive for example the Ayn Rand Essay contest. </p>
<p>I think Voronwe's son won some Environmental awards. And he's very talented as well.</p>
<p>One way to hunt for scholarships (albeit a tedious and time-consuming one) is to do an internet search for some of the better-known ones (Elks, Carpe Diem, Discover...). They show up on a large number of scholarship lists maintained by various high schools. Browse through these scholarship lists maintained at the high schools' websites.</p>
<p>A lot of scholarships are very specific about who is eligible to apply (by gender, nationality, location, parents' employment...just to name a few).</p>
<p>Lauren, no you are not missing anything. Benjamen Kaplan and company, aside, and Voronwe's son is in that group, few people get sizeable outside scholarships. The percentage of government and college sponsored money is well over 90% of what is out there.</p>
<p>But if you make it a habit of starting to apply to a bunch of them, you can get the knack and if you have some good academic stats, you might get on a roll. My D did not get much at all when she tried her hand at these awards. My son did get a number of them with my help, but most of them were the $500 and less variety (one was for $50 but it was renewable annually!). You can clean up a tidy sum if you get into the swing of it, but few people get the truly sizeable awards, don't let that discourage you or make you feel inadequate.</p>
<p>As optimizerdad said, do a Google search. My son did this a few years ago and discovered that there was a $3000 per year scholarship for anyone with our nationality at his particular school. All you had to do was prove heritage and you got it! Many large corporations have scholarships for children of employees, some are based on PSAT scores. Another good source of information is the high school guidance office - ours had a huge list of local scholarships. For some the requirement was planning on a certain major like music or education. For many all that was required was that you were going to a 4 year college. All 3 of my kids picked up a few thousand extra dollars (they were all given as checks payable to the students) by just applying for every scholarship they were eligible for.</p>
<p>He is a recent Harvard grad who has written several books on scholarships. "How to Get Throught College For Almost Free" and some sequels. Go to a Borders or other bookstore and you'll probably find them on the shelf. Some big time money awards listed with tips on how to approach the scholarship competition.</p>
<p>You're not missing anything in my opinion. I read every page of a HUGE scholarship book (and got a laugh about some of the very strange scholarships), have done numerous internet searches, have used our guidance office and even the websites of some private schools I found. As the posters above said, many are for specific things, some are need based, many require some very high level community service project, etc. There aren't very many local ones where we live, and most of the ones I found were very specific as to who was eligible. THe national ones have so many applicants that even if you're very qualified and a great writer (for essay contests), your chances are slim. My son didn't have much luck with outside scholarships. Good hunting!</p>
<p>Based on the info on this thread, I checked out FastWeb and was about 3/4 of the way through the registration process when it started to seem more like a military recruiting site than a resource for scholarship funding.</p>
<p>It seemed pretty clear that even if you check the "no, thanks" your information would be going straight to the Army and Navy recruiters. Did that bother anyone else?</p>
<p>Is it realistic to even think that you can come up with any kind of scholarship or grant assistance if 2004 was an extremely high income year for your family and you own a home in an area where the median home price is over $1 million? Dizzy-husband snorted his milk into his nose when I suggested that it might be possible, and while the entertainment value on that moment was medium to high, I suspect he's right and I'm wrong. </p>
<p>Yet it seems that even parents who I would expect to flunk the "financial need" criteria manage to find alternate sources of college funding. Like the OP, I feel like I'm missing something. Is FastWeb the place to find it or should I just plan on writing the big checks?</p>