Looking for Scholarships?
Question:
I know there are lots of factors to this. Well I know to get a good scholarship you have to be a genius, a really good athelete, or a minority. Well, I am none of those. I'm smart, but not scholarship smart, I am a white male, so that leads the minority thing out. I am not into sports, but I do play music.
I was wondering if anyone heard of this one scholarship that is directed to the children of parents who were not born in the country. My english teacher talked about it once to the class. Though I know this was directed to the Hispanic students I realized that I qualified. My father was born in New Zealand in 1956 and moved to the U.S. in 1958 when my grandfather came to ceminary school.can anyone help me.
Answer:
There are many options open for you!
I first would suggest to go to: www.fastweb.com or www.scholarships.com and register for these sites. They are free and ask different questions to find appropriate scholarships that match you. Many of the scholarships require essays; however, if you really want to try and get some money, then the effort and work you put into them is worth it! Also, with you being a high school sophomore, you have plenty of time to enter quite a few for then ext few years!
Secondly, look into the college you are thinking of entering. It is still early, and I am not sure if you even know where you would like to go. You can always look into different universities that you are interested in though. From there, contact their financial aid department about the scholarships available. Many times you are automatically entered into need and merit based scholarships when you fill out the FAFSA. What many do not know though, is that each department in the university offers there own scholarships many times that you need to apply for on your own. The department of financial aid can help you find these.
Back to the FAFSA. There is no reason to not fill this out! It will open you up to student loans, grants, and scholarships! Student loans are great to get as they are subsidized by the government. You also do not need a cosigner which is great. Grants are like scholarships! You don't need to pay them back. Most grants are based on need, but they also take merit into consideration. Scholarships are offered through the FAFSA too. Many of these scholarships are also based on need as well as merit. The good thing about the FAFSA is, once you fill it out... you are automatically put into having a chance of getting these! You do not need to fill out any extra info.
Another option is too look into local scholarships. My high school has packets for local scholarships in our area. If you talk to the guidance counselor she/he might be able to help you find some to enter. They have many resources to help with the scholarships. Also, talk to your english teacher and see if they remember what scholarship they were talking about, and they could maybe help you find it!
Once you find what school you will be attending, you can also talk to the financial aid office. Explain your situation and see if they can help you anymore if you still need aid. I did that with my universities I applied to. I got the financial aid offers from each one, and then showed/emailed what the other universities were giving me to the others. This allowed me to see if the unversity would help with more funding if they knew I was getting more money from another school (which I was able to get some extra money at my current school!)
My parents cannot afford to pay for my college either. In fact, there are three of us in college right now (me and my two brothers) and they are not paying for any of us. It is possible to go to college without your parents help though. You just need to really get out there and find the oppurtunities available.
Hang in there! Things will work out for the best, you just gotta really try! You seem like a smart kid though, starting early is a great thing! Feel free to email if you need anymore help.
Check out scholarships.com its a site that you sign up for and customize the scholarship listings to fit your needs. For example, I am an Army wife - so I get scholarships from that, plus I'm Native American - there is more for that, and I live overseas.. you get the point..
anyways, it gives you specific requirements about the scholarship, how much money you can get and even the cut off date
check it out, it's pretty cool
try fastweb.com
You are required to fill out the FAFSA application (http://www.fafsa.gov) or something like that. Just do a google search for fafsa.
If your household income is low enough, then you may get full pell, which is $2,000 a semester (in Missouri). So that is $4,000 a year, which should cover the tuition part of college. It may cover books too. So if your income is low enough, then you may not have to worry about scholarships.
College is for wealthy families, and families that live in a true poverty situation. For everyone else, you have to pay for it by taking out student loans, because what I have found out, if you aren't really poor, then a lot of the scholarships out there will disqualify you because your income is just a few hundred dollars too much.
Hope you get full pell grants, because that makes financing college so much easier on you.
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