<p>My senior daughter is in the midst of her college apps and I told her I'd do some preliminary research for her on a list of external scholarships she might apply to for next year (and beyond). I realize we've already passed some of the deadlines, but thought some of the folks here might have some suggestions for us that might still be viable.</p>
<p>Her passions are global affairs and languages. She wants to study international relations and has already applied ED to Columbia University. The other schools on her list are: Georgetown, Penn, Yale, Princeton, American, Tufts and Northeastern.</p>
<p>She's got a GPA of 4.52, 2280 SATS, 5s in AP courses: Calculus BC, European History, US History, Studio Art, French Lit and a few others. Her SAT II scores are in the 700s. She completed her schools French program, has won French awards, and is studying French lit independently, is taking Spanish in school, Arabic with a tutor. She participated in a French immersion/international relations program through Tufts in France summer after sophomore year and was selected to study Arabic in Morocco last summer via NSLI-Y. She is a second degree black belt and has been teaching martial arts for 5 years. Her hobbies are dance and photography. Her main leadership activities has been in her role as a martial arts teacher in her dojo.</p>
<p>My daughter is a strong essay writer and would definitely interview well.</p>
<p>Our family will get some need-based aid (I know from having applied for son who is a junior in college), but my daughter would like to apply for scholarships to see if she can help and possibly prevent the need for loans.</p>
<p>I went on the Scholarship.com website and found it overwhelming--and also the choices they made for her bore little fruit. I'm open to any suggestions--whether to good sites to research from or for specific scholarship opportunities.</p>
<p>Her best chance will be with local scholarships, which her HS GC should be able to tell her about. However, the vast majority of these are for relatively small amounts and are not renewable.</p>
<p>The best merit awards come directly from colleges that award them. As you know…MOST of the schools on her list do not give merit awards. American and Northeastern do. Any chance she is a NMF? If so, she would receive a very generous award from Northeastern.</p>
<p>I agree with entomom about local scholarships. They usually are smaller and for one year only. But every penny counts! Check with the HS guidance office, and keep an eye out in your local newspaper.</p>
<p>She does not have an obvious safety (American and Northeastern consider “level of applicant’s interest” – a signal that they do not like being used as safeties and may reject or waitlist high stats applicants). You and she may want to consider adding a safety that she is assured of admission to, and assured of being able to afford without speculative outside scholarships, unless starting at the local open admission community college is an acceptable safety for her.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus, thanks for the heads up…we’ll take another look at the issue of a safety for her. her counselor had seemed to think American and Northeastern were enough for her, but I appreciate your warning that it may not be so.</p>
<p>I agree with other posters that local scholarships are a good bet. </p>
<p>My English teacher had all 4 of her children apply to college in the past few years and told us that we should look at the websites for nearby high schools. Counselors often put local scholarships up on the website for students, so you can find a bunch of local scholarships the counselor at your high school might not be aware of. I’ve found the majority of my local scholarships with this method. </p>
<p>I also google “(name of business) scholarship” for just about every business I see. Lots of big companies have scholarships. I’ve also googled the names of a lot of companies that hire engineers and finance/economics grads since those are the majors I’m considering, and I’ve found a quite a few good options, so I’d suggest doing that with majors your daughter is interested in.</p>