<p>I am taking classes and studying for SATs all summer and taking more outside classes until December. I will have barely any time for college applications and I have found a couple good scholarships, especially local, for me to apply to. Are those national scholarships still worth doing if I have better things to do? </p>
<p>My EFC is definitely 0 by the way. </p>
<p>It depends on the scholarship -effort/materials required, how many are given out, the amount of money received, ethnic requirements, income requirements, etc. Your odds/chances will fluctuate based on these factors.</p>
<p>Which national ones are you considering? Some are worth it, some are not.</p>
<p>which ones?</p>
<p>You need to balance your time between getting the best scores, applying to schools that will be affordable (most will not be affordable for a 0 EFC), and applying for scholarships.</p>
<p>Once we know your stats, we can point you to schools that will be affordable with your stats.</p>
<p>what is your state?</p>
<p>what is your major</p>
<p>They are not a waste of time, depending on the scholarship and your situation. It would be a waste of time for you to apply for some that you have a 0% chance of getting–do read the requirements which I 've found a lot of kids do not. Then look at whether you have even a slim chance in that you make the group of kids that tend to get past awards. If you see that every single kid who gets these awards are high stats, way above yours, and you don’t have something very unusual to get past that, you are not likely to get such awards. Even if you are in the ball park, a lot of this has a lottery component, but, hey, you gotta play to win. Someone gets these awards each year.</p>
<p>Jack Kent Cooke
Coca Cola
Gates Millenium Scholars</p>
<p>I am considering APIASF though </p>
<p>My state is PA and my major is well I don’t know yet but engineering/science or business</p>
<p>Go for them and good luck. I hope you snag one.</p>
<p>All of these scholarships, and especially the last one are worth it. </p>
<p>@ThePariah DD just finished applying for roughly 35 scholarships. Local & national. It’s a tough call. The odds are slim. The ones you listed above are VERY competitive and require tons of work. DD applied to one national scholarship, made it down to 76 semifinalists out of 5,000. She had to submit more info after that initial round and felt very good a out being 1 of the 26 chosen. No dice. But it was nice to read last month about a young man who is heading to Yale in the fall. His story was powerful, inspiring and left us in awe. At the end, the writer mentioned that he was a finalist for the scholarship. DD and I were both glad that he won.</p>
<p>A young girl from our city won the Gates Scholarship. She had 4 siblings die from Sickle Cell Disease. She herself is living with it. DD also applied for the Gates, out of 55,000 applicants, was chosen as one of the 1,000 semifinalists and didn’t win. DD has done just fine without winning any of the huge dollar scholarships that she applied for. But it was a PITA. </p>
<p>If your EFC is 0, then you should start a thread asking the great minds here on CC where you should apply. They will know which schools will meet need. Have an open mind about schools that you have never considered. Many have fly in weekend events for low income students.There are lots of gems out there. </p>
<p>Also consider QB.</p>
<p>Yea I am doing QB, so should I bother with those scholarships? Sounds like I shouldn’t bother, I would be TOO busy between August and December…</p>
<p>I am doing 2-3 scholarships max. </p>
<p>I can’t say that you shouldn’t apply. Thankfully DD doesn’t really need any outside scholarships. We didn’t know that before college acceptance letters/FA award letters rolled in. Definitely apply to schools that meet full need. So then if you don’t win any of the outside scholarships, it’s of no consequence.</p>
<p>Son had efc of 0 and applied for some local and national scholies. He won the Tylenol, Best Buy, Ronald Mcdonald, Gates, American Chemical society, and ROTC (Air Force, Army and Navy), and several local ones. This way in case he didn’t get into a meets 100% needs school every bit extra would help if he was gapped. </p>
<p>He also applied to 3 service academies, Air Force academy, US Naval academy and West Point and received appointments to all 3. He was not going to leave any stone unturned.</p>
<p>He ended up at a meets full need school but all the extra outside scholies replaced his summer contribution for all 4 summers, replaced all his work study 4 all 4 years, allowed him a new laptop, mandatory health insurance, paid for all his books, travel, personal expenses, winter wardrobe and the best most ELASTIC category…miscelleanous. All adds to the total COA. So thesis binding, graduation fees, cap and gown, summer school tuition elsewhere all was added into the COA.</p>
<p>With an EFC of 0 the burden is left to you, the student to cover all your bases. No one is going to knock on your door and say we are going to pay ALL your costs. Just doesn’t work like that.</p>
<p>So yep I would encourage you to apply to any and all you are eligible for.</p>
<p>Son left undergrad with $0 debt. He knew medical school would have some loans so he wanted to keep the undergrad debt load as low as possible.</p>
<p>Kat</p>