about Bama: We had never been to the state before we visited the college; but honestly, it’s been great for my S20; hospitable, full of opportunities; and has lots of school spirit. your kid might like it; the price is right. My D23 is really looking at it; although i want her to stay closer to home.
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My husband went there many years ago. Loved it, had to transfer out because it was too much of a party school 
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She will have more support than a public school kiddo, and possibly better LOR’s or at least more personal ones, as the school environment lends itself to teachers really getting to know the students. But not really to the hand holding degree. More like occasional emails on what the next steps should be. She still hasn’t written any essays or finished her arts supplement video, or even finalized the list.
Syracuse Law alum here. It is a fantastic school with a great campus and college town. Just very, very snowy. 
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Thank you! For my D23 it’s the more snow the better. I suspect for us Syracuse will end up being too expensive but there is a shot and I think it’s OK for D23 to take a couple shots. She’s got plenty of safeties on her list.
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I wish her the best of luck!!
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Hi- how did you determine what scholarships were real and what were scams? I am worried about entering information only for it to be a scam. Any advice you can offer? Thanks
23 has a list. Schools will probably be added here and there.
The main essay is 99% done if we can just get 23 to upload it to Common App instead of continuing to tweak it.
It’s tricky to align TE schools / schools that offer merit with schools 23 actually wants to attend.
23 needs to finish AP summer work, train for sports, and finish an online class. We decided to postpone take 2 of the SAT to the fall.
23 won an award at work for writing as part of a contest between different store locations. As a result, 23’s store won a prize that everyone was able to enjoy. Quite fun and I’ll be adding that to the college brag list!
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I’ve seen a suggestion to open a new email account just for scholarships. That way, if you end up on a “list” (even some legit ones seem to send emails constantly), at least it won’t be flooding your main email account. For ones that seem questionable, like a monthly drawing, if they don’t require a lot, we go ahead and apply.
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If they were not local, county or state-based non-profits, we researched the sponsoring organization to confirm that they were indeed legit, AND that their web site actually DID have information about the scholarship and past-year awards.
So many HS seniors are burned out from writing all those college applications, in addition to any essays for their classes, that very many can‘t/won‘t be bothered for applying to scholarships their heritage, family connections, parents jobs, career aspirations qualify them for.
In fact, I served in the review committee for two organizations and it was surprising how we didn‘t have sufficient applicants until the very last day.
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What are some good resources for finding legitimate college scholarships?
Application submitted: The first complete college application is in! You may recall that D23 (along with a few others represented here) did the Montclair State pre-application a couple months ago, which guarantees acceptance but only on condition of turning in an actual application later. But her first actual application is in to Middle Tennessee; they require official transcripts and score reports and all, and so those have been ordered.
But this is new for me: When submitting the MTSU application through the Common App (which turned out to be much simpler to fill out than their in-house application, quite the reverse of my usual experience), the last screen before payment said that submitting the CA essay to MTSU is optional, and so D23 and i had to make an explicit decision on whether to submit it or not. There were a couple colleges D17 and D19 applied to that simply didn’t take the CA essay, but this is the first one I’d seen where it was an explicit option. We went with no (she’s a strong candidate for being invited to apply to their honors program, and that requires a couple essays so it makes sense to hold the topic of the CA essay in reserve), but I’m curious what others’ thoughts are about whether it’s worth submitting the essay when the CA essay is explicitly optional. (And I guess it could make a difference whether it’s a college like MTSU where D23 is guaranteed stats-based admission, and a selective college with the option, too.) Thoughts?
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My thinking on “optional” in the Common App is that it shouldn’t be viewed as optional.
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We were wondering the same thing about UMN. The Common App says that this essay is optional. The in-house application (Golden Gopher) doesn’t have any way to include this essay (unless I am missing something).
is there a spot of the essay on the school’s application portal?
we’ve had our kids apply to plenty of public schools looking for merit. i’ve not seen any of them require an essay. I wouldnt worry about it for applications; just for special department scholarships etc. down the road.
** i think colorado school of mines said he could submit an essay if he wanted; he didnt; received merit in line with every one else that season (from the forums here on CC; lots of people reported merit for COS that year).
Anyone else experience this?
D did a virtual info Q&A session with a top school that she has seen in person last summer for a self-guided tour(but wants more info to decide if it stays on the list). After the live Q&A she got an email with a link to take a virtual tour, which was great! But then it asked her SAT /ACT/ uw gpa (!!) as well as name, DOB, and area of interest before directing her to a tour. Lots of online stuff has asked demographics and interests, but none have ever asked for scores and grades. Hers are outstanding, but it just was very surprising. They don’t give merit or anything like that–it’s a school in the ivy league.
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D23 is applying to a few public schools that ask for a personal statement.
I would think they are trying to ID target students as early as possible? Not like they need to recruit though…
They do - for specific types of students they’re in need of (and hence the likely letters for certain applicants).
But nevertheless, haven’t come across what @2Devils mentioned.
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Ok, that is what I thought too and tbh it would not have surprised me from a merit-offering T50 as much as from this school. Well her scores are very high and her gpa is perfect so if they up their email game a lot after this, I will wonder if it they are trying to get her to finish the app due to being a high stats kid? Her other demographics aren’t too interesting, frankly. There are definitely ivies/etc that have sent much more email and snail mail than this one to date, so maybe they just do more specific targeting? Or maybe they will track scores and compare to the actual app? Kidding really-- I doubt a school would do that, but it sure would be funny. There was no button to “skip” the score/gpa part.