Scholarship, General

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BRIEF SUMMARY

Many scholarships are merit-based, while others are awarded on the basis of financial need. Some are a combination of the two.

KEY POINTS

  • Although decent grades are usually important, leadership, talent, and community service are often just as critical.
  • Some scholarships have simple application procedures, such as writing a short essay.

SHARED WISDOM

  • LearnMore Indiana provides some helpful information about scholarships.   https://learnmoreindiana.org/cost/can-i-get-help-paying-for-college/ and https://learnmoreindiana.org/cost/can-i-get-help-paying-for-college/indiana-scholarships/ Both are good links to information and scholarship search tools
  • Q: I was wondering if anyone had any creative ideas they or their school uses to share college scholarship information to their students?
    • A: We have a google spreadsheet that our admininstrative assistant updates as scholarships are received. This is shared with students reglarly through Schoology. We created a Schoology page for students by year of graduation. Our district and state uses the Schoology platform so we decided to use the technology that was most popular and available. We also let students know if they need a hard copy they can request one from the School Counseling office. We also post the scholarship list to the website with link to the online applications of a copy as a PDF.
    • A: I share new scholarship (with a brief description, deadline, and link) through a Remind text. The Remind group is exclusively for scholarships. I also share the same info on our department Twitter account. I keep an updated Word document that I share periodically through email and our Remind.
    • A: We post scholarships on Naviance, our college search engine. In addition, one of the counselors came up with a creative idea to post some of the more popular ones on a bulletin board in our counseling suite. Any of us can update the scholarship list in Naviance.
    • A: We use Naviance and our amazing school counseling secretary also prints application materials and organizes them into folders at a station in our office. We provide updates about deadlines and new scholarship opportunities through email (we also use Naviance to send mass emails to the entire senior class) and through the senior class Remind app. During the closure, many of our local organizations extended deadlines and changed policies for how they would accept materials (previously items that needed to be in sealed envelopes can now be sent by email as a pdf), so our secretary created an updated Google sheet with that information and shared it out to our seniors. We still provide a LOT of reminders via email, social media and our school counseling newsletter, but we really push that Naviance is the one-stop-shop for all things college, including scholarships.
    • A: We too used a cabinet for students to come get their scholarship forms. With the shut down of schools, we transitioned to placing them on the school website. We send out periodic reminders on the school Facebook page. A majority of them go directly to the organization but for the ones that need returned to the high school they placed me as the point person (instead of the secretary who is working mostly from home). I take them, place them in folders and then scan them to the organization on the due date. If transcripts are required, I can then also get the necessary transcripts and add them. This has worked so well, that we think we are going to continue keeping the applications online even once this is over.
    • A: We do a lot of the same things that are mentioned here. We have a School Counseling page on the High School website. We upload the description of the scholarship and a PDF of the application on the site. We also have paper copies in our office (picture). When new scholarships come in we update the website. We also put an announcement out with the information. Unfortunately, many people do not hear the announcements. So we have started putting the information out on our new Instagram account @HCHS_Counselors (2 pictures). ​I love using Canva to create the pictures.
  • Q: I have a senior who is receiving multiple scholarships that will more than cover her 1st year of tuition at Purdue West Lafayette. If students have more money than they need (a great problem to have!!), how does the university handle this? Will they apply the funds to subsequent years? Give the money back to the student?
    • A: t depends on whether the scholarships are tuition specific or can be used for cost of attendence or specify they can be used for room and board or books. She should schedule a meeting with Purdue’s financial aid office, have the specifics of each scholarship. Purdue will apply then as they receive the funds from the funder but she wants to make sure any that are tuition specific get applied first to tuition, then any that can be used for room and board gets applied there, and any that can be used for books (Typically are a reimbursement model where she has to submit receipts to funder) can get used for that.) …Have her chat with INvestED. They are a great resource for handling this. There are tax implications for aid that exceeds tuition. (Kate Coffman, Center for Excellence in Leadership of Learning)
  • Q: What is your experience with Quest Bridge? Would you recommend students filling out an application?
    • A: Yes! Absolutely. We had two that were matched last year. One is at the University of Chicago and the other is at Swarthmore. They cover everything. My Swarthmore guy gets 2 flights home paid for each semester and had a summer stipend. Great opportunity for high achieving low income students.
    • A: I second that. Also have a student at Swarthmore matched through Questbridge.
    • Yes, we have a student (Class of 2019) attending Columbia University (NY) through the QuestBridge program.
    • We have a student attending Brown University through the Quest Bridge program.
  • Using  “Search for Scholarships and Grants” under the “Plan for Education” system in Indiana Career Explorer:  the Indiana Career Explorer system is free for students in grades 6-12, as well as educators at the secondary level.  There are three levels of filters in the “Search for Scholarships and Grants” tool. I find that some pretty “niche” opportunities are able to be discovered this way, as well as more traditional scholarships and grants. We use Peterson’s as the data source for this tool.  (From Mary Pouch, Indiana Field Trainer, Kuder, Inc.)
  • https://www.thedream.us/scholarships/ is a scholarship program for students in states that charge out-of-state tuition to DACA students.  Indiana students would be eligible.
  • Recommended scholarship search sites (from Counselor Talk, September 2018):

RESOURCES

Students can access full information and begin the application process with a short questionnaire on our webpage www.mdff.org/seever-scholarship

CONTACT TOPIC MANAGER

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This post was created by QRST ContentManager on March 15, 2018.