TIP OF THE WEEK - October 12

Scholarship Information:

The most common scholarships may be classified as:
• Merit-based: These awards are based on a student's athletic, academic, artistic or other abilities, and often factor in an applicant's community service record and extracurricular activities. The most common merit-based scholarships, awarded by either private organizations or directly by a student's intended college, recognize academic achievement or high scores on the ACT and SAT standardized tests.
• Need-based: These awards are based on the student and family's financial record and will require applicants to fill out a FAFSA to qualify if the scholarship is a federal award. Private need-based scholarships will also often require the results of a FAFSA, which calculates a student's financial need through a formula looking at the expected family contribution and cost of attendance at the intended college.
• Student-specific: These are scholarships where applicants must initially qualify by race, gender, religion, family and medical history, or many other student-specific factors.
• Career-specific: These are scholarships awarded by a college or university to students planning to pursue a specific field of study. Often the most generous awards are given to students pursuing careers in high-need areas such as education or nursing.

To help keep yourself on a timeframe, impose a deadline that is at least two weeks before the stated scholarship deadline to send out all required materials. Make a copy of the entire packet and keep it on file in case your packet goes astray. Make sure your name (and social security number, if applicable) appears on each page of the material to ensure that nothing is lost.

Lastly, a great place to start looking for scholarships is: www.fastweb.com