I’m having a fair bit of trouble finding scholarships that apply to me. I’ve looked around on a couple different websites, ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■, myscholly.com, fastweb.com, and none of them seem to be great at finding scholarships that pertain to me (I’ve got hundreds of “matches” but so far I’ve found I’m not eligible for a majority of them). I’m currently speaking with my guidance counselors to search for scholarships.
Anyways, how can I go about finding scholarships for myself? It seems like every scholarship I look at explicitly says preference will be given to females, minorities, impoverished, etc. Then you have the opposite end of the spectrum with large scholarships for things like competitions and coming up with some new life-saving design. I’m exceedingly average. I don’t think that either of these extremes apply to me, and I don’t want to be stuck in debt for the middle half of my life.
You have to qualify for National Merit by taking the PSAT.
If you took the PSAT in October of your Junior year, and performed very well compared to your state peers, then you might qualify. The board then notifies your school, if you met the cut-off for semi-finalist.
They notify you if you are a semifinalist and you are notified later if you make finalist and then winner.
You will be wasting a lot of time trying to find scholarships through some of those services. Most only cover the first year and then its for amounts like $500. That’s chump change.
As noted by previous posters, your best chances at scholarships come from the universities. Look at the uni’s where you’ve applied and peruse their scholarship pages.
Have you and your parents run any Net Price Calculators for those schools? Are your parents willing/able to pay for part of your education each year for four years? Did you get a merit scholarship award from WPI where you were accepted already? Do you think your family will qualify for any need based financial aid in addition to the merit scholarship?
If it isn’t too late (past the deadline for the school) you might want to consider applying to your state flagship as well as those on your list because of the schools on your list are private and have a hefty price tag per year. You may not be able to afford them if you don’t get enough merit + need based financial aid. Some of those schools only award need based financial aid.
There are a lot of adult posters on this site who have a lot of experience with the financial side of things, keep coming back to check their responses to this thread, they may have some good guidance for you.
The one time scholarships that you are referring to, through sites like fastweb and whatnot are very hard to get. You may be able to find some local one time scholarships as the spring rolls around. Your guidance counselor may have a list. You can also check high school websites counselor section of other high schools near your for their lists. These are usually on the smaller side, and one time deals, but they do add up.
Thanks for the suggestions and clarifications so far! I’m currently looking into scholarships offered by some of the universities I’ve applied to.
I do not believe my parents have run any Net Price Calculators, and while my parents are most likely willing and able to pay for part of my education, I hope to keep the amount they pay to a minimum. I did get some merit from WPI, I think it totaled around $20,000 overall, though that still leaves around $40,000+ per year. I’m not sure how my family’s need will stand with these colleges, but I believe we will receive at least some financial aid.
I should have included this earlier, but I have also applied to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I believe I qualify for full tuition, but frankly (and perhaps selfishly) I’d rather not go to UMass Amherst. In the end though I suppose it’s still a viable option, and if it’s cheap enough I could consider it. Strangely enough I haven’t received anything from them yet, even though I applied early action.
I’ll definitely need to keep checking in here, it looks like a lot of good advice has been and might continue to be posted. Many thanks to those who’ve posted so far!
The money side of things is hard to figure out on your own. Do run the NPCs with your parents and discuss what is and isn’t affordable. There is a limit to how much you can borrow. Better to seek affordable options than end up with no affordable options. There is nothing wrong with UMASS if that is where you end up.
In case you don’t know, net price calculators are in each school website, usually on the financial aid page. If you haven’t, have your parents run them with you for each school on your list. Assuming you applied for need based aid, don’t miss the deadlines on the school websites for financial aid forms. You will still need to fill out FAFSA if you want to take federal loans even if you don’t apply for more need based aid.
Usually merit aid goes to the most academically qualified students. So schools that offer merit per their websites where you are a top candidate are your best bets.
Have your parents run the NPCs on a couple of sites. Don’t bother with Princeton because its results will be misleading, and as a white male from Mass with your stats and no hoo, it’s highly unlikely you’d get accepted.
Have them start with Tufts and WPI net price calculators.
