Blog Week Day 2: The Scholarship Search
Since I'm going to a state school and commuting, my price tag isn't as high as most people's. And even then, I received quite a few academic scholarships to help offset the cost. So how did I do it, where I had to pay nothing out of pocket for my first semester of college? SCHOLARSHIPS, SCHOLARSHIPS ARE AWESOME. Even if you think it's not worth your time, it probably is. One of my friends just had to go to his college and take a general knowledge test, and he wound up placing in the top five incoming freshmen, so now he has FULL TUITION for the next four years. I had another friend who wrote a 1,000 word essay and got $5,000 from a memorial fund at school. So what did I do myself?
ICMEA: Run through my county music educator's association, I just had to fill out basic information and write an essay about why I chose to study music education. My band director also wrote a short bit and submitted it to the committee, and they picked me!
Alpha Delta Kappa: Since I'm a girl studying education, I applied for my local chapter's scholarship. Just basic information and then an essay about why I wanted to study education.
American Legion: Just a few essays about the impact my family in the military has had on me, as well as basic information.
Dr. Williams: For a student studying education at IUP. I was a shoe-in for this, as it was only available to my high school and I was the only senior studying education. Just another quick essay!
HCEA: My school district's teachers' association offered a scholarship to someone studying education. Boom, shoe-in!
Band Boosters: A member of the band going into higher education, preference given to music education majors. Out of the four seniors, I had done the most with the band in all its different facets, plus I was going to study music ed. Woohoo!
Kiwanis: Originally applied as a senior of the month, where I wrote a few essays and did my basic information. Was selected for senior of the month for May (?) and then was awarded the highest scholarship from our local Club, mainly due to my community service and extracurricular.
Tinker: Had the most work, smallest payoff. I had to write seven essays, submit a huge application, do an in-person interview while I was sick, but I still got some assistance!
Sutton gets a category of its own. I was in the inaugural class of Sutton Scholars at IUP. As I'm an in-state student, and I scored well above the 1050 on the math/reading portion of the SAT and had above a 3.25 high school GPA, I was asked in for an interview last fall. There, we listened to a panel, got some financial aid stuff, and I was interviewed (where I basically talked about my accomplishments and interests and things like that).
From there, they decided students who received scholarships. There were two options: $2,000 as a one-time scholarship freshman year, or $2,000 renewable for four years. I thankfully was awarded the renewable scholarship, so that knocks that much off my tuition bill every year!
So, my advice? Make up a master list of your activities, based on extracurriculars and volunteering and church and community service. My master list was huge, but it made everything such a breeze when filling out the same basic applications over and over again. From there, I had a few basic essays that allowed me to apply for many scholarships, like most of my education-based ones. I also was very diligent about deadlines and letters of recommendation and such.
LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION! Have a few good teachers that you're on good terms with, and ask them to write you a basic letter of recommendation. I had about four or five teachers who tailored the same basic letter to each of my individual scholarships. To thank them at the end of the year, I bought them all little gift cards and tied them up with ribbon. That way, we ended my high school career on great terms AND I can use them for further letters of recommendation that a few groups on campus require.
So that's all I have to say about that!
Love me, Tory D
