<p>So i'm slightly clueless on the subject. One person told me you just check the box 'financial aid' in the college app and they'll consider you for it. Another said (and I confirmed) there are huge books in the Guidance that you have to leaf through and send whole portfolios through the mail to each.
And my teacher told me that if you get scholarships using the 2nd method, they'll subtract that amount from the financial aid they would give you (1st method). (but then again I don't have that good grades so i might not even get any)</p>
<p>Im a junior and Im considering whether it's even worth the time to leaf through huge, thick books and write out apps for all these scholarships and whether I should rather just work on more useful things like study for SAT</p>
<p>Wha - I don’t understand. You don’t just check a box on a college app. you have to fill out a FAFSA, and then if you EFC is really low, you could qualify for the pell grant. But this is up to the school as well.</p>
<p>To answer your question, it may be worth it to sift through that info, regardless of how much there is. It could be benifitial.</p>
<p>FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid that you will complete. The EFC is the Estimated Family Contribution (which, despite the name, does not mean it is all you will pay)produced by FAFSA. The Pell is the main federal grant which reauires a low EFC.</p>
<p>There are 2 different types of scholarships. The one you check the box on your application for is for scholarships the school offers. The other is for outside scholarships. Checking the box on your application only gets you considered for the school’s own scholarships, not for any outside of the school.</p>
<p>
This is only partially true. If your school meets your full need, and the vast majority do not, then yes scholarships may reduce that need and therefore reduce the aid. But the majority of schools do not meet full need. For instance my daughter is at a State U that offers only federal aid and a little aid from our State, no institutional aid. Federal and State aid (in most states) are nowhere near enough to cover the cost of even a 4 year state U. She has good need based aid but it is only when her scholarship is added to her need based aid that her full need is met. Without the scholarship she would be about $8000 short of having full need met and would have to take out that amount in loans. And she has the maximum available in Federal Grant money. </p>
<p>Unless you are applying to schools that promise to meet full need without loans it is very possible that your need will not be met, or if it is met there may be large loans involved. Also if you aid package includes loans, which many do, then scholarships will generally be used to reduce the loans first before affecting any other aid. You are a lot better off with scholarships than with loans. </p>
<p>There are students for whom scholarships may not be beneficial. They are students attending schools that promise to meet full need without loans.</p>
<p>Orange peel, since the internet came around, there’s not a huge need to leaf through big books of anything in the guidance center. Most scholarships have online applications, or are at least posted online with downloadable forms. The exception would be local scholarships, which would come from the guidance office (typically in a packet handed out to each senior). These can be the easiest to get, aside from the ones awarded by colleges, and are definitely worth applying for. My D received over $2K in local awards this year with very little effort compared to the state/national ones.</p>
<p>swimcat: what do u mean by ‘full need’ you mean a full scholarship to the school for 4 years?</p>
<p>sk8r & every1 else: So you’re saying its better to do it all online, even just looking up the mailing address for colleges in the book, than leafing through all the thick books in Guidance?
So local ones, I should just wait 'til Im a senior. The rest I should apply to completely electronically on line. (?). But where do I get the entire list of scholarships I might be eligible for?</p>
<p>I’ll be the contrarian voice in this discussion. I have found that chasing external scholarships are a waste of time in most cases. They do reduce your awards whether you received a full-need award or not.</p>
<p>You are far more likely to find more money for college by understanding which colleges have the generous track records, and knowing how to position yourself with schools so you appear as a more attractive applicant. If you devote energy to that study (which by the way takes far less time that chasing external scholarships), you will be better off in the end.</p>
<p>If you are dead set on chasing external scholarships, then check out <a href=“http://www.fastweb.com%5B/url%5D”>www.fastweb.com</a></p>
<p>Orange, a school’s cost of attendance (COA) less your EFC from FAFSA = your need. If a school meets your full need it means that they have awarded you financial aid which covers the difference between your EFC and the COA. It doesn’t mean they have given you a full scholarship as you would still be expected to come up with your EFC (unless EFC=0).</p>
<p>I agree with scottaa that you are far more likely to get good scholarships by creating a college list this summer that targets schools who are likely to give you good merit and other aid. This should be a priority before you worry about national scholarships (most won’t have the app available yet anyway). But he is not correct in saying that colleges will reduce your awards whether you received a full-need award or not. Most colleges gap, meaning they don’t meet your full need, and many gap significantly. </p>
<p>Even with a well researched and target list, only 1 of the 8 schools that accepted my D this year gave her a full-need award (which included Stafford loans). But none of the schools reduced any grant (gift) aid for the several thousands in outside scholarships she was awarded. They all would have applied it to the gap first. The school that met her full need, which she will attend next fall, has reduced her unsubsidized loans by $1,000 and may increase her COA for the cost of a computer for the rest. Some schools will reduce grants, but many will first make sure your need is met and then offer to reduce either loans or work study (both of which are considered “self-help”). It’s up to them but it seems to be negotiable. No school will award you fin aid or let you keep scholarships above their COA.</p>
