What Scholarships should I be looking at?

Paying for College
1

<p>So I’ve been looking at some scholarships to apply to but it is kind of discouraging. I see a lot of mediocre scholarships that want 1-3 essays for only 500$ and others that are good amounts ($5000 or the like) but only give out 1 award when there are hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants. Who actually wins these scholarships? </p>

<p>Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place but if anybody with similar stats as mine or people who have won pretty good scholarships care to help me, that would be great.</p>

<p>Here are my stats: Hispanic, 4.0 UW GPA, 2010 SATs, Rank 5-10/800. Around 200 hours of community service, a few leader roles, and fair ECs. I’m going to pursue Engineering in college. </p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>The scholarship scenario is pretty much what you outlined, many of the more accessible scholarships are for 1 yr only and for relatively small amounts (although anything helps) and the larger ones are highly competitive.</p>

<p>If you’re currently a sr, it’s kind of late in the process for current year scholarships. But you might want to look at this thread which contains links to scholarships for Hispanic students:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/hispanic-students/646134-resources-hispanic-students-start-here.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/hispanic-students/646134-resources-hispanic-students-start-here.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>I attended a FAFSA meeting at my son’s school this winter. One financial aid woman who works a local university spoke at the meeting and made a lot of sense about applying for scholarships. She said something like this:</p>

<p>Some kids don’t want to apply for the small scholarships of $250 or $500. But if you spent 5 hours on an application for a $250 scholarship and won it, that would be like getting $50 per hour. That’s a pretty good return. Where are you going to work at this time and get that kind of money? So it is worth your time to try.</p>

<p>This makes much sense to me. So please don’t turn you nose down on a scholarship that isn’t the big $5000 or $10000 return. There seem to still be scholarships on FastWeb with time to apply before college begins in the fall. You may want to reconsider which scholarships you want to apply for.</p>