<p>From today's Washington Post:</p>
<p>Michelle</a> Singletary - Get real on scholarships</p>
<p>IMHO this should be required reading.</p>
<p>Your thoughts?</p>
<p>In my experience, the trick to receiving a scholarship or grant is to apply to, and be willing to attend, schools that you are slightly over qualified for.</p>
<p>Great article. One of the things that bothers me about scholarships is the lack of data - how many students applied for a particular scholarship - how many were awarded - what were the winners’ stats, etc. There is even less transparency for scholarships than for college admissions. Unless your child is just spectacular - many of the scholarships they could compete for are very small amounts - $250, $500, etc. Kind of a drop in the bucket. And they want additional essays, recs and maybe even tax returns? Not terribly appealing to me.</p>
<p>The best scholarships come from the colleges themselves - particularly those that are awarded from the application and do not require any other materials. Outside scholarships - not all they are cracked up to be. And one thing she did not mention in her article - if you receive need-based aid - an outside scholarship may actually result in a zero net gain - as your FA can be reduced accordingly.</p>
<p>*In my experience, the trick to receiving a scholarship or grant is to apply to, and be willing to attend, schools that you are slightly over qualified for. *</p>
<p>In a similar vein…I think the trick is to apply to schools that give big merit scholarships AND to have stats that are in the top 5-10% of the school. As long as the GPA is very good, having a top test score is very important.</p>
<p>I know of one person who won 10,000 in 2004 because her father’s company was offering the scholarship to employees with a hs senior going to college. She was one of two eligible to win that year, so odds were 50:50. She was an above average student. This is a perfect example of a much easier private scholarship to win, IF one can qualify for something like this.</p>
<p>I know someone else who boasted how his DD won a full ride (serious athlete and serious student, so she definitely had the “goods”). What helped her ACCORDING TO HER OWN FATHER was that he knew someone who knew someone who had something to do with awarding this full ride. He claims it was WHO HE KNEW along with HER STATS that made this happen. The “connection” arranged for the daughter’s interview for this scholarship, according to the father. BTW, I don’t know any of these people other than the father who I knew briefly through a business transaction. This scholarship was for a particular school but did not seem to be awarded through admissions. Additionally, I don’t know how much to believe. The father was clearly boasting to us. I do think that his DD did win a full ride though.</p>
<p>My daughter has three independent scholarships. The first is a four year/$1750 per year awarded by the grocery store chain that I used to moonlight for while she was in high school. That was awarded for grades and a recommendation from her employer (hers happened to be the city newspaper). Ten were awarded with a little over 200 applicants (seniors who worked for the chain or had parents working). </p>
<p>The other is through a local community foundation to benefit medical professional training - she’s won that two of her three years so far and can apply every year including grad school. Last year she received $1000 and this year $2000. Several hundred apply and about 2 dozen receive varying amounts. It’s based on grades, recommendations and an essay.</p>
<p>The third is open to all college and graduate students from our religious affiliation who live in our county, awarded through a committee, awarded annually. Amount vary. She gets $1500 this year; last year was a bit more. Younger daughter is on her third year of that, and her older sister won the same scholarship three of her four years in college. It’s awarded for grades, recommendations, local church participation and an essay.</p>
<p>There is money out there; just takes a lot of hard work to get it. For her it’s worth it, because it’s money she’d be borrowing if she didn’t have the scholarships.</p>
<p>Glad to see I’m not the only one who reads The Post! I hope that lots of people pay attention when Michelle has the author as guest for her online chat on the 24th.</p>
<p>Yes there is random money out there. I made Happykid apply for a scholarship at her community college because I figured she could use the essay-writing practice, and of course it’s always nice if you get the money. Well, she did. 30 of her 34 credits this year were covered. We’ve paid less than $1000 including all of her books and materials! Wow! We have been truly blessed. If the CC’s budget holds, and her grades stay at 3.5 or above, it is renewable for a second year.</p>
<p>Our daughter is applying to any outside scholarships we’ve found that she may be eligible for, and can make the time to complete. Yes, they are lot of work and chances can be slim but every little bit helps. At this time she’s recieved fairly nice merit aid from acceptances–nice except compared to COA! She plans on continuing to apply through spring and summer. Most of the notifications will come later but so far she did win a $1,500 one.</p>
<p>You do have to be careful as many of these, unlike the college scholarships, are non-renewable–and/or you have to apply every year.</p>
<p>A very large % of “private” scholarships seem to be awarded by the specific Us that the kids apply to & are accepted at. I wonder about whether the stats in this thread include scholarships that were offered when the student chose not to attend. Some kids are offered a lot of scholarships at many schools, particularly if they applied to schools known for merit awards and have high stats for those Us.</p>
<p>Our S got all of his merit awards from the Us he applied to & the college board for being a NMF; only sought one independent/private scholarship, which he was not awarded. Most of my friend’s kids similarly got most of their larger awards from their Us, tho some did get a few independent merit awards (usually they were NOT renewable).</p>
<p>This is a great thread… excellent article. We encouraged our DS to apply for community based scholarships that have a very narrow focus. We also learned that fewer applicants follow through on scholarships that require a specific essay.</p>
<p>Some scholarships require a tremendous amount of work… very specific details like prompts for the letters of recommendation (rather than general one size fits all.)
