<p>Hi, everybody! I was wondering what good scholarships I am eligible to apt for if I come from a middle-class family (combined my parents income is roughly $100, 000+). Even though we have enough money to live comfortably, I have two sisters and we will all be in college at the same time (right now we are 17, 16, 14). I'm worried about paying for college because my older sister really wants to go to college in California which will be super pricy for my parents! Any suggestions for good scholarships to apply for? Thanks a ton for your time!</p>
<p>Get the very best grades and SAT or ACT scores possible, and then hope you qualify for merit aid awarded directly by a college.</p>
<p>Re: your sister going to college in CA…if you are OOS for CA, she is either going to be paying OOS rates at a public university, or high costs at a private university in CA…neither is going to be a bargain.</p>
<p>If your sister is a NMF, she may get a scholarship from USC. Unless your parents have a very deep pocket and saved a lot for education, it would be hard to afford OOS CoA even for one kid if there is no significant merit aid.</p>
<p>All three of you need to find out from your parents what the price limit they will contribute for each of your college costs will be. Then you know what kind of net price after financial aid and scholarships you need to target.</p>
<p>For need based aid, be sure to run the net price calculators with the various scenarios involving one, two, and three in college.</p>
<p>I’m dealing with this issue now as well. Have been looking at private scholarships on ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ and the other scholarship aggregators. Most recent one I found was zoomita.com…wonder what that’s about? Obviously the chances of winning these types of scholarships are lower, but they tend to have streamlined applications and I figure it can’t hurt to spend a day firing a few off and seeing if I can pick up some cash. Good luck.</p>
<p>Hi!</p>
<p>I was in a similar situation to you not that long ago! </p>
<p>In my experience, the best scholarships are the ones that you find from colleges. The ones you get from sites like Fastweb and Zoomita are easy to apply for but they are a (pardonnez my French) a crap-shoot! It is like walking around outside for a few hours looking for bags of abandoned cash or rare jewels lying in the street that you can pawn. I am not saying “don’t do it”, I am saying, that should be your “Plan B” or probably even your “Plan D”.</p>
<p>Plan A:</p>
<p>Now, if you look at merit scholarships provided by colleges, many of them are more reasonable in terms of time commitment vs. reward. Many of them cover full tuition or full need depending on your status as a student and they are more… “transparent” is a word. With some, you automatically qualify for it if you have a certain GPA, SAT score, etc. With others, it’s not automatic but you can see that you will likely qualify if you are/would be a top student at that school. </p>
<p>I would spend the majority of your time looking at such scholarships first since they are the most reliable, will give you the most amount of money, etc. </p>
<p>Plan B:</p>
<p>Next, I would look at scholarships that are offered locally to you. For instance, your parents might work at a company that provides scholarship assistance as a perk. Or you might belong to a club, church, that sponsors scholarships. These might not be for a lot of money (not as much as a full-ride to a good school like Bama or anything, but still pretty good). These are good because they are also reasonably transparent and because you are not competing with everyone and their pet poodle for the same money!</p>
<p>Plan… whatever:</p>
<p>After you have exhausted such opportunities, then I would look towards Fastweb and places like that. I put these last not because they are bad or dangerous but because you are often competing with like a million other people for about $200 worth of scholarship money! You might win, but for obvious reasons you should not expect to build up a 4-year cost of college attendance fund relying only on this!!</p>
Thank you all for the replies! I completely forgot my password to my account so I finally logged in today. I don’t live in California so college there would be expensive…
<<<<
because my older sister really wants to go to college in California which will be super pricy for my parents!
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
Well, your sister may “really want” to go to school in Calif, but what are your parents SAYING? If they’re saying, "we can’t pay $50k per year for YOU to go to school in Calif, especially when you have 2 younger siblings.
You need to ask your parents: How much will you pay EACH YEAR for each daughter for college. If they say something like, " we can only pay $10k per year for each daughter," then likely your sister will not be going to college in Calif.
Ask your parents.
Thank you all for the replies! I completely forgot my password to my account so I finally logged in today. I agree with you mom2colllegekids! My parents have told my sister she can go out-of-state only if she gets a lot of scholarships, which is why made this thread to try to find some. thank you for your response though!
This forum doesn’t do scholarship hunting for people. Most big scholarships are targeted at low income people, good luck hunting. Your best bet is to try for colleges that give a lot of merit aid. Please take the time to read the threads pinned to the top of the forum for ideas on low cost and merit aid.
thanks for the advice @BrownParent! I will try to keep my eye out for those thread!
@thumper1 thank you so much!! Very helpful!