<p>I got an e-mail from a college about scholarship options. I was looking at them and most of them are due by January 15th. Does this not sound ridiculous? I don't even know if I got into the college yet but they want me to apply to scholarships already? I don't know what to do. I qualify for a lot of these scholarships with my major/interests and all but I don't know if I want to spend hours working on them to find out later that I didn't get in. Please give me some feedback.</p>
<p>I agree - completely frustrating! They should either make their decisions earlier or scholarship deadlines later.</p>
<p>That’s just how its going to work. Colleges know that a lot of their applicants will make a decision influenced by the financial aid they get. It does them little good in the spring when acceptances come out to say “Here, we accepted you, now apply for scholarships and we’ll let you know in a few months if you get any”. To the extent they offer scholarships to lure strong students to their school such a policy would be a complete fail. </p>
<p>So you have a choice to make about how you want to spend the next week or so of your time. BTW another wrinkle to keep in mind is that just qualifying for a scholarship does not mean you will get it (there are some exceptions, such as large publics that guarantee a tuition discount to everyone that qualifies).</p>
<p>What if I get a scholarship from a school and I decide not to attend there? Isn’t that going to look bad on my part?</p>
<p>Also is this the case for majority of the colleges? I applied to 10 colleges. I don’t know how it is expected of me to write over 10 essays within a time period of 8 days. How should I handle this?</p>
<p>Honestly most of these scholarships are about the school serving its own purposes and not particularly you. The top colleges don’t need to lure students to enroll, so they tend to offer few merit scholarships. But truth be told, most colleges accept most of their students. So how can college X stand out, persuade the stronger students (which may be stronger academically or stronger financially as in full-pay) to enroll instead of going to very similar Y or Z who they know is also highly likely to offer admission? Just like any store they offer a discount. Dressing it up and calling it a scholarship makes everyone feel better about it, but don’t mistake what is happening. And they pull out a lot of the same persuaders they use in commerce. For example, the essay. They will read it, of course, but one could argue having you write it is just the “committment and consistency” step from Cialdini’s 6 Factors of Persuasion. Google that term for some interesting reading.</p>
<p>Which answers your other question, BTW. If a school offers you a discount and you decide not to enroll, that does not look bad on your part. In fact savvy students play the Financial Aid game, using one school as leverage to get a better offer from another.</p>
<p>Also the other schools, should they invite you to apply for scholarships, are unlikely to have the same deadline. Deadlines will be over the next month or two.</p>
<p>Actually three of my other colleges e-mailed me about them too and they all e-mailed me today…I think, as much as I hate to do this, I will have to cram in and write essays like no other. Thanks a lot for your advice Mike. Your definitely cleared a lot of doubts.</p>