One scholarship asked for two letters of recommedation that addressed specific prompts, 200 words or less, 12pt. font, single spaced, on two separate pages! Imagine asking that favor of a teacher, counselor, and community member this time of year!</p>
<p>I guess that narrows the field for the scholarship committee to sift through… but seriously?</p>
<p>DS has earned one local award for $1000. Hope we net a couple more. I view it as my student’s part time job. It is free money- but it has to be earned with some “sweat equity.”</p>
<p>The caveat to all this is that it doesn’t reduce family’s EFC, but it does reduce college’s financial aide and loans on families’ end… doesn’t seem entirely fair.</p>
<p>Interstingly enough, the LACs od1 considered all said they’d allow her to keep outside scholarships, without reducing fin aid, as long as, with fin aid, they didn’t exceed the amount of direct costs. She selected a school that covered tuition, but she can apply outside scholarships towards books and fees. We’re not talking about a lot of money here, but every little bit helps. </p>
<p>I think this is a great article, especially this time of year when it seems “everybody” is getting scholarships and merit money.</p>
<p>I wish coaches or someone would talk to athletes and their parents early on about athletic scholarships, how few “free rides” there really are, etc.</p>
<p>I’m the OP. I posted this link because I read Michelle Singletary’s columns in the WaPo and think she is really good. I think her intention was to get to people who think that it is easy to get scholarships to cover the cost of college, therefore there is no need to save. I hear people say that all of the time. As many of you have found, there is money out there, but it rarely covers the entire cost.</p>
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<p>I agree. If you need big merit aid, this is the way to go. But a lot of folks that I talk to (who haven’t gone through this yet)don’t get this. They still think that ALL good students get merit aid and are surprised that many attend schools that do not award merit or a student has to be really,really really tippy top.</p>
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<p>The high schools in our district release statements every summer telling how much scholarship money has been earned by their graduating class. There is no breakout between need-based and merit and no indication of how much was turned down because a student did not attend a particular college. If a school has a graduate or 2 attending a military academy it is valued at $250K and that skews the amount up. I would like to see a more accurate representation of what people can really expect.</p>
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<p>Me too. But I think a lot of people wouldn’t want to hear that:)</p>
<p>“The high schools in our district release statements every summer telling how much scholarship money has been earned by their graduating class. There is no breakout between need-based and merit and no indication of how much was turned down because a student did not attend a particular college.”</p>
<p>Sure sounds familiar! I attended graduations for two different high schools in our district last year, and at both events there was a very proud report of $x received in scholarships by members of the graduating class. All I could think of was that much of that could have been accounted for by only a few students receiving multiple large awards. The way the information was presented made it totally useless.</p>
<p>I’ve found over two go-rounds with D’s applying for scholarships during their senior years of HS that private schools offered more in scholarships than their public counterparts. But this is offset by the higher private school COA, to the point that comparing apples to apples education-wise & cost-wise, it just about evened out. And yes, the more over-qualified the student, the bigger the award & the less COA out the door. Stands to reason, right?</p>
<p>Last year, when my D. was seeking outside scholarships I was surprised to find out how many of them included a needs based component. They often require the family to send in copies of their tax forms and/or FAFSA. </p>
<p>It requires a great deal of searching to locate outside scholarships that are purely merit based.</p>
<p>I have seen the same thing and it makes me very uncomfortable. It’s bad enough to have to send tax returns to IDOC or the individual colleges - but having to circulate them further by sending them to scholarship organizations is even worse. Again - I question whether the effort involved is worth the $250 or $500 award.</p>
<p>One local private school here in NJ takes an ad out in the local paper every late Spring and boasts of the total Financial aid money that its seniors get. They never explain that it is the total (fin+merit loan or grant) awarded (e.g. assume 1 student gets into 5 schools and gets $15K at each one), the private school will count that as $75K of aid and then divide the total $$ for all students by the actual # of seniors, so essentially the “scholarship number” is inflated by a factor of 5 or so. And this is a religious school, mind you… So much for morality & honesty? Some poor family i imagine is being taken that the private school tuition is a bargain, given all the financial aid that will be received for college…</p>
Awesome article! Very informative.
I do want to add this…More competitive, more selective schools = more aid and donor scholarships.
My kid applied to three colleges in the state of Michigan and was accepted at all three.
Western Michigan University
Michigan State University
University of Michigan
I am listing these schools in order of cost and selectivity. Western Michigan University was the least selective. It’s not a difficult school to get into, and it’s the least expensive of the three. University of Michigan is highly selective, and is the most expensive of the three.
When my daughter’s aid offers came through, however…by a LANDSLIDE…the less expensive, less selective school had a bigger net price tag. They simply do not have the deep bench of donors to pull grant money and scholarships from.
Also…what’s considered “financial need” is different at more selective schools.
At Western, a family making 60K a year doesn’t qualify for much of anything. At University of Michigan, a family making 60K can qualify for a lot of aid.
At Western, my daughter was offered a $500 merit scholarship, a $1500 grant, and $1000 in work study per year.
At University of Michigan, my daughter receives a $5000 per year departmental scholarship. She also gets $11,300 in grants per year, and $3000 of work study. She picked a less expensive housing option, and cooks her own dinner and packs her own lunch to avoid the extremely expensive university meal plan. She buys books used, and in some cases can even check them out from the library. She started school with about $13,000 in college savings (we tried very hard to save $1000 per year for her, some years worked, some didn’t) She works full time in the summer. She will graduate with less than $10,000 of debt. There are research jobs available for her at the University if she decides to stay there for a year after graduation, and pay her debt off while she applies to grad schools…which is her current plan.
Had she chosen to go to the least expensive, least selective school…she would graduate almost $70,000 in debt.
The next school…Michigan State…which has middle of the road selectivity…would have netted $40,000 of debt.
The choice was pretty clear.
It pays to get into more selective schools.
Also…as others have pointed out…local scholarships are your best odds.
My kiddo got a $2000 scholarship from a local woman’s organization. She got a $500 scholarship from a local writing contest.
Please do not post to old threads. Use old threads only for research.