<p>If you think you’ll be competitive for state/national scholarships, you can use one or more of many search engines on the web, fastweb is one that will let you put in some criteria but is notorious for spitting out long lists of things you won’t actually qualify for. Some of the more popular are Kohl’s, Lowe’s, Burger King, Best Buy, Gates, Walmart. I’m sure you can find many more by searching “scholarship” right here on CC. This site might give you more ideas and you can google for your own state’s dept of ed scholarships:</p>
<p>What you need to do in your search for scholarships is to try to maximize your efforts as they all require varying degrees of energy spent in writing essays, filling out applications, etc. So, you need to try to concentrate on those where you are most likely to succeed.</p>
<p>My D put most of her efforts into Institutional scholarships, those offered by individual schools. Be aware that for this approach to have a chance of working, you’ll have to be at the tip top of the applicant pool. She didn’t concentrate on outside scholarships because we don’t qualify income-wise for many of the generous need based outside scholarships (eg. Gates), nor did she have uber strong ECs or volunteering that might have made her a good candidate for other big scholarships (eg. Toyota). The ones that she was most likely to get (as is the case with most students) were the local ones, which are usually for relatively small amounts (1k and less) and usually for only freshman year. You should be aware that there are substantially fewer outside and institutional scholarships available after freshman year. She did apply for a few outside scholarships if she had a relatively good chance of getting them, they gave a moderate amount of money and they weren’t extensive in their applications (eg. NMS, Byrd).</p>
<p>It’s not a one-size-fits-all proposition, so assess your situation, understand how scholarships work (including their impact on FA) and apply to the ones that seem work to your strengths.</p>
<p>orange peel, it’s also very important to understand the difference between need-based aid and merit aid.</p>
<p>Need-based aid is awarded based on your income, and other family & monetary information, which is hashed out using FAFSA. Many schools also use, in addition to FAFSA, the Profile. The upshot from these financial applications is the college’s decision on your EFC, Estimated Family Contribution. Some schools give great need-based aid (the top-notch schools, in particular), and others don’t. Some use Profile, which takes into account a lot more than just income, and others don’t.</p>
<p>Merit aid, on the other hand, is a “lure” to get a great student to a school which may be a hairline’s notch (or more) below the greatness of said student. In other words, The Ivies do not give merit aid…they don’t need to lure anybody there. However, somebody who is Ivy material would likely get merit money at a somewhat lesser school, in order to “lure” this Ivy material to their school.</p>
<p>Are you a need-worthy student, a merit-worthy student, or both? Once you figure that part out, then you can start figuring out the schools you should apply to, if money is an issue.</p>
<p>If your parents are low-income, start familiarizing yourself with FAFSA now.</p>
<p>Outside scholarships are definately worth persuing. I recieved over 150k in outside scholarships. Not all of them are for the super smart. Discover for example only requires a 2.75 GPA. I did online searches, but actually the Petersons book was the easiest because you didn’t have to sift through the junk. You could go straight to ones you qualify for. Keep in mind most scholarships look at Leadership and Community Service (this is a big deal), not just grades. They want a well rounded individual.</p>
<p>First, congratulation, definitely a significant accomplishment!</p>
<p>Just a warning that showdoggeek is not the norm, many more students post that they applied to many outside scholarships and have received little or no assistance. Again, one needs to determine what factors each scholarship is interested in (academics, leadership, community service, overcoming obstacles, etc.) and take a realistic look at their qualifications in these areas.</p>
<p>Local scholarships can be found through counselor’s office. They are relatively easier to get compare to some of the nation-wide scholarships. Also, some stores also offer scholarships (Wal-Mart, BestBuy, Lowes, etc…). </p>
<p>
I second this. I applied to many scholarships in my senior year, and I received very very few.</p>
<p>like i said tho, they look for a well rounded individual who is heavy in leadership and community service. And by this, most do not look for whether you were a varsity captain or participated in NHS community service. They look for individuals who impact their community and take initiative. Thats what makes the difference. So i may not be the norm, but going into this I had low expectations and look where it got me.</p>
<p>Its definitely worth a try. Do not let statistics and what the definition of “the norm” is frighten you away from applying.</p>
<p>thanks.
so local scholarships ill wait til start of senior year and go to guidance.</p>
<p>need-based/FAFSA: pretty much every1 has to apply to, so im set on that</p>
<p>outside: um, I guess use Petersons book or any other book I can find And I will use finAid link and fastweb to search.
But online searching seems kinda hard. </p>
<p>Can you give me more tips? For EC: Im a member of lots of school clubs, I hold officer positions in a few of them, and Ive done a sport a couple times. So not much… Any advice? Do they look at stuff like SAT?</p>
<p>I have known a handful of students who have done well with outside scholarships ($20-30K) but they were exceptional students (4.0 unwgtd with lots of AP classes, nearly perfect SAT scores, perfect SAT II scores) with strong leadership and commitment to several community service organizations.</p>
<p>but this was the result of winning many small scholarships – I agree that the bigger bang for the effort is to apply to schools in which student has a reasonable chance of getting merit aid from the school - those awards tend to be much higher than those of the outside scholarships</p>