The application usually includes name and date of birth, birth place, etc. How do you tell whether it is an authentic one (with future potential risk of losing all those info), or a scam?
I did not give out her full information. Most of the scholarships get lots of applicants.
You could get some info from high school guidance office about local scholarships in your community, but they are usually only for one year.
Thank you for your reply. When we visited colleges, they emphasized on applying scholarship from all other sources. However, in the real world, “applying” is not simple. My child will apply for engineering and would not be among those who will win out by just writing essays.
Isn’t it scary to any of you that kids are encouraged to win scholarship by just submitting an essay?
The schools that he applies to will be the best chance at scholarships, often the engineering dept has additional scholarships you can apply for.
Some schools I have seen mentioned were UA, U Toledo, Ohio State
Thanks again for replying. We looked for colleges with merit-based aid. And I was told that we are not working hard enough to look for scholarship from other sources. Our high school only provides us the website and we have to rely on our own judegment regarding what info to release to a third party.
I highly suspect the “soliciting information” purpose of a lot of the scholarships. They use limit amount of money to exchange a good list of future customers, and currently there is no law to protect us if they are responsible to lose all the info they collect.
I am frustrated that the “college application” process is SO HARD.
Who to you that you weren’t working hard enough on outside scholarships? Most of them aren’t for much money and many are only one-time awards. Not worth a lot of effort IMO.
Neither of my kids applied for any unless you count National Merit (S was a semifinals but didn’t make finalist). And with National Merit the schools themselves give the best scholarships if you choose the right school.
look at your high school’s or other local high schools’ guidance page for local scholarships
To your question, it were the colleges that provided the comments regarding how much we look for other scholarships. We are stuck in the middle. Not poor enough to receive need-based aid. Except for a few, most colleges cost $200,000 ($50,000 a year). $8,000 a year scholarship would be good, however not enough. Remember it is AFTER tax money (unless people made a ton in their 529). We as parent, have to work and make and save a lot more than $200,000 in order to pay for it.
You are absolutely correct that it is not much money from other sources. National merit gives out $2,500 for the first year, unless the colleges provide more. However, top programs are not among those. It is always a trade off, isn’t it?
Those sound like colleges that don’t give much merit aid, just need based aid.
You need to apply to colleges that offer merit aid and want to attract top students.
There are lots of good engineering programs, as long as they are ABET accredited, many offer merit.
I found that looking for other scholarships didn’t really do much. As seniors my kids got about $2000 in outside scholarships from local organizations (local women’s club, PTA, local union, etc). Applications to wider organizations felt like a waste of time. In addition, all of those were one time scholarships. I’m sure there are some people who could really do the work and get a ton of money, just like there are people who can grocery shop with coupons and bring their monthly bill down to next to nothing, but that is by no means the “norm”.
Your best bet is merit money from the schools.
Trying to cover $50 k every year for four years, you are not going to get far with scholarships through places like Fastweb and most regional and national scholarships also have a need component.
You need to find schools that your son likes and where he can attain his career goal, do research, get good internships, so he can land a good job after graduation.
it does not have to be a prestigious name brand school, lots of state schools have good engineering programs.
We didn’t bother with Fastweb, although I spent time looking through to see what scholarships were available. There are a TON of applicants for most of them, we didn’t find any “niche” scholarships that she was qualified for, and the hoops you had to jump through for most of them were way too time consuming when you considered the likelihood of actually winning the scholarship. Also, she wasn’t going to receive any that had a need component. We figured my daughter’s time would be better spent earning minimum wage at a job than spending hours filling out applications and writing essays for scholarships she had little chance of receiving. She did get a generous, full tuition scholarship from her college. If the college is telling you you’re not working hard enough to find outside scholarships, they must not have very good scholarships of their own. Look for a college that will offer enough merit aid to bring the COA within the means of your family.
Agree that “outside” scholarships are not worth a lot of effort. D won $2k - local scholarships only, not from national web sites - and $1k is renewable each year. She may apply for more this year from the non-renewable local pool for current college students. For her, it has replaced work-study so she has the income that she would have had from that without having to work as much.
If your D’s high school web site or guidance office doesn’t list local scholarships, other schools in your area (city, county, whatever) may. Check their web sites.
However, bridging a gap of the size you posted isn’t likely to come from those, that kind of money comes directly from schools that want your D top be there and will help pay for her (grades, stats, etc).