I am like everyone else also very anxious to hear the news & wish everyone the very best of luck
Did any one hear something from JKC so far?
Plz do let us know in this thread.thnx
I honestly think it will be next week
@FutureNurse2018 I hope so. At this point I just want to hear something from anybody. Still waiting to hear back from three schools and a few scholarships so a news would be great.
@adorse26 I couldn’t have said it any better. I too went through depression, and I completely agree that those hardships make you a stronger person and have shaped us into being as motivated and driven as we are. We know what it’s like to suffer, to not have what we need, or to be completely hopeless about the future… so now that we have bright futures that we have worked oh so hard for, we are that much more appreciative. Thank you @adorse26, I hope we both get it 
Does everyone else on here get the Pell grant? It seems we all come from similar backgrounds and that poverty has played a very large role in all of our lives. As a kid I was in and out of homelessness, but I haven’t been homeless as an adult. I’m still broke as a joke, but I get the Pell grant, the Cal grant (I live in CA), I work, I’ve won a couple of small scholarships and I have student loans. Just wondering - do you guys not also get a good amount of aid and have some loans? And even if you don’t win the JKC, don’t you all have other options to fund your education through the universities you plan on attending? For some people it seems like not winning the JKC means not being able to finish school. Just wondering how that can be with all the numerous avenues for financial aid.
JKCF is my only way into a four year college. I’m a thirty year old with bills, but I make too much for pell grants. BSN programs are 4-5 days a week plus clinicals, so unless I get something that provides cost of living stipends, I can’t attend.
Unfortunately, nursing is not a major you can do online or part-time (unless it is a non-regionally accredited program, which will prevent me from getting into grad school). Unless I quit my job for a year to qualify for aid, I’m in financial limbo.
@cmbradley2015, for me since my mom is disabled, my dad is died, and I work less than 20 hours a week because my art classes don’t allow anymore hours since each class is 3-4 hours every time it meets, I’m not counted as having taxable income and neither is my mother so my efc is 0. While in community college, everything is paid for by financial aid. I was lucky enough not to have to take too many loans at my community college because I got scholarships otherwise I wouldn’t be in school because my mom’s disability check barely covers anything when it comes to living and I wasn’t working when I started college. I have a pretty good financial packet for the school I want to go to, but I’ll probably will have take a loan. @kpcosmic, I totally understand it. When my house burnt down, there was a few days I didn’t know where I was going to live which was really scary. Hopefully you have a place to live soon. The experience of a few days was scary so I can’t imagine how it feels for you.
@nekozuki - I definitely know where you’re coming from. I’m also 30 actually. What I ended up doing was saving up so I could stop working full time and instead go to school full time, at least for my first year. The second year I finally qualified for the Pell grant and Cal grant so those really helped. So it is a tricky shift that you have to make if you want to focus on school full time. And of course the Pell grant and Cal grant still don’t even come close to supplementing my lost income, so that is where the loans came in. I’m a biomedical engineering major so I also have to attend an actual campus, and with the high number of courses needed for an engineering degree, part time was just out of the question (I did it for two years and realized it would take me at least another 10 just to get a bachelors at that rate). For me it just came down to whether it was more worth it to just keep working full time in an industry I didn’t have a passion for, or if it was better to take on some debt and pursue my dream full time. It is definitely tough to decide to go back to school full time when you are completely on your own and have rent and car payments to worry about.
@adorse26 I’m so sorry your house burned down 
I’m actually not sure which is worse, because although I’ve been homeless, I haven’t had to lose all of my possessions. I keep them with friends or in a storage unit. But your house burning down means losing everything in that moment, and I can’t imagine what that feels like.
@cmbradley2015 I receive the Pell Grant and TAP Grant (NY grant.) I go to school for free, have my books covered, and even get a refund check of a couple thousand each semester. I haven’t had to take out any loans thus far, and am really trying to avoid it. At this point, even having a roof over my head seems out of my reach, so the idea of getting into debt on top of that is too scary for me to think about. I feel like I’m already drowning, and that loans would be like putting a boot on my head to keep me down. I’ve been offered a full tuition scholarship at a school nearby, but would have to take out loans to live on campus… and as crazy as this sounds, I think I’d rather stay in my current situation and hope for the best, rather than take out loans and be able to live on campus. I’ve made it this far as a homeless student, I think I can make it even longer.
Hey everyone! I just discovered this resource. I was reading through previous years forums and some people mentioned that their application was “Under Committee Review” . I just checked my application and it simply states “Submitted”. Should I be freaking out? Or is anyone else in same boat? Please reply because I am on the verge of freaking out.
Good luck to everyone! (:
@Kpcosmic your story is very moving and I pray you win this scholarship
This may sound awkward but the best time in my life has been the most difficult times. I learned some vital life lessons that cannot be learned from books or professors and today those lessons strengthen and define who I am. Lets rejoice in our difficulties for nothing is permanent. @ Kpcosmic anything that has beginning has an end, one day one day there will be a home and a better life for you, just keep the spirit of perseverance, hard work and determination. I immigrated from Africa and life is not not easy, just as you describe your situation, you remind me of hard memories.
