Scholarships Make College Possible, But Students Need to Plan Early

College education is expensive and sometimes it seems hopeless to pay the expensive tuition bill.

One of the best ways to pay is through scholarships. I mention in my previous post, I am a recipient of a prestigious full-ride scholarship to Central Michigan University. You would think that means that I probably graduated with a 4.0 gpa and an impressively high ACT score.

As much as that would be nice to say, that’s not the truth.

I graduated from high school with a 3.56 gpa and a 20 on the ACT. However, I was involved with many activities and leadership positions with a couple of them. I also was to fortunate enough to know I wanted to be a journalist and to know of a full-ride for that career path.

Not all of you will have full rides, but many of you will qualify for smaller scholarships and some of you can win multiple smaller scholarships.

Preparing for scholarships starts the first day of high school

I shouldn’t have to tell you how expensive college is currently, but in just case you do, I am going to make it very clear.

College Data reports that the average that the average cost to attend an in-state public college in the 2013-2014 year was $22,826. The total amount of student debt in America went over a trillion dollars in 2012.

Until something fundamentally changes in American policy, the price of attending college is going to keep rising.

However, if you know this coming into high school, there are ways to prepare for yourself. Do not slack off your first year. Try your best in classes from the very beginning. It’s not necessary or advised to devote all your efforts to your studies, but do the best you can.

Also beginning your freshman year, start recording every activity, hour of community service and honor you receive. This will be very important when you start applying for scholarships to have a record of everything you accomplished. Nothing is too small to record. It’s better to say you periodically volunteer somewhere than to put nothing down.

Leadership skills and volunteering are necessary and can save you

It’s what saved me. Even students with the highest gpa and ACT will need to a list of involvements to get many major scholarships.

You don’t have to go overboard with your involvements, but you do need to have at least two you made some sort of impact. I was at conference where I heard multiple speakers talk about applying to jobs and all of them said that it is no longer impressive to be apart of a club, it’s impressive to be a leader of a club. Being a member of something usually doesn’t require much effort, but being a leader shows dedication and initiative.

Many scholarships will also ask about community service. I had a decent amount of community service involvement, but I remember when I filling out my applications wishing I had more. Some of the scholarships I applied for required verification that you completed the service. Make sure you get something signed every time you do service or volunteer at the same organization throughout high school.

Scholarships should be your number one priority senior year

Yes, that means above your current grades, sports, prom or whatever else is going on in your life. You can’t declare bankruptcy on your student loans, meaning you are going to have to deal with it. The less debt you have, the more opportunities you do outside the classroom, which will probably be more important than your classes anyways.

Also, don’t just put effort into the prestigious scholarships. The more money the scholarship is worth, the more and better the candidates. Many of the smaller scholarships will not have as many candidates or will have lower standards. Any scholarship means free money so why not apply for every opportunity, even the smaller ones?

If you prepare yourself, you can save a lot of money through scholarships. But you have to put the work in.

Here are some great scholarship websites.

https://www.scholarships.com/

http://www.fastweb.com/

http://www.zinch.com/scholarships