<p>Hi guys! I've been accepted to Princeton and the financial aid offer made it pretty affordable for my parents. Right now, I'm looking for outside scholarships to reduce the $4500 work study and summer savings part, only problem is most of the ones I've found (like APIASF) seem to be based on financial need. I don't think I have a good shot at those since my family makes about $150K and our EFC is $20k. Does anyone know of any scholarships that would be a good fit for me? I'm an Asian/Hispanic female btw. </p>
<p>You don’t want to work in summer?</p>
<p>Get a job</p>
<p>Get a job now…and plan to work about 10 hours a week while in college. </p>
<p>Your best bet for outside scholarships are ones that are offered locally in your community, such as through your parents’ workplace, a club or civic organization that you’re in, a local church group, etc. You can try for the more common scholarships at places like Cappex and FastWeb but I have always maintained that applying for those is like playing for the lottery; it’s great if you win, but don’t rely on it, and don’t waste your time on it until after you’ve done everything else that you can. </p>
<p>It is harder to find ones without a need component. Surely you can appreciate that organizations priority are usually trying to help students who have no means to go to any college at all. No you are not going to qualify for need aid. You can look for local ones, local banks, parent’s employer, Rotary, etc. You will just have to get online and maybe a scholarship book and look and look, apply and apply.And do it each year because many won’t be renewable. Also some organizations give them based on careers, like Society of Women engineers have a hub for scholarships.
<a href=“Scholarships - Society of Women Engineers”>Scholarships - Society of Women Engineers;
<p>You can take your student loan too, if you think this education is worth financing. I would not shy away from work study, my daughter was able to have some very good positions helping profs with research right from the start. She ran professor’s human subject experiments, worked at the Brain Research Institute. One summer job on a research team led to a trip to the Fermi Lab superconductor.</p>
<p>Thanks @BrownParent and @DmitriR </p>
<p>I didn’t mean to give off the impression that I’m not willing to work in college, because I certainly will if none of the scholarships work out for me. Still, I figured it doesn’t hurt to invest a bit of effort now to make my workload lighter in the future. </p>
<p>It might be worth taking the work opportunities just for the resume boost though, even if you get scholarships all four years. For work-study the actual effort requirement is pretty light but the experience can help when you’re applying for jobs in the future.</p>
<p>Take the work study job. Even a Princeton education will not help you land a job after graduation with out some kind of work/internship experience. At least having some work experience (even from work study) will give you something to put on your resume when applying for internships.</p>
<p>Work. Work. Work.
My kids have worked every summer, and each experience has given them an outlook on life that no university education can give.
Genererally, these experiences all taught them how important it is to work and help pay for their education. </p>
<p>And, FYI, if your family is making $150k, you won’t find ANY scholarships. My children were NRHP scholars, HSF scholars, and every other Hispanic organization’s members, and they didn’t get a dime. </p>
<p>Reason? We were always told that “although your student meets all of the requirements-Mexican parent, surnames, barrio work, etc.” THEY “couldn’t justify giving a scholarship to a student who was upper middle income”. These were supposed to be “merit” based scholarships. </p>
<p>Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to work you go!</p>