@Corado123 My application status is also “Submitted.” I know that they have looked at my application, though, because they e-mailed me on February 24th. They needed me to re-submit my father’s taxes (not sure why; they didn’t give any sort of explanation). I would be interested to see if anyone else’s application status is different.
Mine says submitted
Mine also says submitted. From what I understand, the “Under Committee Review” thing on the application was because students used to had to be nominated by their schools in order to get the scholarship and there were two phases to the application. That’s why it is mentioned in the old threads regarding the scholarship application.
Maybe it’s just wishful thinking but I don’t think that it’s something to worry about.
@georgemk There are many JKCF scholars who have immigrated from other countries, their volunteer/community service work from there appears to have counted. I urge all of you not to place emphasis on what you read in threads from past years, the application process changed for 2015. The same goes for logging in to the JKCF site, it may say “submitted” forever so don’t let that worry you. Each of you has such an amazing story, so inspiring! I imagine that all of you will be so very successful in life because of your motivation to succeed. I would love to hear what each of you plan to do with your lives after college. How will you make this world a better place?
Thank you @georgemk, I agree with you. I am very grateful for the hard time I have gone through and am going through, because they gave me the compassion and empathy that I have for those in poverty. I’m a social work major who wants to devote my life to helping domestic violence victims in need of shelter and other services.
I also agree with @greekgirl2005, I think the work you did in Africa will definitely count and won’t be disregarded. You sound like an amazing person and I hope to be able to hear more about your story.
@cmbradley2015 Taking a year off unfortunately isn’t an option for me. I’m a pediatric nurse working for technology-dependent infants in low-income homes. If I’m not there, a family goes without help, and a child potentially has to be moved into medical foster care because there is no one qualified available to offer support and respite (these kids need 24 hour care, and I take over so Moms can sleep/pay bills/get groceries, etc). For one particular family, the three days a week I spend with their daughter is the ONLY respite they get, and I am the only nurse willing to go out to their rural location. These are all low-income, usually immigrant families without any options, so it’s incredibly difficult to walk away. Either I get this shot and devote myself fully to school, or I try to piecemeal together a degree over the course of many years. I can’t sit by and twiddle my thumbs just to be “poor enough” on paper to get pell grant money/extra aid.
@greekgirl2005 I am currently a pediatric LPN (licensed practical nurse), but I want to be both a nurse practitioner and a nursing professor. I really want to change the way nursing is taught and help develop/evolve nursing curriculum as it stands today (ie, what is learned in school is so different from actual practice that a degree means less every day in this field, and 1/3 of nurses leave the field within 5 years often because of problems with interpersonal communication/stress/bullying). I really, really want to push for a standardized level of care in home health nursing, because it is frighteningly unregulated and lacks an educational component despite being an exploding field (I’ve seen kids almost die because of nonexistant training and lack of supervision of new nurses in the field).
@kpcosmic i hope we all win so that we can meet in Virginia to share our stories and to lift each other up @greekgirl2005 thanks for helping us to cope with the waiting anxiety, I am planning to become a public health epidemiologist (disease control), I grew up in a village where there were no basic health facilities, no education, or even immunization for children, I witness the death of many childhood friends and families, I left the village to attend school in a nearby town, In Ghana primary and senior high schools are not free neither do we have any scholarship or loan opportunities, at age 7, I started doing construction jobs, farming and other hard labor jobs to pay for my fees, at the same time i stated volunteering with a small government clinic, taking vaccines to hard to reach rural villages, walking for miles to immunize children under five and give some health talk on basic hygiene practices. I latter completed a two year certificate program in community health because I could not afford to attend college. After my two year program I volunteer with different health organizations supervising immunization teams, malaria prevention programs and providing free health care to people living in rural areas. I also founded an HIV/AIDS club with an American peace corpse volunteer in high schools helping vulnerable teenage girls to learn and protect themselves from this disease. Because of poverty in Africa, many teenage girls in high schools get into prostitution usually ending up with HIV or unplanned pregnancy. This club was a life saving club for many.
This is where I develop the interest in public health epidemiology. My goal is to get back to Africa after earning all the needed education and knowledge in public health to help improve the health of people living in rural villages, I am looking into forming a foundation that will open doors for public health students in America and around the world to volunteer in local Ghanaian villages. In Ghana many people just die from disease that could easily be prevented such as cholera.
A little biography; my dad had 7 wives with 32 children and I am the youngest, he passed away when I was 5. Out of the 32 I am the first to attend college. There were times my mom could not even afford one meal a day for us, life was as hard as it could be to say the least. But I am thankful for the opportunity to go through those challenges for they define my personality today.