Winning Scholarships: Tips & Advice
August 28, 2016
Here are a few tips and practical advice to keep in mind when applying for scholarships, which will help increase your chances of winning a few. I will also share my story to give you a concrete example. For a list of actual scholarships, I created a post listing several individual scholarships and scholarship programs called The Scholarship Big List.
Scholarship Tips
In general, scholarship organizations want to award students who they think is most-likely going to be successful in college and post-college, and that is generally exemplified by a student who not only has a passion for something, but has actually done things related to their passions. They also want to choose students who will most-likely impact their communities. The best way to convince them that you are a student who will be successful, a leader, and impactful in your essay response is share stories and accomplishments that are creative and unique, and stories that show that you take action when you are passionate about something.
Sometimes students say that they are passionate about an individual or multiple subjects, but don’t have much or anything to show for it. In order to write a good essay, you need … Read More
The Scholarship Big List
August 25, 2016
Given that I speak to high school students about careers and college every school year, I thought creating a list of individual scholarships and scholarship programs would be a great resource to help find ways to pay for college that is not often told to them by school administrators or hard are to find even on popular scholarship search websites. I wanted to share scholarship resources that I knew about when I was in high school, those that I didn’t know. I wrote another blog post called Winning Scholarships: Tips & Advice, which could help increase your chances of winning some of these scholarships.
Here is a news story done on a student named Kristina Ellis who earned $500,000 worth of scholarships, which helped her attend Vanderbilt University: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-i-earned–500-000-in-scholarships-212534881.html
Scholarship Books
- The Ultimate Scholarship Book 2017: Billions of Dollars in Scholarships, Grants and Prizes (Ultimate Scholarship Book: Billions of Dollars in Scholarships,)
- Kaplan Scholarships 2014 (Kaplan Test Prep)
Scholarship Search Sites
Scholarship Programs
Minority Scholarship Programs
- United Negro College Fund (UNCF) – http://www.uncf.org/scholarships
- American Indian College Fund (AICF) – http://www.collegefund.org/students_and_alumni/content/scholarships
- Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF) – http://apiasf.org/scholarships.html
- Thurgood Marshall
12 Creative Ways to Pay for College
July 26, 2016
Top 10 Creative Ways to Pay for College
When I was in high school, I had no financial understanding of how I was going to pay for college. I kept hearing this common talking point what there was north of $1B worth of scholarships that go unused each year. I also thought that only top athletes and students with near perfect standardized test scores were the only ones getting full-ride scholarships. I knew of fastwebs.com and scholarships.com, but wasn’t confident enough to apply for many because I figured that was equivalent to playing the lottery.
However, I did manage to shake my insecurities, and apply to the Gates Millennium Scholarship, which managed to pay the majority of my cost of attendance, but I was still left with >$40,000 in debt. However, I am on track to being debt free in only a year after graduating college.
Throughout college, I would ask students how they were able to pay for college, as well as make note of all the new ways that I had learned about paying for college. I made this list to help give you some ideas. In this post, I am speaking from the perspective of someone who … Read More
Picking the Right College Major
July 26, 2016
I remember being on the fence in deciding my college major up until the summer leading into my senior year of high school. My choices were between Business Administration and Computer Science. In high school I was heavily involved in all things business with the classes I took and the clubs I participated in. My primary goal was to become an entrepreneur; however, the industry I wanted to start a business in was the tech industry. So, the question was, “Do I major in Business to learn how to start one a business, or do I major in Computer Science to learn how to create the product?”
The number one piece of advice that I give to every high school student, whether freshman or senior, is to discover what they want to do in life after college ASAP, or at least start thinking about it. Don’t just think about what to major in while in college, what do you want to get paid for post-college? What is it that you enjoy the most that will make you happy for the rest of your life that could be a possible career. The sooner you figure that out, the easier it will … Read More