I was wondering if anyone who’s got experience with this would be able to give me advice on whether it’s worth my time applying.
I’m a great student on paper - 4.0, 36 on the ACT, play two sports at varsity, volunteer excessively, etc.
On the other hand, my family’s income is a bit high for this scholarship. This year we are around $80,000, but last year and next it will only be about 60k because my mother has Parkinson’s and could only work one year. Even then, I feel like if I have to report my income as 80k this year I have almost no chance.
We do have extensive medical bills - my brother’s lungs failed a few weeks ago, mom’s got Parkinson’s, dad has a brain tumor - but I just don’t know whether that’s a big enough consideration for me to actually get into this program.
Apply for the experience of applying. With a sibling and significant extenuating circumstances, maybe.
Related advice: don’t waste too much time on ‘chancing’ for outside scholarship programs. Just apply (but make sure you have a realistic college plan in place first – which means applying to schools where you would get merit for your stats, or that your family can outright afford. With your stats, finding schools that give automatic merit should be no problem.)
By the way – you should apply to the Jack Kent Cooke College Scholarship and the Elks Most Valuable Student Scholarship (among others, if you can) senior year. JKCF is great for students with difficult family lives and financial need, and Elks is very heavily based on test scores and financial need.