Free tuition to UMass is chump change. Tuition is extremely low there, the real cost is the fees, room, board and books. So, you need to find out if your parents will pay THAT total amount.
You need to quickly add a few schools that will give you good sized merit. You’ve missed a lot of deadlines, but there still are some schools…maybe Temple?
You, yourself could run the NPC for UMass if you know your parents income. If you are really upper middle class in Mass, you probably will not get much in terms of financial aid. Free full tuition at UMass is only a few thousand dollars. The cost for you will still be high. To get merit scholarships from colleges themselves, it is always best to apply early because money is limited. You might as well give RPI a try. Sometime you can get better aid than WPI. Maybe RIT or Alfred U depending on your major which I’m guessing is engineering. For a low cost option if you need it, UMass Lowell. For scholarships, after 4 year scholarships from the colleges themselves, local scholarships are your best bet though they are usually single year. There is an expectation that your family has saved money for 18 years. For example, rule of thumb, if your family makes 200k, then they will likely be expected to pay 50k a year for college. Not necessarily straight from salary but a combination of salary, savings and borrowing.
Tufts is need aware and doesn’t usually give out much money. I might be wrong on that, but I’m pretty sure they say it on their website. Running a NPC for Tufts will give you an accurate depiction on whether or not they’re stingy with money.
Please run the NPC (Net Price Calculator) for Tufts, WPI, and UMass Amherst, then bring the results to your parents. (Tough warning ahead: Your odds of getting into the other universities are close to zero).
What do your parents say? Do you have any idea of their budget? Can they afford their EFC?
They may well be thinking “12K” and all your universities will be 25K (that’s the average cost these days - triple what it used to be not so long ago for your public university). It’s crucial you learn this information TODAY, because none of the colleges you applied to could turn out to be affordable.
Apply to 4-5 among: Dickinson, Hobart&William Smith, Muhlenberg, Ithaca, Wooster, Ohio Wesleyan, Temple, Allegheny, St Lawrence, Marist, RIT, St Lawrence, UScranton, WPI.
Why would there be scholarships rewarding you for being an exceedingly average upper middle class white male? :). I ask that as the mother of two upper middle class white males, one who is in college and one who is about to go to college. If there is anything that one should realize is that the path to college money for someone in your position is either via your parents’ savings, cash on hand, your savings, and/or merit aid from one of the few remaining universities that offer academic merit aid. Most aid these days is need-based. That is how it works, like it or not. It is those in the middle of the middle class who face the greatest challenge because they don’t have the extra income that the upper middle usually has (unless indebted up to their eyeballs.)
As others have recommended, you should sit down with your parents and determine how much they intend to spend on your college expenses. You will be able to take out $5500 in school loans but any other financing, if necessary, will be accessible only via your parents. The schools to which you have been admitted might offer you some scholarship money. I hope they do because your stats are above average. You might have a slim chance at Princeton if your family was low income (it is economic class that is the greater barrier really than ethnicity) but who fully understands the mysteries of the Ivy League admissions process.
There are plenty of universities out there that cater to the upper middle class student who finds the idea of attending a public university beneath their expectations and talents (not saying you think that way.). I know my sons received piles of mail from those schools but five minutes running the NPC and the brochures went straight to the trash. A $25k scholarship to go towards an out the door cost of $50k made no sense to me when I found them to be overpriced already. But that is me. We kept all of the top in state public schools on the list and then pursued out of state schools that offered automatic full tuition. If a school did not meet those parameters, it did not get an application fee from us. The schools they are attending on full tuition scholarship are not Ivy League, but who cares. Not me anyway :).
You are wise to be thinking about not enslaving yourself with debt. For that reason alone, you are exceedingly way above average. You will do just fine. The only disadvantage you are dealing with right now is a sense that the world may not be fair. Well, it never has been. Just work hard, find your passion, and stay out of debt. You will enjoy great success. Best of luck to you.
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Why would there be scholarships rewarding you for being an exceedingly average upper middle class white male?
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That is the problem.
That’s why this student needed or needs to apply to schools that give large assured merit for stats, rather than just small amounts (like the Umass award), if the parents don’t want to pay more than - say - $15k per year.