I am going to respectfully disagree with this suggestion. Most of these scholarships are interested in passion and impact, but are not specific about how those qualities are displayed. I would continue diving deeper in the paths you are on and in what you love vs expanding or starting something new.
Service is great if that’s your thing, but starting something new this late in the game will likely be an obvious attempt at checking a box to a scholarship committee.
One of my kids won multiple national scholarships, the kind you are wanting. She wasn’t perfect and she didn’t check every box, but her longterm commitment and influence are apparent to all who meet her.
Be yourself. Pursue what you love and what is meaningful to you. The rest will work out.
I understand both points made about competitive scholarships. The most important thing for OP is to research the scholarship to understand what they are looking for.
Also, for scholarship foundations like Stamps that partner with many schools, research each individual school’s focus for the scholarship and also the scholarship award (e.g. some schools may offer full ride but others only full tuition).
I agree with the idea that a student shouldn’t do an activity that doesn’t appeal to them just to check a box. That said, the Supreme Court will likely abolish affirmative action this summer. Once it is gone, being Hispanic will no longer be allowed as a hook, yet schools will still want Hispanic students for the diverse perspectives they may bring. I am guessing here, but schools may still be allowed to give weight to “serving historically under-served communities” even if they can’t give weight to race or ethnicity directly. So basically, I am just wondering if there is a way for the OP to add service (a weak link in ECs so far) in a way that also highlights that he could bring something important to a school (being truly bilingual/bicultural, and using this for the good of his community, in a way that is authentic to him.)
Yes it could. But you would need something concrete to talk about (examples of how you use your bilingual/bi-cultural skills somewhere other than in your own house.)
OP - behind your Florida schools and bright futures and your budget needs - which many schools auto merit won’t get you to your # -
Again, like others have said - you need a Bright Futures in Florida, a NMF like Bama, UTD, Tulsa for a small school, and then you take your shot - whether it’s Presidential at SMU or Johnson at Washignton, etc - but these are brutally competitive.
Just make sure you have that financial safety in the bag and find one you’d love to attend in the likely case that’s where you’re going. THe others are high risk, low chance of happening.
But the schools like Bama enroll a ton of high achieving kids from all over - because of this. Many chase the $$ - and if your family would be strained financially from four years of school, there’s nothing wrong with that!!
Just to clarify: in terms of service, I didn’t mention it heavily in the OP, but I do have a really big advocacy-focused community service project focused around making the internet more accessible to blind and visually impaired individuals, with the main component being an open source AI-powered image captioning algorithm.
I’ve spoken to both school officials and organizations that work with blind individuals and they have confirmed that the project is promising. I realize that it might be too late for it to be too meaningful, but it is a project I’m extremely passionate about and by the time I apply I’ll have about 8 months of work behind me and plenty of hours. It plays to my CS strengths as well as my passion for accessible design.
I could definitely find a way to work my bilinguialism into the project, especially when it comes to expanding reach. I don’t want it to look insincere, though. I hadn’t considered being able to speak spanish as too big a strength, since everyone around here does.
I’ve also had some minor community service involvement in the past, but it hasn’t been anything large or particularly focused. I collected about $200 in donations for an organization that worked with blind individuals in middle school (which could show a continuing interest?), and I volunteered around 25 hours to an art exhibition within my city. I also did some light mentoring, somewhere around 8 hours total, also in middle school. Not sure if any of these are of use.
Well, unless there was an essay about it like, “I collected donations and that introduced me to the challenges the blind face in accessing information and as I result I designed this project” or something like that.
$15/hour is a generous estimate considering that the minimum wage in many places is lower than that. My niece in Louisiana only makes $10/hr compared to my kids who make $15+/hour here in MA. I agree with your post, though, it is going to be very hard for this student to make up the difference in budget between the $10k/$15k (if you include the student loan) he has and an EFC of $33k or so.
You should check the NPC at a few more of the most generous schools (Harvard etc) and see what that # is. Obviously, those are huge reaches in terms of admission, but if you are admitted the finances could potentially work.
I agree that ECs that ended in MS do not go on the application, but ECs that started in MS and continued through HS can reflect that in the length of time of the activity. The OP may be able to frame the activity in such a way to make that work.
Volunteering and support of the blind community - donation collections, AI development project, etc. 7th-12th grade/5 years (I don’t remember how it is entered on the CA) Obviously word it better than that! lol
Wouldn’t that work? And would show ongoing commitment, which is valued.
That could work as a part of an essay, but the EC would still not go in the Activities section on common app, which is for ECs done in 9-12 only.
You can only check off years 9, 10, 11, 12 for ECs on common app. Yes, OP can get in the description that they started in 7th grade and continued into high school…obviously that won’t work for something ONLY done in middle school which is what this sounded like to me in OP’s post.