<p>I'm going into my freshmen year this August with no scholarships and an enormous amount of loans. I called my university's financial aid office and was informed that scholarships are not awarded to sophomores, juniors and seniors after their freshmen year. </p>
<p>Are there other opportunities to obtain scholarships next year? I'm dedicated to working hard this year and I wouldn't mind doing anything extra during the year to become eligible for sophomore scholarships.</p>
<p>Does you school award FA based on need or merit? IF your shool only offeres need based FA unless you have a major change in your financial situation youcan expect to get the same type of package year over year. If your school has informed you that your chances for getting scholarship $$ are nil, beleive them and hopefully start trying to get outside scholarships.</p>
<p>The financial aid awarded to me from the school are slim. I took a third-party loan out and am looking for these <em>outside</em> scholarships for next year. Do you know of any in particular?</p>
<p>Typically prime time to get college scholarships is when you're a senior applying to college and when you're a rising senior in college and can get scholarships sponsored by your department or by companies hoping to support future hires.. The pickings between those times are slim.</p>
<p>Do they exist at all - and if so, where should I start looking?</p>
<p>Instead of taking out enormous loans for freshman year while knowing that your school doesn't give scholarships to sophs, juniors or seniors, you'd be better off taking a year off, working and applying to colleges that are more affordable.</p>
<p>You could also go to community college for 2 years and then transfer to an affordable college.</p>
<p>The opportunity cost of missing college for a year is much higher than the cost of me going right now. I do not mind paying back the loans after I graduate - as I am sure my school will give me the kind of job I need to tackle the costs. </p>
<p>All I want to know is if there are third-party scholarships I can apply for in my sophomore year.</p>
<p>There are very few scholarships that one can apply for during soph or freshman year. That's because once students get into college, most of the outside scholarships are funded by corporations or associations wanting to support students who will enter certain fields. Students change majors so much that such organizations wait until the students have a strong demonstrated interest in their major before providing support to them. "Strong demonstrated interest" means being juniors since at that late date most students stick with their majors.</p>
<p>Use fastweb.com to find out what's available and ask your college's financial aid office.</p>
<p>Walden, </p>
<p>I have been searching for scholarship opportunities for my daughter who just finished a very successful freshman year. We receive no financial aid, and she received two very small outside scholarships that are renewable every year. I guess I had always hoped that once she had "proven" herself with outstanding freshman grades that maybe she would finally get some type of merit aid/scholarship. After contacting her college's fin. aid office, I found out that there is nothing available to the older students.</p>
<p>I feel that a lot of the merit scholarships go to the kids from the prestigious high schools who have had more opportunities than the other students to "shine" with national/international competitions, etc. I knew that my daughter was extremely capable, but she came from a small public high school and was never even considered for one of the major scholarships as far as I know. Her only chance to "shine" for a merit scholarship was going to come after spending her freshman year at the college. </p>
<p>We had saved enough money for her to be able to attend a state school all four years. One year at her private university and a summer abroad study have just about depleted those savings. We will do what it takes to keep her where she is (and we will succeed at that), but it surely would be wonderful to find some scholarship opportunities to help finance her education - especially since she has performed so well.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, I will check fastweb.com to see what's available for her. She will be home from her study abroad in another week, and I'll get her searching then, as well.</p>
<p>Walden, ParentOfTeen:
You may want to look into the Carpe Diem scholarships ( do an internet search for 'Carpe Diem scholarship' to find their website). There is a $12.50 application fee, and it appears to be very competitive - they handed out 17 scholarships for $2000-$5000 in 2004. You can be an undergrad and still apply.</p>
<p><em>DISCLAIMER</em> I make no claims as to how good/bad/kosher this scholarship is. It just happens to be one of those I ran across while I was searching for scholarships for D2 last year.</p>
<p>Outside scholarships beyond freshman year are hard unless you're a community college transfer or fall into a "special" category.</p>