<p>^^^And, institutional scholarships are often renewable for 4 years, whereas most of the small, local scholarships are for one year only.</p>
<p>father91 - what did I say that makes you not believe my scholarship amounts? I have worked very hard, and my EC activities were a little more substancial then playing sports. I’m sorry that your jelousy won’t let you believe me. I was only trying to help by mentioning the Peterson’s book b/c that was very useful to me, but if it makes you feel better to put down someones hard work - fine… have fun paying for college.</p>
<p>BTW: the amount is up to 190K now.</p>
<p>While I didn’t get nearly as much as showdoggeek in scholarships, I did get 30K in outside scholarships. And lucky enough for my family, the college I will be attending is allowing me to keep that money on my own side; meaning it’s 30k in loans I will not have to take out. </p>
<p>Because I also qualify for need-based aid, for my first year, I’ll be paying 15K out of my scholarships, receiving 30K from need-based, paying 3K out of my savings, getting 2K from my parents, and taking out about 2K in loans. Not bad. </p>
<p>And there’s a ton of scholarships for undergrads, so I’ll still be continuing to pursue them while in college to help pay for sophomore/junior/senior year and study abroad programs.</p>
<p>I would stronglyyyy advise you to pursue the scholarships. I’ve gotten to go on free, week-long trips to Atlanta and DC and met the most amazing people… it’s priceless. I have tons of friends who I regularly talk to, and connections in my future career field that I know I’ll be taking advantage of during and after college. </p>
<p>And, I am not the valedictorian/varsity athlete of my school by any means. Heck, I wasn’t even in NHS! </p>
<p>Research what the financial aid policies are like at various schools you’re attending and make a decision after you get packages from each place; in most cases, you don’t have to report scholarships you’ve won until April-June; and that’s when you hear from most of the scholarship places, anyways! And that’s when they adjust your package, also, based on scholarships you’ve won. Also, if scholarships make checks directly out to you, (I’ve had a bunch do that; mostly local ones), you don’t have to report them. </p>
<p>I did most of my research on Fastweb.com and *****************; I liked their layouts and search engines. But check all of them! If you’re a minority student (helps a ton), you can check out the United Negro Fund, Hispanic College Fund, Hispanic Scholarship Fund, etc.</p>
<p>And definitely check your guidance office, as well! If school’s still in session for you, see what ones seniors have applied for, and ask questions to your counselors. Start as early as you can. I recommend reading, “How to Get Into College for Free (Almost!)” by Ben Kaplan. I applied for 30 scholarships, and won 13 of them, thanks to his tips.</p>
<p>wats the best scholarship book out there? petersons?</p>
<p>showdoggeek wrote “the amount is up to 190K now”</p>
<p>It will help the CC community immensely if you can list out the EXTERNAL, Non-need based scholarships that totalled $190K.</p>
<p>Your post will be quoted again and again, if it has data.</p>
<p>From showdoggeek’s post history, they seem to have gotten the Walmart:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/702264-walmart-scholarship-5.html#post1062510487[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/702264-walmart-scholarship-5.html#post1062510487</a></p>
<p>And 80k each from W&M and GWU, but don’t know if that’s merit or need based (do these schools have 20k/yr merit awards??):</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-william-mary/692043-william-mary-george-washington.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-william-mary/692043-william-mary-george-washington.html</a></p>
<p>While the big huge scholarships books could potentially be useful, I really would recommend “How to Get into College for Free (Almost)” By Ben Kaplan. It’s extremely helpful and detailed. And in the book, he says that sifting through those huge books is a time waster, and with the internet, pretty unnecessary.</p>
<p>I used the Peterson book b/c where I live internet is very slow. However Peterson’s has a website that will help you sort through all the scholarships out there as well. I also found ***** useful. I recieved Discover, Daniels, Walmart, Elks, American Kennel Club, and RMHC. But please understand, I was turned down for as many as I recieved. Most scholarships ask for the same information, so once you have that all compiled, it is really not hard to fill out multiple applications. My school based scholarships were both meit and need based, but only one of the external ones asked about need and that one is regional.
I welcome any more questions, but I am on my way to a conference and won’t be back until Sun.</p>
<p>showdog wat is the word they censored out (*****)? </p>
<p>and I signed up for fastweb. It says my profile is 100% complete and only 30 scholarships showed up.</p>