New to Scholarships and Struggling

<p>Hello! I am a junior transitioning into my senior year just now beginning to look into scholarships. I was hoping some of you could help me out. I searched up some threads with key words, but I could not find any definitive answers to questions as specific as mine, so I decided to make a new thread. I would appreciate some help. </p>

<p>I am looking on websites such as FastWeb, <a href="http://www.scholarships.com"&gt;www.scholarships.com&lt;/a>, and other miscellaneous websites. </p>

<p>What are the big, important scholarships?</p>

<p>Fast Web is suggesting me a bunch of scholarships, such as $500 for submitting an essay on why tattoo-removal is detrimental to society. Or, a $10,000 for posting a picture with you and your friend wearing "Thumb Socks" to promote safe driving. These scholarships sound nothing like anything I have been taught about scholarship application processes. These sound like trivial tasks similar to those side quests in video games where the stipend is hardly significant but still requires slight effort to achieve. </p>

<p>I want to be a computer engineer. I would like some help, useful links, and other cool resources that help in finding scholarships related to my career, or require academic achievement to acquire the scholarship. </p>

<p>Also, another question. Those scholarships say, "due July 17". Since I am going off to college next fall, not this fall, does that date apply to me? In other words, should I start furiously purchasing thumb socks NOW to get the money, or should I do it next year? (just an example, I don't intend on actually running around with "thumb socks") </p>

<p>Thanks guys. I hope I get a lot of replies on this; I need it. </p>

<p>Most merit-based scholarships are from the school that you’ll be attending</p>

<p>The very best scholarships are awarded by the colleges. You should look on the college websites for schools you are interested in. See what you need to do to apply for scholarships at those schools.</p>

<p>There is a thread…automatic full tuition/full ride scholarships" at the top of this forum. You will need to check to see if the awards still exist…but check to see if your academic stats put you in the running for any of those.</p>

<p>@4kidsdad‌ @thumper1‌ Thanks guys. What if I don’t get into the college I want to get into? So, say, Carnegie Mellon. If I apply by October, when would I apply for those college-specific scholarships? It seems rather redundant to furiously apply for those scholarships and then not even get accepted into the college.</p>

<p>So, “merit based scholarships” and “best scholarships” are offered by the colleges themselves, but the trivial activities such as the thumb sock and drug awareness contest scholarships are also important, correct? I remember hearing jokes from college students along the lines of “in college, you’re going to need every cent. Go for any and every scholarship. They’re free money.” </p>

<p>Um…it’s not a waste of time to apply for,the school based scholarships. Most of those are for all four years usually by maintaining a certain GPA. Those fast web scholarships are one time awards in most cases. Plus, we’ve known kids who have applied to HUNDREDS of fast web scholarships and received wither nothing or very little…but they got excellent merit awards from their colleges.</p>

<p>A lot (maybe most?) of the school based scholarships require no extra work at all–your application itself places you in the running. And in the case of the automatic scholarships that are based solely on GPA’s and test scores, you’ll know at the time you apply if you will receive one–they truly are “automatic”. The University of Alabama is one school that is often mentioned here as offering very generous automatic scholarships. </p>

<p>As far as other “big, important” scholarships are concerned, a lot of national competitions are listed at the top of this forum or mentioned in the “other scholarships” discussion there, but these are highly competitive and won by the cream of the crop of seniors. Your best sources for smaller, less competitive one-time awards are local organizations and companies. Usually your school guidance office will have a list of these, and they will have varying criteria and application processes. For example, in my town an annual scholarship was established in memory of a student athlete who died young. The criteria for the award were leadership, good academics, and sportsmanship, and the application included several essays. Another annual scholarship in my area is awarded by a theater solely on the basis of an essay on a performing arts-related topic. When going after local awards, you are competing with far fewer applicants and have a far better chance of succeeding, provided you choose your targets carefully and put serious effort into the process.</p>

<p>Why don’t you give some more information on your situation. Do you need funds for 4 years? What if your EFC?</p>

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<p>I dont think you are looking at this right.</p>

<p>You are not going to get much/anything from these private scholarships for essays…they are often a total waste of time. You might get 1500 for ONE year. that is not going to pay for college.</p>

<p>how much will your family pay for college? </p>

<p>CMU will be your reach/match school. It may or may not give you money, so even if you get in, if you dont have the funds, you cant go…so you need to have financial safety schools.</p>

