Scholarship Stories: A Little Time Can Go a Long Way

There are scholarships for almost everything. If you’re a girl over 5’9”, a weightlifter with a stellar GPA or even just a squirrel-lover (squirrels are known to award students $10 plus three walnuts), there’s probably a scholarship out there to help get you through college. Kidding about the squirrels, but the rest is true. It’s spending the time to find, apply, interview–and actually spending that time–that’s tough. When I was headed off to school, I knew I couldn’t afford to go out of state unless I had some significant scholarship money, or else I couldn’t go without equally significant student loans. And I really, really wanted to leave the state. Hoping to avoid crushing debt, I spent many weekends looking for and applying for money. Ten years later, the Internet makes it light-years easier than I had it, but it’s still a chore, I know. Think about it, though. Giving [...]

Scholarship Stories: Be Yourself

Dr. Seuss once wrote, “Be who you are and say what you feel.” The same applies to scholarship essays. To write powerfully, students must know and describe themselves honestly. With my experience in writing, it is the most important advice I can give. I was a high school junior when I began applying for scholarships. Living in a middle-class family with three siblings, I knew such aid would benefit me; however, I feared I wouldn’t receive it. I didn’t show much financial need, and I wasn’t very active at my school or in my community (which was my mistake). As a result, I wasn’t a likely candidate for many national scholarships. Instead, I mainly set my sights on local merit-based scholarships (specifically, those offered at my future college and within my county). Surprisingly, my financial stability and lack of extracurricular activities weren’t my biggest challenges when writing scholarship essays. What [...]

A Common App for Scholarships: Not So Common

College applications are so predictable across the board that long ago, The Common Application was created. The Common App (as it’s commonly known) offers students a one-size-fits-all application that asks for academic achievements, SAT/ACT test scores, an essay, recommendation letters, basic demographic information, completed courses, declaration of major… the basic things most schools want to know. It’s accepted by more than 400 schools and was used by more than 2 million applicants as of 2010 in an effort to prevent the repetition of submitting the same info over and over again to an array of schools. Each school may require some extra stuff (e.g. an essay about why you want to come to their campus, specifically), because they need some sort of litmus test for how strongly students feel about their institution. As “how do I get in?” quickly turns into “how will I pay for it?” come spring semester, another question arises: Why doesn’t [...]

Scholarship Series: Study Abroad Awards

America’s students today face tremendous financial challenges across the board when it comes to their education. Yet, the opportunities to go abroad are still there for the taking, despite financial constraints. I’ve always believed that true learning comes from the global classroom that is the world around us, not just within the walls of a classroom. The nearly half-dozen international programs in which I participated during college convinced me that only through first-hand experiences could I truly understand the world’s challenges. Through programs in Germany, Italy, Greece and Guatemala, my time abroad guided me toward the perfect major (international studies), exposed me to the tremendous challenges of marginalized groups, helped me develop skills to carry out ethnographic research, and reminded me that some of the greatest teachers on Earth are the people we meet on the street.

New Special Series: Call for Scholarship Stories

BetterGrads is looking for students and alumni who received a scholarship, fellowship or another academic grant to tell their story about how it shaped their path toward higher education. On the College 101 Blog in the past, we’ve featured special series on How I Picked My Major, College in the UK and a Letter to Your High School Self project. Now, we’re looking for personal essays that put a face on the scholarship application process and how it affects a student’s educational experience. To submit an article, fill out the BetterGrads submission form or e-mail the College 101 Blog editor, Lisa Rau at Lisa.Rau@BetterGrads.org with any questions. If you’re interested in contributing to the blog on a regular basis, please indicate that in your message. Check out our submission guidelines here.

Making the Most of College: Part 1 – Join a Club

As we enter college, few of us are prepared for the lifestyle change it entails. A key factor to remain successful in college is to enjoy the time that you are there. If you are miserable, then it will most certainly reflect in both your grades and your attitude about the experience. What are your hobbies and interests? Incorporating these things into your academic life will prove to be much more enjoyable and help you set goals and work toward achievement in many disciplines. Start by looking for clubs and student organizations that fit with your values and interests.

Special Series Spotlight: How I Picked My Major

The BetterGrads “College 101 Blog” kicked off 2011 with a special series titled “How I Picked My Major.” Guest contributors were asked to tell their personal story of picking a college major–how they did it, why they picked it, and what kind of challenges they faced. We thank the writers of this special series for their candor and willingness to share their stories. Here are some highlights from the series: Journal Your Path “I decided that my career choice should be based on my two greatest loves: history and writing. Searching for colleges with these areas of study was easy. However, my criteria of [disability] support services really narrowed down the list.” Michael Roppolo Rochester Institute of Technolgoy Don’t Make Me Choose “Being undeclared was a real adventure for me. … Every class I took had me strangely captivated: the idea that you can study men’s behavior in urinal selection [...]

How I Picked My Major — Study to Be, Not to Do

“I want to be the President of the United States!” is no longer an acceptable answer to the dinner table question: “What are you going to be when you grow up?” Increasingly as I grew older, the question turned from who I was going to be to what I was going to do. As a political science major, I am constantly asked which party I belong to, what I think of Obama’s healthcare policy, and whether or not I’ll be pursuing law school. The frequency of the limited range of these questions reflect the common misunderstandings related to my major. I first heard of the term “political science” during my senior year of high school.

How I Picked My Major — True Life: I’m a Double Major

At first, I thought I was way ahead of the game because I came into college with a major declared. However, my political science major was more so a passion for Law and Order: SVU. I came to realize that I could not personally face crime after crime, day after day. As much as I wanted to fight for victims’ rights and justice, I just couldn’t see myself confronting the reality of it all. I had to find something that I was passionate about and actually wanted to dive into. After finding myself at the University of Oregon, the answer became quite clear. How could I go to one the greenest college campuses in the most eco-friendly state and not major in environmental studies?

How I Picked My Major – Finding My Passion

I never really had a clue what I wanted to be when I grew up. Like many, I was purely interested in what would be the quickest and most financially rewarding. It took a very long time for me to learn that my concept of what is rewarding wasn’t based on the things that are truly important to me at all. I am hoping that if this essay changes even one person’s mind about walking the path that I did, then it might have all been worth it. When I was 16, my first job was working as a bus girl at a local restaurant. I never thought about life after high school, though I should have. I can honestly say that at 16, I was making more money than some adults. But, when I graduated high school, I enrolled in college anyway, majoring in small business management. I had [...]