@Sophmore1: Love that scholarship success!
@mysonsdad: What an interesting expectation, due to your exposure on CC. You’ll get to relief and excitement very soon, as it all settles down. Hold on!
Congrats @frenchtoastlover and @Highbury 's S!
Congratulations @frenchtoastlover and @Highbury !
Congrats @frenchtoastlover- more decisions!
Congrats @Highbury too!
S was waitlisted to Georgetown which kinda surprised us. Georgetown has a 50% acceptance rate for Valedictorians… With his current acceptances G-town had pretty much falling off his list so there isn’t too much hurt. So far on schools that only look at 2 parts of the SAT S has been waitlisted to all three (ND, Vandy, GT). Makes me wonder what will happen with Cornell on Thursday.
Best of luck to him @Mysonsdad if I remember correctly he has some acceptances as well, correct?
@CAMidwestMom - Two hacks for finding local scholarships: 1) Search your hyperlocal community newspaper for last year’s winners of schlarships. 2) Poach nearby high schools’ guidance or newspaper webpages for notices of scholarship deadlines and winners.
■■■■■■■■■■ is a good scholarship search site, but likely to be overwhelming.
@readingclaygirl - See the directory of scholarships for students with disabilities for any for students with hearing impairment. I can’t remember the title, though. Also, poach leads from Gaulladet U’s website.
Thanks for that advice @dyiu13 I’ve already done that. My hearing loss isn’t severe enough or bilateral to qualify for any of them. Which is slightly annoying. But on the scholarship front I just finished a nine attachment scholarship for a retired teachers association. Longest one ever! 2 letters of rec, transcript, 2 essays, and 4 other lists of specific accomplishments.
Also, don’t forget to check organizations parents might belong to, business or agency they work for, or even your bank or credit union for scholarships. D has applied to one only for students who have their own account at that credit union. The county her dad works for has one, a foundation here in town has one with a specific essay topic that has to be researched and written, with citations. A lot of these don’t announce until much later this year or even in the summer-there may still be time to find some. We didn’t find them on any of the big scholarship data bases, but locally through individuals.
My D16 is looking for local scholarships that require an essay more so than lots-of-APs type profile or SES status.
Every time I hear of Vassar I think of the Simpson’s episode when Lisa says something and Homer responds by saying, “That will be enough Vassar bashing out of you.” Even though Lisa didn’t say anything about Vassar.
Congratulations
@readingclaygirl, yes he has some very good choices.
S is still feeling very strong about UCLA. A friend of his who is about to graduate with a degree that S is going to major in has already found a job in the field S wants to go into said he will mentor S. At this point I don’t think S will pass up UCLA even if he gets into an Ivy. He can always try to go to an Ivy for grad school.
Yes! D just got word that the CEO of our Girl Scout Council (48 counties) has agreed to write a LOR for our local town’s Girl Scout Scholarship and the local woman’s club scholarship:-)
@3scoutsmom Yay! Happy for your D! @Mysonsdad I’m glad he has options. What is his major?
@mysonsdad, I would trust him on this, sounds like he found his place.
Congratulations @frenchtoastlover and @Highbury on the Vassar admissions!
Regarding scholarships, our counseling office recommended this website:
I know there was some discussion earlier about how to select a college. I just want to share our counseling office advice. Two factors: academic quality and fit for the institution (measured by gut feeling when visiting).
This is the list to assess academic quality:
• Are classes at the freshman level taught by faculty or graduate students?
• Will your son have access to faculty members?
• Do faculty members have regular office hours?
• Can students conduct research with faculty members?
• What percentage of the faculty has a Ph.D. in their field?
• If your son has an academic problem, is there a place he can go to obtain help?
• How many students graduate in four or five years?
• What is the average GPA of those students?
• Do students have difficulty getting classes their first year or any other year?
• How many students go on to graduate, law, or medical school and which schools are more popular?
• What kind of personal /career counseling services are offered to your students?
• What percent of students are employed six months after graduation? After a year?
• Which companies come to campus to recruit graduating seniors?
Good luck to all!
All of our local scholarships which require essays, only one of which has substantial money ($5K) attached, ask if there is a special circumstance or reason that one’s parents may not be able to meet the full financial need of the student.
I would think that if one wants to provide a scholarship only to those who absolutely cannot contribute anything to the student’s college costs, this should be announced up front, without the intimation that when it gets right down to it your child’s essay will not be the determining factor for anything, just the family’s finances.
That would mean fewer essays for my kid because we don’t fall into “special circumstance” or anything, but, boy, we could use a little help.
@Waiting2exhale my D chose not to apply to any scholarships that factor in EFC. She is not needy enough, which I’m ok with. There are a bunch (10+) locally she has some shot for.
Seems all of these have that one little area where they ask, which throws us into doubt as to why they are asking.
One never knows what goes on in others’ financial lives, to be sure, but the teachers in this area have complained that if there were more low-income kids (I’m cleaning that up), the public schools would have more funds coming in.
The state board of education department charged with dispersing funds to high schoolers who could benefit from assistance with applying to college and paying for it, funds reserved for sophomores and juniors who are identified as potentially eligible, have not even designated a kid from this district a recipient of the fund in over 10 years.
To me that signals a general consensus that the kids here are not, on the whole, going to need help.
Maybe these local scholarship committees act as the one saving grace for the kids who look like their doing fine, but have a story that goes untold. If so, I can live with that.