Loose Ends and Leads

Prudential Prestigious Awards recognize middle and high school aged students who have been exemplary in their volunteerism. The program began in 1995. It is unusual in that it is open to middle as well as high school students. Selectees are certified by their school or one of the following organizations: Girl Scout Councils; 4-H Clubs; American Red Cross; YMCA; and Affiliates of the HandsOn Network. Award recipients receive scholarship money and attend a week long conference in Washington, D.C. The 2011 conference will take place from April 30 - May 3. More information can be found at spirit.prudential.com

Another scholarship program of interest is the Metro PCS Leaders and Scholars Program. In partnership with the 2011 SNY Invitational, scholarships are awarded to students in the New York Metro area who excel in academics and volunteerism. More information can be found at snyinvitational.com

Mention of these two programs may seem to have come out of left field and totally out of sequence. We'll be getting into scholarships in more depth when we talk about paying for school. The reason I've mentioned them now is that each has provided a valuable lead to even more information. This is how you should be looking at the websites in your career and college exploration. In reading about the Metro PCS Program, you find that it is administered by Scholarship Management Services, a division of Scholarship America, the "nation's largest designer and manager of scholarship and tuition reimbursement programs for corporations, foundations, associations and individuals". If you go to their website at http://scholarshipamerica.org, you can find a list of the scholarships they administer and links to other sites, including Zinch.com. Zinch has a scholarship finder and is another great resource I'll discuss in a future posting.

The Prudential Awards Program is administered by International Scholarship and Tuition Services, Inc. at http://www.applyists.com
which states, "For over 23 years, we have provided scholarship and tuition program management for Fortune 500 companies, national membership organizations, family foundations, trusts and other organizations." At their site you can look up information by the name of the program or the sponsoring agency and you can apply for a scholarship. You can also access information about financial for college.

It makes sense that corporations would hire outside companies to administer programs such as these, but you might never have thought to dig a little deeper to find that out. If you explore sites critically you can find links and leads to a wealth of information and detect valuable sources you might have never considered. Go to it, Sherlock!

Two more loose ends:
The inaugural USA Science and Engineering Festival was held in October 2010. It was the country's first national science festival where over 500 science and engineering organizations tried to "reignite the interest of our nation's youth in sciences". More info can be found at http://www.usasciencefestival.org
The deadline for the January 22 SAT is December 23. The January and May test dates are the only ones this semester that offer the question/answer service option. For more information go to www.collegeboard.com.