Scholarhips: What Parents Should Tell Their Kids About Them

Parent Cafe
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<p>A few days ago, the parent of a local high school student asked me at one of my workshops if her student was on the right track applying to scholarships. She explained that her daughter devotes 10 to 15 hours per week indentifying the most lucrative scholarships online and applies to the ones she qualifies for. Some of these scholarships require multiple essays, multiple recommendation letters, a resume, official transcripts and a student interview. She said they applied to about seven good scholarships per week. </p>

<p>I first congratulated her on raising and nurturing such a motivated student and told her that I was extremely impressed with the drive, however although they were putting a tremendous effort into applying for scholarships, their efforts are not likely to produce the end result that they are actually looking for. </p>

<p>The truth is that her daughter was not applying to anywhere near the amount of scholarships that she needed to ensure that they were going to have enough money to go to the list of schools her daughter wanted to attend. </p>

<p>Her response was, “How? She has class work and AP exams. She’s the president of two school clubs. She’s on the cross country team. She needs time to improve her SAT scores and fill out the college applications.” </p>

<p>I still remember the frustration. And I’ll admit this student is far above average and extremely motivated. Sadly, students and parents like this will often have all the ambition, work fiercely, but lack basic information they need to accomplish their goals. I completely understand. </p>

<p>Here is my answer this question: first, I do encourage applying to private scholarships, especially from local foundations. A private scholarship is free money awarded to a student by a non-profit organization, business, trust or estate. On the contrary, I do notice that many families get caught into the common pitfall of thinking that a private scholarship is the key to making college affordable for the family and devote far too much time to it. Everyone thinks that because they’re applying to countless scholarships, they’re bound to get enough money for college if they just apply to enough of them. </p>

<p>In my opinion private scholarships are not the best places to start when looking free money for college. If you consider all the sources, you’ll notice most of the money comes from the federal and state government and the colleges. In fact only 5-7% of all free money given out college bound students comes from private scholarships. </p>

<p>The federal government disbursed over 19 billion dollars in grants for higher education last year. The colleges also typically award between 14 and 23 billion dollars each year to students from their own endowment funds , and the State of California awards another one billion dollars in Cal Grants each year to students going to schools in California. </p>

<p>Fasteweb.com, which is the top source for online scholarships, advertises only 3.3 billion dollars in scholarships on their site. And so many families fight over that 5-7% of the pie, when there are so many places to get the money they need to send their child for college. Furthermore, many of the private scholarships are not four year awards or do not nearly cover the cost of attendance at any college. </p>

<p>If you’re applying to private scholarships because you think the federal government, colleges and the State of California categorize you as high income, I still suggest you reassess your situation because this is probably not true. And even if your family is very affluent there are still better ways to use your time to get more money for college. </p>

<p>What is the alternative? Instead of budgeting all this time finding and applying to private scholarships online, budget some of that time to finding schools that are generous with financial aid. </p>

<p>We’ll discuss more next week.</p>

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<p>7 scholarship apps a week!</p>

<p>That poor child…it’s another EC, timewise, but she can’t put it on her college apps!</p>

<p>I agree–find the schools that are generous with finaid and apply to a few that fit.</p>

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<p>It only makes sense. Most private foundations/groups offer only one or two scholarships per year. But there are myriad organizations out there. A typical college may award dozens of scholarships of varying amounts. It’s just not worth the time spent.</p>

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<p>I feel bad for the GC and the teachers she is asking for reccomendations. I’m sure some can be recycled, but not all. Seven sets of rec’s and transcripts weekly…I’m pretty sure they all cringe when they see her coming!</p>

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<p>I think that you are correct on all points, tramos. Looking for schools that give merit money is a much better way to spend time. When my daughter went through the process, she applied for about four of the private scholarships. I thought that she would be a strong candidate for two of them, but she received none. She and I were thrilled that she had not wasted any more time on those. Additionally, the scholarships were not need based, but two of them were from organizations that would know our income (one our credit union and another a military award where rank would give a good idea about income). Even though they did not specify that they were need based, I wondered how that might have impacted awards.</p>

<p>As it turned out, my daughter accepted a merit scholarship and really did not need the private money. If she had selected a higher cost school, she would not have known about the private scholarships until long past the May 1 commitment date. In my mind, that is another problem with many of the private scholarships.</p>

<p>The Internet has increased the applicant pool significantly for most of these scholarships IMO. I wonder how much money goes unclaimed these days.</p>

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<p>The student in question would be better off applying to 7 scholarships total and working 15 hours a week (and most of all, being careful about which colleges she applies to and getting good SAT/ACT scores to go with her good grades).</p>

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<p>I agree with bchan1. If the kid has time to complete all those applications - she has time to get a part-time job. My D has definitely earned more working 20 hr a week than she ever would have gotten from private scholarships. Plus, she applied to schools at which we knew she would qualify for merit scholarships. Worked for us!</p>

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<p>Also, remember that any private harvested scholarships will likely reduce the amount of need based aid that is awarded by the college. </p>

<p>If money is that tight, maybe she should consider a cheaper college?</p>

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<p>Most of the private scholaships in our area are $500 - some are $250 and some are $1000, non-renewable. So to pay for 4 years at a state school, one would need to get between 64-128 such scholarships.</p>

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<p>OP, I fear you are a vendor, this being your first post and all, and that next week you are going to offer your services as a consultant.</p>

<p>But good topic.</p>