College Scholarships

Paying for college is a daunting task today. College tuition seems to rise every year. Combine that with family incomes that are stagnant, and tuition costs seem intimidating indeed. Fortunately, there is a solution: Funding your education with college scholarship money can make paying for your higher education a whole lot less stressful.

And today, students and their parents can use as much help as possible to cover college costs. According to College Board, the average cost of a year at a private college now stands at more than $25,000. Public four-year universities are more reasonable, but even they are costly: It costs on average more than $6,500 a year for students attending one of these schools, according to College Board.

You may doubt that there’s a college scholarship out there for you. Perhaps you never excelled at any particular sport in high school. Maybe your grades were solid, but not outstanding. Maybe you were never a shining star in music, speech or debate.

Don’t panic. The odds are extremely good that there are still many valuable college scholarships for which you can qualify.

That’s because today’s college scholarships aren’t only awarded on the basis of academic or extracurricular excellence. Some organizations award scholarships to incoming college students who devoted a significant amount of time to volunteer efforts. Others pass on scholarships to students who maintained solid grades while working as a caddy at their local golf course. Still others award scholarships to students who are interested in pursuing a career in real estate, theater or law enforcement.

There are even some extremely strange scholarships available. The Klingon Language Institute, for instance, awards a $500 scholarship every year to encourage students to study languages. Klingon, of course, is a language spoken by Capt. Kirk’s greatest enemies in Star Trek. Loyola University in Chicago is home to the Zolp scholarship. This can be an easy one to earn depending on your last name: The scholarship is given to Catholic students attending the school who have the last name of “Zolp.” There are even scholarships available where the qualification is that you are left-handed!

Many scholarships not based on academic or athletic prowess don’t pay quite as much. Some may only provide enough money to cover a student’s room and board. But the good news is that students can apply for as many of these relatively unknown scholarships as they like. By picking up scholarship money from several different sources, students can help ease the financial burdens of paying for college.

Remember, scholarships, unlike loans, do not have to be paid back upon graduation. Remember, too, that a lot of scholarship money remains untouched each year simply because no students apply for them. That’s why it makes so much sense to think about funding your education with college scholarship money, by completing as many applications for scholarships as you can.

Author: Jon Arnold
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Every student wants a scholarship to fund their college study, but not all students manage to secure one. Although you can apply for all scholarships that are opened for application, but you may not qualify for all and applying for scholarships which you are not qualified for will waste your time and efforts. You should only apply the scholarships that you are qualified for. Here are 3 important steps to secure a scholarship:

1. Get Your GPA As High As Possible

Most scholarships are reserved for students with best academic results. Hence, the first thing you must do is get your GPA as high as possible so that you can qualify for more scholarships. Some scholarship application requirements required you to maintain a certain GPA through out your academic years while other might need you to achieve a certain GPA to qualify for application. Hence, your GPA is an important factor that will determine your opportunity to secure a scholarship.

2. Search & Apply For Scholarships

The second thing you must do is searching for the scholarships which you are qualified for and apply for them. Be sure to read the requirements and prepare all the necessary documents to be attached with the application form. You can choose to search individual scholarship online or your school might have certain recommended scholarships for their students.

You can also use the online free scholarship search services to help you match the scholarships with your qualification. The two most popular free scholarship searches are FastWeb and Scholarship Experts. They will send the details information about the proposed scholarships to your email address; what you need to do is review these scholarships and apply the scholarships you are interested in. These free scholarship search services are a great service to help you identify the scholarships that match your qualification so that you have the best chance to secure at least one.

The only thing you should beware is the scholarship scams which try to cheat your money; they are around especially on internet, so you must double confirm about the scholarships offers before you make any payment if there is a processing fee involved.

3. Be Persistent To Follow Up On Your Application

Today, most communications are through email, if you submit your scholarship application and put your email address in the contact column. Be sure to check your email periodically. There are students who submit their scholarship application but never check their email regularly; when they found out there is a scholarship offer which ask them to confirm their acceptance before the due date, but at the time they read their mail, it already past the due date. Don’t miss any scholarship offer due to your laziness of checking your email. Don’t give up and keep applying for scholarships until you secure one. You will have success if you keep persistently in applying the scholarships which you are qualified for.

Summary

The basic 3 steps to secure a scholarship to fund you college study. These steps are: maintaining your academic result with as high GPA as possible, do the search for scholarships that match your qualification, apply them and persistently check for the status.

