Show Me the Money! - Part III

As promised, I'll devote this post to resources that provide information on scholarships. Way "back in the day" I received a scholarship from a very unlikely source. My father worked as a pharmacist in a drugstore that gave out S&H Green Stamps. You would collect the stamps and lick them into books which you could then redeem for appliances, cookware, etc. (Ask your grandparents!) Since my dad worked in a place that distributed the stamps, I was eligible to apply. I won the scholarship and it paid for a great deal of my tuition. The only downside was that every time my tuition bill was due and I would present my award proof at the bursar's office, some comedian would always have to comment on how many books I must have had to save up! I would never have known of that scholarship had my father not worked in that store. Today the internet makes information on scholarships readily available.

collegeboard.org has a scholarship finder. Search "scholarship" to be taken to a comprehensive guide as to how to find scholarships and to link to Scholarship Search and FastWeb. The College Board co-sponsors a scholarship program with the Siemens Foundation to increase "access to higher education for talented mathematics, science, engineering, and technology students in the the United States". The Board also publishes a book, Getting Financial Aid 2012, which is available through this site. FastWeb at www.fastweb.com is another free scholarship search service which also offers career planning and information about special programs such as Study Abroad and the military.

I really like the zinch.com site. It offers a free scholarship search that includes information about college, grad school and vocational school awards. The search filters information for students freshman through senior year in high school as well as grad school students and working professionals. Information about awards provided by corporations as well as zinch itself is also available.

In my post about the Prudential Prestigious Awards and the Metro PCS Leaders and Scholars Program on December 10, 2010, I discussed how looking further into a program and investigating its website carefully may help you discover links to other sources that provide scholarship info. In reading about those programs, I found that the Prudential program is administered by International Scholarship and Tuition Services, Inc. at http://www.applyists.com . It provides links to ScholarUp (www.Scholarup.net), Scholarships.com (www.scholarships.com) and other sites of interest to scholarship applicants.

States have their own Higher Education Agencies. The New Jersey Higher Education Agency at www.hesaa.org gives information about New Jersey Tuition Aid Grants and scholarships available to NJ students such as the Dana Christmas Scholarship which is funded entirely by the Public Service Electric and Gas Foundation. Check your state's agency.

For those who want to apply for scholarships that require an essay or some type of competition, there are books such as Secrets to Winning a Scholarship by Mark Kantrowitz in conjunction with FastWeb. Get Cash for College: Secrets to Winning Scholarship by Gen Tanabe and Kelly Tanabe has also received good reviews.
There are many of these guides but the two listed are pretty recent. That's important when searching for funds, especially in this economy where many sponsors may have cut back or even eliminated their scholarship programs. That's one of the reasons I prefer using the program searches available online.

In preparing this post I am impressed, once again, with the wealth of information available to anyone who can access a computer. And to think I had to depend on a lick 'em, stick 'em stamp program which I was lucky to find by chance and circumstance. Thanks, Dad and the Sperry & Hutchinson Foundation!

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.