<p>I'm not a minority, I'm not a female, my parents don't have any weird jobs, I'm not in any clubs, I do sports but I'm not above average at them, my calculated EFC isn't very low, the only community service I've done has been in short stints, I'm not a good writer or artist, I'm not looking at in-state schools, I'm not a leader, I'm not an inventor, ETCETERA.</p>
<p>The only things I have going for me are that I've been completely ****ing devoted to my academics and I still am, I've gotten above average grades taking the hardest classes possible, and I'm a better critical thinker than everybody I know.</p>
<p>But so far I haven't found a SINGLE scholarship with those criteria.</p>
<p>What you are looking for would be a merit based scholarship. My friend just find scholarships that require you to write random essays. That's your only shot. I'm in the same boat as you, except I'm Mexican, and there are no scholarships for us unless we have financial need...</p>
<p>Are you a junior or senior? If you're a junior, you still have time to put together your college list with merit aid in mind.</p>
<p>Besides general merit aid, some colleges have merit scholarships for particular areas of study. These might not be listed on the main financial aid site for the college - you would find them through searches. Also, Harvey Mudd has a merit scholarship based only on test scores and class rank.</p>
<p>If you are willing to re-visit your college list, you may be able to pick up a significant merit scholarship by moving down a tier or two, or by staying in-state. Start by reading this thread and some of its links:</p>
<p>Well, there you go…there ARE scholarships for kids like you, you just don’t want them badly enough to adjust your college list in order to get them. That’s fine, but you would be most likely to get merit aid or scholarships at schools where you are the top of the talent pool with your great ACT scores, etc. Your option now is to look for community based scholarships, which usually have an essay component. Your HS GC should have a list of participating organizations. Usually these community scholarships are not huge, but the little amounts of $500.00 to &1,500.00 can add up to a nice amount. Good luck.</p>
<p>Yeah the counselor center puts out a list of scholarships every month. I look through all of them and I’ve applied for a few, but almost none of them apply to me–you have to have a parent in a certain industry, you have to be applying to a certain school, you have to be of a certain race, etc…</p>
<p>If your only source of scholarship searches is the list that your (probably overworked!) counselor center puts out, you’re definitely not getting a broad enough picture of what’s out there.</p>
<p>Have you signed up for Fastweb? ([FastWeb:</a> Scholarships, Financial Aid and Colleges](<a href=“http://www.fastweb.com%5DFastWeb:”>http://www.fastweb.com)) You can customize your profile, including inputting your GPA and your SAT and ACT scores, and it’ll look for scholarships that you qualify to apply for. It’ll also e-mail you when new scholarships meeting your criteria show up in the Fastweb database.</p>
<p>Most scholarships based on academic merit are going to be essay contests, or require you to write an essay. If you put in some time writing two or three really good essays, and get a teacher or someone to check them over for you, you’ll then be able to tailor those essays to fit the rules for lots of different scholarship competitions. Best of luck!</p>
<p>Good football players who want grants-in-aid go to colleges that offer such.
Good actors that want acting scholarships apply to schools that offer such.
Good musicians, good swimmers, good etc.</p>
<p>Good students can get good merit aid from lower echelon schools. Good students can get need based aid from top schools.</p>
<p>Do not expect HPYS to offer you merit aid for being a good student. They can get plenty of those, many better than you.</p>
<p>If your family can pay and you do not want them to do so, settle for a lesser school.</p>
<p>Its a tough world kid. Learn to sell what you got or live on your families resources.
Part of selling is determining demand.</p>
<p>If you are not willing (or can’t at this point) to look at other colleges that offer more merit aid, then you need to broaden your search beyond your guidance counselor’s list to find other outside merit-based scholarship opportunities. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that local scholarships are probably your best bet since they typically are not as competitive as scholarships that are national. I would suggest doing some research of your own rather than just waiting only on what your guidance counselor posts. Ask around … check your local library … browse through local newspapers in your area … often times, there are organizations/clubs in your local area that offer scholarships if there is a parent/grandparent who is a member, for example. </p>
<p>In addition to local scholarships, there are many scholarship search databases, such as FastWeb, ScholarshipExperts, ScholarshipsCom, and ScholarshipPoints, that you can use to help locate scholarships that you may qualify for. Google is always a good search tool – just use keywords to narrow down results for yourself. Yes - This, of course, is quite timing consuming … but, believe me, it’s time well spent, especially if you are lucky enough to win. Whether it’s $500 you win or $5,000 … any free money is less that you need to worry about coming up with!!!</p>
<p>But, keep in mind that most scholarships that you find online are highly competitive, if for no other reason that you are likely competing with students across the nation and/or globe. There are millions of students, me included, who are aggressively seeking out scholarship opportunities to help lessen their financial burden. Despite the myths that you may have heard about tons of scholarship money going unclaimed each year, this simply is not true! And, the reality is that external scholarship money probably amounts to only about 5% of the total aid that is available for college — most merit money comes directly from the college(s) themselves through the financial aid package they offer their students. </p>