Writing a better scholarship essay than your peers is critical to establish why you, the college applicant, deserve the money and not somebody else. Listing other valuable scholarship credentials, such as a high SAT score and a solid GPA, do not always personalize the scholarship application as the essay does. When written correctly, the scholarship essay appeals to the emotional psyche of the reader. To achieve this result, you need to write your scholarship essay clearly, concisely and correctly, and with subtle hints of your personality.

CREATING A STELLAR SCHOLARSHIP ESSAY

First, abolish the notion that only people with talent can write well. If a person can talk, he/she can write well. Because writing involves more thinking than regular talking, it is important to follow these guidelines during the writing process:

1) Read other scholarship essays.

Reading other winning scholarship essays is the best way to get a feel for what scholarship judges look for. It may also provide ideas during times of writer’s block or mental stress. Be careful not to copy other people’s words unless you properly quote them in your scholarship essay. This applies to direct quotes, indirect quotes, and paraphrased statements.

2) Use outlines, and brainstorm.

Outlines are a wonderful tool for a writer to gather his thoughts. A traditional outline consists of a Roman numeral identifying the main heading; a capital letter identifying a subheading; and numbers indicating topics under the subheading. You can denote further points related to these topics by using small letters. An informal outline works best for the scholarship essay… what matters is the writer knows what he wants to say before he actually starts saying it.

3) Research rules.

Some scholarship essays seem so easy… so why does a writer still encounter mental roadblocks when writing an essay? This is perfectly natural, even on topics that a writer feels he knows first-hand. To get the brain cells fired up and functioning, sometimes it’s helpful to research topics directly and indirectly related to the main topic.

4) Write from the heart for emotional impact.

Don’t try to sound like the latest best-selling author in your scholarship essay. This includes trying to sound “deep,” (unless of course “deep” is your natural writing style), and littering the essay with big words. Scholarship judges can see through this, and you will turn them off if you try to sound like someone else.

5) Be creative and unique.

Don’t be afraid to deviate from the “academic style” of the scholarship essay — as long as creativity doesn’t distract from the main theme, and you are using proper grammar. Remember, scholarship judges are human and they tend to notice essays that tug on their emotional strings in some way. The best scholarship essays usually contain anecdotes, emotional personal accounts and even dialogue. If the scholarship essay instructions allow for creative expression, go wild with it.

6) Use proper grammar, punctuation and style.

Scholarship judges will immediately disqualify scholarship essays with too many grammatical errors, even if the content is compelling. You must know the rules of English grammar, and you should know how to write formally. This means you know how to write a sentence with a traditional structure versus a “contemporary” one (the writer should opt for the former). For example, today’s sentence structure makes it somewhat acceptable to use “And” or “But” at the beginning of a sentence, but you should avoid it when writing the scholarship essay. Many editors (especially editors in academia) still feel uncomfortable using a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence, so why even take the chance? A writer can play it safe when choosing to write traditionally.

7) Don’t reinvent the wheel – use a standard essay format.

A basic essay format consists of: 1) a thesis statement; 2) three or four paragraphs expanding on points detailed in the thesis statement; and 3) a concluding paragraph. This traditional structure, although seen as generic by some college writers, works very well. Why? Because it allows you to clearly lay out your thoughts during the writing process and for the judges who are reading the essay.

8) Follow the scholarship essay’s instructions.

It is important that your scholarship essay address the points asked for in the instructions. No matter how brilliant a particular piece is, if it goes off on a tangent discussing irrelevant topics, then you have not achieved the desired objective.

9) Get someone else to proofread your work.

It is very easy for writers to miss many mistakes, whether they are grammatical errors, typos or inconsistencies in the flow of their piece. It is important to have other sources proofread your material, such as friends, family, and other professors who have reviewed winning scholarship essays. Otherwise, use a popular grammar software, such as www.WhiteSmokeSoftware.com.

10) Don’t discourage yourself if your scholarship essay is rejected.

Just because your scholarship essay didn’t win doesn’t mean it was bad. Scholarship judges are responsible for reading hundreds — sometimes even thousands — of scholarship essays. Deciding who will win from a pile of many good essays, can be very difficult. Sometimes judges base their final choice purely on emotion… the judges may see factors in an essay that remind them of their personal life. Either way, it is impossible to please everyone. You should apply to as many scholarships as possible.

As long as you follow these guidelines and produce a well-written scholarship essay, the power of numbers is on your side. Your excellent scholarship essay is bound to be noticed eventually.

When searching for financial aids, most students will think of “Scholarship”, which is the free money sponsored by government and private sectors to students who meet their eligibility requirements. Many myths and misunderstanding about scholarships get passed around the halls of high schools and among the parents of students getting ready to go to college, causing them to focus too much energy on searching for these awards and get ignore on other financial aids sources which are more abundant than scholarships.

