It happens every year, mid-January. Students start to realize just how much college costs, and reach out to me with requests for scholarships. Here is an email I just received today from a senior:
- Do you have any resources I can use to find scholarships?
When I receive emails like this, I'm mostly sad. I want to help students with college preparation, which includes figuring out how to pay for it and/or apply for scholarships, and it's disheartening to realize that some students didn't use the information given them when it could've made a difference.
So, here I am, sending this out to younger students, in the hopes that you don't make these same mistakes. Before you get to January of YOUR senior year, read, re-read, internalize, and use this information!
The basic question that senior asked related to scholarships. Where are they? How do I find them? How do I apply? How do I get money?
Because scholarships can be an overwhelmingly big topic, I wrote a series of posts to help students know the most important parts and steps. I put it into a "Top Ten" list, with each item explained and detailed through a blog post. If a student reads and applies these blog posts, they will know where to look, how to look, how to organize and apply. And before the question of, "should I really read all of these?" looms up in your mind...my question back is, "how much money do you need?" If you need money, read them all. If you don't need money, then by all means, ignore them...but please don't combine the ignoring them NOW and then asking for help LATER. That doesn't work.
One more little thing: I put together these posts to help students, but students need to do their part! Invest time by reading and applying the principles discussed. Don't make the mistake of thinking that it will be easier later--it gets harder when you get to be a Senior. So, if you're reading this in 9th, 10th, and 11th grades--do your future self a favor--click on the links so the moment hits now, the action starts now, and your scholarship game starts now!
