After almost 25 years of Guidance Counseling, and having three of my own kids head off to college, I want to share some of my biggest scholarship tips with parents. The students at BAHS hear these things from me on a consistent basis, but it’s important that parents know, too.

• APPLY! There is zero chance of being awarded a scholarship if you don’t apply. Now, it’s important to prioritize the ones that look realistic and worthwhile vs. those that don’t even fit your major, geographic location, college, etc. But I consistently hear from kids that they are “too busy” to apply. They’ll work all summer at a fast food restaurant for $2000 but won’t take one hour to write a solid essay for a scholarship for that amount, or more!
• KNOW WHERE TO GO. There is a “Scholarship Bulletin Board” directly across from the Guidance Office. I post applications for all local scholarships on there, as well as many regional or national ones. Kids can access them at any time. In addition, there are several reputable websites for scholarship. My favorite is Scholarship America. I’ve seen many Brookville students land significant scholarships from this site, but once you set up your profile, you have to log back in every week or so to see if they’ve alerted you to new possibilities. Another good one is FASTWEB. They’ve been around for a long time! In addition, I send out emails about twice per week to all seniors – and other grades, if applicable – with information and links to scholarships that I’ve found out about. Have your son or daughter pull up their BASD email and search on the word “Scholarship” from rdoolittle@basd.us. You’ll see that they’ve been notified about tons of possibilities.
• SET YOURSELF APART. Many scholarships ask students to write about volunteer experience – how have they made their school or community better by giving back. The catch for a lot of kids is that their essays all end up sounding the same. It plays out like this: There’s a local scholarship for $2500. There are 100 kids in the senior class. 10 of them actually apply for the scholarship. Seven of them write virtually the same thing: National Honor Society, Student Council; etc. The selection committee can’t distinguish one student from another. Then there is one applicant who did their essay at the last minute and there are grammatical errors and misspellings. They’re out. That leaves TWO students who are legitimately in the running to receive that scholarship. Those are pretty good odds, especially if you’re going after quite a few different ones.
• DON’T OVERCOMPLICATE THE ESSAY. In other words, know your audience. Many kids write their scholarship essays as if they are going to turn them in for an AP English paper. They use a thesaurus to find fancy words, they use obscure quotations or literary references. Meanwhile, the scholarship committee is a group of guys from a local club sitting around a table with a Coke and a cheeseburger trying to decide who to give their money to. They don’t want “fancy.” They want real. Now, if the essay if for a private scholarship from Dartmouth, that’s one thing. If it’s a local club from Brookville, that’s another.
• ADVERSITY. I’ve noticed that many scholarships have started to include an essay topic asking students to explain how they’ve overcome adversity in life. For some kids, this is incredibly easy to write about. For others, it might be a stretch. One of my sons actually wrote an essay like this explaining that he had been blessed with a very “normal” childhood and a good home, but elaborated on how he used those blessings to help others who weren’t as fortunate. If the other parameters of a scholarship fit well, don’t be afraid to “think outside the box” to become a viable candidate.
• YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE #1. Sometimes, kids feel like if they are not at the very TOP of their class, they don’t have a shot at a scholarship. That is absolutely not true. While it’s important to have the classes and GPA to give the scholarship donors the confidence that you can & will be successful in college, class rank and GPA aren’t everything. Not even close. In fact, I’ve seen many instances when scholarship money went to kids who were NOT at the top of their class, simply because the donors felt like “those kids” (at the top) would be getting a lot of financial aid help, and they specifically wanted their money to go to the student(s) who might get “left out.” It’s very important to do your best in classes, but you should still apply, no matter what.
• NEVER PAY. Occasionally, you'll come across a financial aid or scholarship site that requires payment. Do not pay. I've seen families approached about paying to have their child recruited for college sports, or a scholarship that has an application fee, or even a fake FAFSA site that has you input all your info and then asks for a $90 credit card charge to process it. Run away. Don't do it!
• DON’T STOP. While many students and families hit scholarships pretty hard during their senior year in high school, I’m not sure how many continue to pursue those avenues during the freshman, sophomore, and junior years of college. There are still many great opportunities to access money for college even once you’re enrolled, but you have to go after it!

Those are my biggest suggestions, but please email me if you have any specific questions about how to go about any of this process. And by all means, go after FAFSA and PHEAA during you son or daughter’s senior year to maximize all avenues of financial aid.