I am so lost on how to pay for college at the moment. I understand that people do get full rides to colleges but how does that even happen? What needs to be done during my high school year (I am a sophomore) to attain that? and I’ve been hear full tuition? Is there a difference between full ride and full tuition? What are some key things that I should do to have a higher chance of having scholarships pay for my time in college? I believe I am an average student but I know that I need to be better.
Full ride means typically your tuition AND room and board is covered by scholarship, sometimes including more like books, etc. Full tuition means just your tuition is covered and you’ll have to pay room and board, books, fees, etc.
Becoming a national merit finalist is probably the easiest way for automatic full rides. There aren’t a lot of schools that do auto full rides, and most of them aren’t highly desireable schools either.
Keeping your grades up, taking the most difficult classes you can, acing the standardized testing, participating in meaningful extracurriculars and leadership activities, and starting early are the most basic steps for goals of scholarships.
How is the financial situation with your family? Many top schools offer good financial aid packages that could cut the burden of debt if you’re from a low income family.
Full tuition means the scholarship covers tuition. Your parents have to pay for our housing (room) and your food (board). 
Full ride means the scholarship covers tuition, room, and board.
There are two types of full tuition and ful’ride scholarships :
- need based : you apply to one of the most selective colleges because you’ve got high test scores, strong college rigor (lots of honors and 6-8 AP classes), did something extroardinary in your free time. Your parents make less than 125k 1or less then 75k a year (respectively for full tuition /ride). There’s are about 80 of them out of 3,700.
- merit based: you need a 32 on the act or a 1450 on the sat. Look on the financial aid forum where they have a link pinned to the top titled "most popular financial aid links’or such.
Check out this form. It has a lot of information that would be useful to you.
study like crazy for the PSAT so you can get Nation Merit Finalist to get one of these awards:
http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/
or, get a high enough GPA and SAT/ACT scores to qualify for one of these:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
or win one of these
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/
Thank you for clarifying that! Makes a lot more sense now
I will for sure look into taking more challenging classes especially going into my junior year, I do plan on taking some more EC’s as I am lacking in that area and tests are always challenging for me so I will look into getting a tutor.
As of my current financial status, both of my parents are working in the medical field and have been for a while so they have a stable income. They have stated before that they cannot pay for my college tuition and so they would support me in any way that they can so I can get scholarships instead. I do understand that this can hinder me from some scholarships and not make me a priority in some cases.
Thank you for listing the different types of scholarships! Will for sure do more research now that I understand the basics
Thank you so much! It for sure had information that I will live by
Thank you so much for the different links! Will look into it more