<p>Look at it this way…if your family can contribute $15k per year, then you will need a full tuition scholarship…and that would come from a school.</p>

<p>so, that would mean that you would need to know FOR SURE that your safety schools will give you free tuition for your stats.</p>

<p>what are your stats? are you going to retest? take both the SAT and ACT.</p>

<p>Yup, @mom2collegekids and other posters have it right. Outside scholarships are a lot of work, usually for very little gain. You aren’t going to pay for a college like CMU with them. The big outside scholarships are VERY competitive, with thousands of students applying and typically students with very high stats (and maybe hooks of some kind) getting them. You might have some luck with smaller local ones, but they are typically one year and a drop in the bucket of what you need. My advice is to see if any organizations you are part offer scholarships and apply for those (scouting, 4H, etc.) or whether any community groups like Lions Clubs or something like that have any. Ask the guidance counselor at your school if they have a list of scholarships other students have gotten locally from your school.</p>

<p>But if you need merit aid, your main source by far is the colleges you apply to. And merit aid goes to kids in the top portion of the statistics pool. So suppose you want to go to Carnegie Mellon for a CS major, and you have a good shot at getting in. Another school you might look at that offers better merit money and is strong in the CS major is Case Western.</p>

<p>To investigate the merit aid situation for a given school, start by looking at their financial aid webpage. They will likely list any merit aid scholarships available.through the college. See if they have any special application requirements – for example, Kenyon requires you to get your regular decision application in earlier than the normal RD date to be considered for merit scholarships. But what you can’t usually tell from the web page is how many students get the merit scholarships and sometimes the dollar amounts aren’t shown. So your next stop is the Common Data Set for the college (Google “<college name=”"> Common Data Set). There are two sections in there that will interest you: one shows how many students got merit aid and the average amount, and the other is the section showing the standardized test score ranges of students who got in. You need to assume test scores at least in the top 25% range (and higher for the bigger scholarships). And assume you probably won’t get more than the average need award.</college></p>

<p>Note that if you are eligible for need based aid, many colleges will REDUCE portions of the need based aid they give you by any merit scholarships you receive. Policies differ by college, and I find they are not easy to find on the college websites. You may need to contact each college financial aid office to see how they handle it – and don’t be confused or intimidated if they use terms you don’t understand to describe how they handle it. Keep asking questions until you do understand.</p>

<p>So… go ahead and put on your thumbsocks if you want. But look into local scholarships, and most importantly really push yourself to your best grades next fall and the best standardized test scores you can achieve. That is where the money is.</p>

<p>First of all, I commend you for looking into these things on your own. I had to practically put a bat to my kids heads to make them do the research, and still they only did so because I goose stepped them through the process. They also did not get much return from the efforts. But it’s like the lottery, you gotta play to win. You should get familiar with what’ s out there and hone in on the ones that you are most likely to get and also the big ticket ones if it looks like you are in the running. Someone wins them, so you might as well give it a go. </p>

<p>However, as others have said, most scholarships come from the schools themselves and you have to get accepted to be in the running for them. When it comes to sizeable awards, you need to see if a college even offers them or offers enough of them so there is decent chance you qualify. If you are really a candidate that is greatly uncertain for acceptance for Duke University, for example, and it’s the most selective school you’ve picke and you are lighting candles and know it will be a stretch for you to be accepted, the chances of you getting their very few merit awards is about zilch. Those most often go to kids who also applied to HPY et al as peer schools and feel those are their “matches”. International students, in particular, should check if they even are eligible for merit and financial aid at schools on their lists. Waste of time when your chances are zero and you need the money. For US students, it’s also important to know what awards a college has and if it’s even fighting chance to be eligible. </p>

<p>I’m discussing merit money, right now, not financial aid. That is a whole other story. And that is something you should investigate too. What do colleges expect your family to pay, and what you may get from colleges in fin aid, and how it integrates with merit money.</p>

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<p>Many of these college-specific scholarships dont require much work…some dont even require an essay. Often the awards are just based largely or solely on stats. My kids’ undergrad gives assured large awards for high stats.</p>

<p>At our school awards ceremony, several students got small scholarships, in the $300-$1000 range. Some came from organizations the people were already involved with (women in county government, the Elks Club). There were a few from the Marines which I think the kids were nominated for by someone at the school. One award was from the Bar Association for making a video about a pamphlet the Bar puts out about how the laws change when you become a legal adult. I don’t think it was a lot of money, but I think the students had a good time making the video.</p>