Before you start to search and win the free money: scholarships, you should understand the truth behind these misconceptions so you will not be taken in by them. Here are 3 of the common misconceptions about scholarships:

Misconceptions # 1: Billions of dollars’ worth of scholarship money goes unclaimed

Among the biggest myth about scholarship is that billions of dollars’ worth of scholarship money goes unclaimed each year, just waiting for a savvy student like you to come along and scoop it up. This misconception is potentially cause by certain marketing activities campaign conducted by potential scams which they use in an effort to get you to hand over your money to them.

The truth, according to most college financial aids offers, is that almost all available scholarship money is given out each year. There are some scholarships not awarded usually due to applicants who apply for those scholarships are not meeting the eligibility requirements. But these unclaimed scholarships are just a small percentage of the total scholarships given out each year, and those scholarships which are failed to be awarded usually have highly restrictive eligibility requirements.

You may hear about 75 percent of all private financial aid went unclaimed last year. The fact is this figure does not refer to scholarships at all. What is actually refers to is tuition assistance offered by companies to their employees.

Misconceptions # 2: Scholarships provides free ride to college

Many students believe that scholarships are the largest awards that can provide a free ride to college. If you think that by winning a scholarship, you will pay less for your college, you are wrong; your winning scholarships will not reduce EFC (Expected Family Contribution), in other word, EPC remain and the winning scholarship will be added into the total amount of financial aid that you have already received and an equal amount of aid from other sources is subtracted. In additional, scholarship awards are typically small, often under $1,000 and you may not even be able to renew the scholarship for all four years of college.

There are a few scholarship programs pay for your full tuition fee, but competition for the biggest prizes definitely fierce and these scholarships typically go to students with the best possible qualifications. Even you have the best grades and the highest score, you may not count on winning a full-tuition scholarship, your peers may have a better community service record than you, or more leadership experience. You may submit your application for these scholarships applications, but you need to put in place other financial aid alternatives to support your study if you fail to win a full-tuition scholarship.

Misconceptions # 3: Scholarships Only Go to The Best

Many students miss their chances to apply for a scholarship because they think that they are not the best, and they have no hope to win a scholarship. While it is true that the largest scholarship awards go to the academic and athletic all-stars, those make up only a very small percentage of all the scholarship programs that open to you. Most programs are awarded based on specific requirements such as your major, your place of living, whether you are from minority group, you are a woman or you have a specific talent & etc. So you may not qualify for the national scholarships or the huge athletic awards, you may easily find a smaller scholarship with more restricted eligibility requirements where you are uniquely fit into it.

In Summary

Scholarship is just one type of financial aids; there are still other alternative sources available where you can find money to support your college study. Don’t be taken by the myth that there are billions of dollars unclaimed scholarships available because most of scholarship offers are claimed. The fact shows that not all scholarships go for the best, there is a scholarship waiting you somewhere. Keep hunting for those scholarships; don’t give up before you put your effort to search for it.

A mother was at home, and there was a knock at the door. She opened the door and was surprised to see a person standing there with a bouquet of flowers. It wasn’t a holiday, birthday, or anniversary. The flowers were a total surprise!

They turned a rather ordinary day into an exceptional one to be remembered for weeks to come.

Little remembrances are cherished. And, the person who sends them is not forgotten. We all like to be remembered in unusual and caring ways.

The teachers and staffs of high schools aren’t any different and yet, it does not happen very often for them. Kind words are good, but a thoughtful note is better, and a small gift is best.

A teacher remarked that she once had a student who had many physical issues. It created some unusual classroom problems in her chemistry class. The mother of that student knew this

and constantly thanked the teacher with complimentary notes and small gifts throughout the school year not just on holidays. It made the teacher feel appreciated, needed, and

respected.

A typical high school has administrators, teachers, and a support staff. Who will be affecting your student? Who will your student have for classroom teachers in the coming year?

Find out who they are. You will want to know the

receptionist at the main desk. Don’t forget the secretary in the guidance office. Who cooks the lunches, sweeps the floors, and empties the wastebaskets? Bus drivers often have a particularly difficult situation. Also remember the principal and vice-principal. Many times all of these people are only remembered when something negative happens. Letting them know that you recognize and appreciate the jobs they’re

performing, for the benefit of your child, will make it easier for your student.

Favors and kindnesses are always returned. Find out when those birthdays and anniversaries happen and remember them with a card, note or even cookies. And, in those few short years, when college scholarship time rolls around, people

will be happy to write glowing testimonials for your student.

Remember this: everything in life is a decision, make the right ones today for your college scholarship success.