Tips for finding college scholarships

What to do on a snow day ? - Look for Scholarships!

High school students listen up! Why not use your time off while snow bound to help fund your college education. Your parents will love you for it.

A scholarship can be defined as money for college that you do not need to pay back. Scholarships include both institutional money awarded directly by the school and private scholarships from various sources. Scholarships are awarded for many reasons including: academic merit, athletics, visual and performing arts, leadership, and community service. Keep in mind that scholarship money could in fact reduce the amount of institutional need based aid given to a family. It will not decrease the family’s EFC ( Expected Family Contribution). Therefore families that are not eligible for need-based aid benefit the most from scholarships because every dollar they receive goes directly toward the cost of tuition.

Here are three strategies to help you find money to attend the school of your dreams.

1. Get recruited – Colleges, especially private schools, want to accept applicants who are at or above the mean fifty percent of currently enrolled students with regard to grades and test scores. Apply to schools where you are at the top and you will likely receive offers of merit money. Generally these awards are renewable for four years provided you maintain a specified GPA. Scholarships through the college are the single largest source of scholarship money.

1. Look Near – Great scholarship sources can be found locally through your school counseling office; high school website; place of worship; parents employer; unions; businesses; community organizations; parents or grandparents military service associations; local government; local sports teams etc. Many of these scholarships have only a few applicants!

1. Look Far – Create a profile on a free national scholarship search engine like

www.fastweb.com ; www.collegenet.com ; www.zinch.com, and others. Check out the comprehensive resources in books such as: The Ultimate Scholarship Book” by Gen and Kelly Tanabe.

Stay tuned for more strategies in my next post...