<p>Most of these aren’t big money, but my daughter’s friend probably got $2000 that night from different groups. She got $500 for designing a poster, $400 from a women’s leadership group, something from NHS for outstanding participation. I wish my daughter had received even one of these, as it’s free money. So what if it is only for one year?</p>

<p>To the OP, look locally for these smaller award. Even if you get a big merit award from your university, these smaller awards can help with books, travel and miscellaneous expenses.</p>

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<p>Nothing wrong with that. But a lot of kids scramble to scratch together enough for ONE year of college, but paying for college is a marathon, not a sprint. They need a plan to pay for four years, not just make a dent in the first year. Time is better spent finding affordable colleges in the first place, being smart about applying to colleges were merit is available and likely, and studying for standardized tests to raise stats to get that money that then helps them across their full four years. Far more productive than picking through a bunch of $250 or $500 scholarship opportunities that might take several hours of work to apply for.</p>

<p>Ask your guidance counselor about local scholarships that are available to graduating students. Like twoinanddone said, they add up. My daughter had several that were awarded as cash gifts at graduation, but two were renewable local scholarships that were quite generous, and she got them for three and four years of college. </p>

<p>In addition, do your parent’s employers or other organizations they might belong to offer scholarships? My daughter received a very generous 4-year scholarship from the grocery store that I was moonlighting for when she was a high school senior.</p>

<p>And look at that list of guaranteed merit aid, especially at Alabama.</p>

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So what if it is only for one year?
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<p>Nothing, as long as these are the icing on a cake that is already paid for. Every year we see kids/families that never fully mentally processed that those one year awards will go away…and suddenly the school isn’t affordable for year two. Either they thought new awards would be found the following years or they weren’t thinking beyond one year.</p>

<p>these awards should be viewed like a job’s overtime pay… nice to have, but never used to figure if an ongoing cost (such as a high mortgage) is affordable.</p>

<p>Affordable schools should be found first (affordable thru family funds and/or renewable merit/aid)…and then these other awards can cover be a nice extra.</p>

<p>Besides…if some of these awards aren’t even given until the end of senior year, then knowing what you have by May 1st decision time isn’t possible.</p>

<p>There are other scholarships that may be available for years 2-4, or other ways to help pay for college. My daughter hopes to be an RA, saving me $10k the second year, and more than replacing the $2000 one year award she’s got this year. Other daughter will apply to scholarships available to upper classmen. I think there are more of these ‘one year’ scholarships available through the schools for years 2-4. My co-worker’s sons go to USC and have received more awards as they’ve progressed through school. </p>

<p>All of my daughters’ awards are technically ‘one year’ as they have to meet gpa requirements or other conditions to keep them. D-1 has a talent award and she needs to re-audition every year. D-2 must continue to play her sport, and keep her grades up. One of D-2’s grants is dependent on me living in the state, and that’s likely to change. If/when it does, she’ll look for other money to replace it. Doesn’t mean I don’t want the money this year.</p>

<p>We are definitely on the ‘pay as you go/adjust as you go’ plan. </p>

<p>I do agree with not spending too much time on the applications if the ROI isn’t there. Often the time and money would be better spent buying a lottery ticket, but some scholarship apps are worth it.</p>

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I agree. It’s pointless for you apply for scholarships if you’re not very very well qualified for the the school. For example, see Carnegie Mellon’s SAT Scores and Admissions Data <a href=“Carnegie Mellon: Acceptance Rate, SAT/ACT Scores, GPA”>http://collegeapps.about.com/od/collegeprofiles/p/Carnegie_Mellon.htm&lt;/a&gt;; if your scores are not well above the 75th Percentile, you shouldn’t apply because you won’t be sure that you’ll be awarded with scholarships.</p>

<p>Go for those outside scholarships, knowing that the chance of actually receiving one is negligible. But sit down with your parents over the summer and talk about money. Find your EFC. Ask how much they can realistically pay each year. Remember that cost will go up 4-10% each of college. Then find schools who will meet that price either through merit or financial aid. Actually, find some of each kind that you like, and have your major.</p>

<p>If you post your Scores and GPA, people here can help you find merit opportunities. When you find out EFC and amount your parents can pay we can help you with that also. Don’t be one of those kids next April who can’t afford any of the schools they were accepted to.</p>

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<p>Better, run the net price calculators for each school. Most schools expect you to pay more than the FAFSA EFC.</p>