Scholarships:

 

Parents and students love scholarships. Scholarships need to be broken into two major classifications. First you have Merit-Based Scholarships from the university you attend, and then you have private scholarships.

 

 

These are scholarships that the universities give out for the academic excellence that students have demonstrated in high school in regards to their ACT/SAT scores, GPA and Class Ranking. Every school has their own criteria for giving out Merit-Based Scholarships. In fact some schools do not even give out Merit Scholarships as they give out all their assistance based on financial need. For the majority of schools that do give out these scholarships, the average school starts giving money out with an ACT score of 25 and a minimum of a 3.25 GPA. These scholarships can range from $500 to full tuition to a complete FREE Ride to college. The most important piece of the puzzle in this trilogy is the ACT score. Very few schools give out any academic money based solely on a students GPA or class rank. Therefore as you are picking schools you are looking for schools where you will be in the top to top10% of applicants, so your chances for Merit-Based Scholarships drastically increase.

 

Typically Merit-Based Money is guaranteed for all four years of college as long as the student maintains the GPA that the university says they need to keep the scholarship. If a student falls below that threshold, the scholarship could be gone forever or they may give you one semester of probation to improve the GPA up to the required minimum to keep the scholarship.

 

 

Private scholarships only make up about 2% of all the financial aid given out for college. Private scholarships could be on the National level or Local level. They could come from an endowment, a trust, a privately-held company, or they may come from a publicly traded company. In order to receive this type money you need to start in the Junior year of high school or your chances drastically are reduced. The reason is that the majority of deadlines for these scholarships are in October, November, and December of the Senior Year of High School. This means that if you wait until the start of the Senior Year to look, you have to identify the scholarships that you may be eligible to apply, find the application, fill out the application, get your transcripts and letters of recommendation in order. The you have to write an award-winning essay, which is not first draft the night before it is due. There is no way this will happen in 60-90 days. By starting in the Junior year, you greatly increase your chances.

 

The main thing to understand before you spend weeks, and months searching the internet for these private scholarships, is that not all colleges allow you to bring the money into the campus. Meaning that if you were to get $12,000 of aid from the college and then found a private scholarship for $2,000, the college will probably lower your aid to $10,000, and let you keep the $2,000 you found, but they will give the other $2,000 to someone else. Thereby not improving your aid package and making looking for private scholarships a waste of time for some families. They key is to know the stance on outside money from all the universities that you have an interest in attending. In order to do that you need to start this process early.