What are Scholarships?
A scholarship is a grant made towards a students’ schooling from advanced levels of academics, athletic abilities, amount of household income or any other criteria. While waiting for scholarships to be handed out by the counselor is always an option, getting on websites that provide hundreds or thousands of scholarship applications tailored to every individual usually gets the job done faster and better.
Choosing Scholarships
When deciding which scholarships to apply for, there are a few things to keep in mind.
1. Be sure there is enough time to get all of the required information and documents before it’s due.
2. Give parents, teachers, and other people ample time to write letters of recommendation. If you only give them a day, it’s unlikely it will be as good as if they’d had more time.
3. Many scholarships get very few applicants every time. Apply to any scholarships available because there’s no way to know if 100 people will apply, or just 15.
Filling out a FASFA
It is strongly recommended that all students looking to pursue higher education fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or the FAFSA. It helps with both being able to earn scholarships on its own and being a major item that many scholarships require on their applications.
To learn more about how to fill out the FAFSA, or to fill it out now, scan the QR code on the right.
Before Applying
Good resumes can set scholarship applicants away from the rest, and there are many easy ways to do that.
1. Make a cleanly designed resume. Either use a template on Canva or go check out our other article by scanning the QR code to the right.
2. Join extracurriculars. Being a senior isn’t stopping anyone from joining Sun Club and getting volunteer hours in.
3. Have a solid GPA. Taking honors classes senior year might not sound like the most fun idea, they can easily boost GPAs. Not everyone can have a 5.0, but having above a 3.5 isn’t the worst idea.
My Scholarship Central
My Scholarship Central is a scholarship-finding resource specifically for students in Missouri, Kansas, or the St. Louis Metro area in Illinois. All that is required to sign up for the site is your most recent school transcript, though some scholarships may want to see things like a resume, ACT/SAT scores, or your SAR, which you get from filling out the FAFSA.
Going Merry
Going Merry is one of the easiest scholarship search sites out there. It has tons of different resources, from actual scholarships to help filling out the FAFSA to comparing different college’s afford abilities. On the front page, it even offers a 7-question quiz for all students to see how much they could earn, with no sign-up required.
Bold.org
Bold.org also has many different scholarship options. Setting up an account is very easy and only takes a few minutes. This website utilizes a point system to provide additional resources, scholarships and help for students looking for financial aid for their higher education.
