<p>hey I'm currently a high school senior and all my friends are starting to apply for scholarships and grants but I don't really know what I'm doing. Should I be looking for scholarships? Should I be applying to different loans? What should I do right now??</p>
<p>Scholarships! Get started ASAP.</p>
<p>how!?!? What should I do!??</p>
<p>if you're talking about outside scholarships, pay a visit to your high school's guidance office and ask for a list/brochure/document of scholarships that the school is aware of. There will be scholarships that are offered by local businesses, charitable and civic organizations, booster clubs, alumni groups, etc. Research for other local ones on the web. Those local scholarships are your best bets. For outside scholarships that are offered nationally, there are plenty of resources on the web, including threads here on cc, and scholarship websites like fastweb. A few scholarships have early deadlines that fall in the last quarter of the year, but many of them generally have deadlines that happen after your college application deadlines. </p>
<p>For college-sponsored scholarships, check out the websites of your target colleges, comb the threads here on cc (search for terms like merit aid, full-ride, full tuition, scholarships, etc.) and many of the posts will point you in the right direction. </p>
<p>good luck with your scholarship quest, swordmaster.</p>
<p>check out fastweb.com</p>
<p>once you make a free account, they have many many scholarships available for you based on the information you put in, such as where you are, your ethnic background, your parents background, income and major, among many other factors. they only show the scholarships that you will be eligible for according to what you put in.</p>
<p>it has proved really helpful for me, and i hope it does for you too!</p>
<p>-tiffany-</p>