Finding college scholarships

Best practices for finding and filling out scholarship applications

For more valuable information, ideas, and resources concerning college scholarships, browse our category, Scholarships.

As your high school career winds down, you may need to start thinking about ways to finance your post-secondary education. While student loans are a viable option in many cases, it's also worth seeking out and applying for scholarships to help ease the financial burden of continuing your education. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to find suitable scholarships in an endless sea of options, nor is it easy to define a winning strategy for filling them out. Below are some ideas that can help you overcome the challenges of finding and filling out scholarship applications.

Don't wait until the last minute. First things first, when starting your search for suitable scholarships to help fund your post-secondary education, don't wait until the last minute. The earlier you start, the less stressful the process will be. Once you do start your search, don't stop until you've found several scholarships that you qualify for. While you will likely eliminate many scholarships straight away because you don't meet the required criteria, with continued searching, you should have little trouble finding a variety of scholarships that you do qualify for. Once you've found several suitable scholarships, decide which ones you feel have the most potential, so you can begin narrowing down your options.

Don't just focus on the higher paying scholarships. As you're narrowing down your options, you may be tempted to focus your efforts solely on higher paying scholarships. This is a common mistake among scholarship applicants. Though obtaining a larger scholarship would undoubtedly be helpful, don't ignore the scholarships offering smaller rewards. Most likely, they have less competition, which increases the odds that you'll be selected as the winning applicant. Applying for scholarships with a range of monetary values is often a good way to maximize your chances of successfully obtaining a scholarship.

Regional, local, and school scholarships. In the same way that many lower value scholarships have less competition, so do many regional and local scholarships. While there's nothing wrong with applying for scholarships offered at the national level, you often have a better chance of securing some much-needed funds from regional and local scholarships because they generally have fewer applicants. Also, if you already attend or know which school you will be attending in the coming years, then definitely investigate the scholarships offered by the school, as well, because scholarships offered at the school level often have even fewer applicants than the regional and local ones.

Unique scholarships. While on the hunt for suitable scholarships, it is recommended that you also take note of any unique scholarships you qualify for. Depending on your personal characteristics and interests, you may qualify for such scholarships as the ones reserved for persons of tall stature (http://www.tallclubfoundation.org/scholarship-program.html), or bowling enthusiasts (https://www.bowl.com/scholarships), to name just two. While it can be harder to find unique scholarships matching your personal characteristics and interests, if you can manage to find one, it will likely have a limited pool of applicants, increasing your chances of success.

Following all instructions. When it comes time to start filling out your scholarship applications, always complete the applications in full and follow all provided instructions. Also, be sure to properly address your envelopes and affix enough postage to get your scholarship applications to their review committees by their stated due dates. The last thing you need to do is spend time completing a scholarship application, only for it to be misplaced in the mail or rejected on a technicality.

The essay. When filling out scholarship applications requiring essay submissions, take the time to craft a well-written piece deserving of the scholarship. After all, in many cases, the content of your essay will be more important to the scholarship committee than your academic record. As most scholarship applications with an essay portion provide a very specific word count to adhere to, stick to the specified word count so your application isn't rejected for failing to follow the essay guidelines. You should also have someone proofread your essay - and the rest of your scholarship application while they are at it - to ensure any errors are spotted and corrected before sending in your finished product.

Securing letters of recommendation. While certain scholarships don't require applicants to submit a letter of recommendation, many of the higher paying ones do. If a scholarship you are applying for asks for a recommendation letter, see if a teacher, coach, mentor, or employer will write one for you, as letters written by parents or other relatives may be considered biased by those judging the applications. If you are unable to acquire a suitable letter of recommendation, then only apply for scholarships that don't require one.

It's no easy feat to find and apply for educational scholarships. Despite the challenges of doing so, however, it's certainly worth the effort if it can help finance your continued education. While student loans are a viable option to cover the high costs of post-secondary education, scholarships - if you can get them - are often the superior choice because they won't later need to be repaid.

Technical college scholarships

A couple days ago, I had a phone conversation with a board member of a local chamber of commerce. She's actually my insurance and investment advisor, and I was calling her on business. I was a long-serving board member of this chamber, as well, until very recently, when I had to step away due to my work schedule.

Anyway, this chamber of commerce offers an annual scholarship - two actually, one for the four-year college/university path, and the other for the two-year technical college track. The scholarship is currently being advertised at the high school I work at.

She brought up a very good point that I want to share with you. We started chatting about the chamber's scholarship competition when I told her that I'm hearing it get a lot of great publicity at the high school in the school's daily announcements. I mentioned that I hope the technical college scholarship, in particular, gets a good number of applicants this year because of the so many great career opportunities available right now in the skilled trades. She agreed with me on that, but she added - finally getting to the point of this post here, I swear! - that there are many more opportunities available with a technical college education than just the trades.

See, there's so much talk right now about the trades - and rightly so - that we tend to forget about the many other wonderful, high-demand, good paying career paths that a technical college can set you on. They're unintentionally being overshadowed by all the trades talk going on.

We're talking culinary arts and hospitality management, dental hygienist, real estate and property management, graphic design, early childhood education, Web and digital media design, information technology (IT), criminal justice and law enforcement, nursing, paramedic and EMT, fire protection, truck driving, marketing and sales, funeral service, human resources (HR), cosmetology, you name it. Some schools may offer aviation. Countless more programs to choose from.

So much to explore in the technical college realm. So many viable options. And best of all? A lot of these technical college scholarships typically have very few applicants. And that makes for fantastic odds for you.

Still interested in the four-year bachelor's degree? As I explain in a previous post, "Manufacturing and the trades in schools, and I'll close on this thought:

Want the best of both worlds? I typically advise students these days to take a serious look at a technical college or vocational school education. Learn a provable hard skill or trade first, something that you're really going to enjoy. Enter the workforce with those skills and gain some practical on-the-job experience for a while. And then consider going for the bachelor's and perhaps even beyond, if that's something you'd like to do. Maybe get a bachelor's in a business/management/leadership program. Now, you have two good things going for you - first, you have that concrete, verifiable skill set. And you'll also have that bigger-picture education that can help you set the stage for a promotion into management or even off on your own as a business owner yourself some day.

For more information and resources on scholarships, check out the previous post, "Scholarships and financial aid resources."

The many benefits of volunteer work

By now, you're familiar with the concept of volunteer work. Perhaps you've already done volunteer work of some kind, or are currently doing it. And at your age, you have very little, if any, paid work experience to put on your resume and job applications, so things like volunteer service, co-curricular activities such as sports and clubs, and student leadership positions are going to comprise the bulk of your resume.

Volunteer work can provide a wealth of opportunities for learning new skills, strengthening skills, making meaningful connections through networking, gaining new perspectives, sharing talents, and making a difference in the lives of others.

I've been volunteering my time and expertise for a number of organizations and causes over the years, and I find great satisfaction in doing so. Whether through community service clubs like Lions, Rotary, and Kiwanis; as a board member of two chambers of commerce; as a member of two local government boards; or as a member of a committee that runs a large weekend-long festival every summer in my hometown, Muskego Fest, I've met so many talented and wonderful people, and I've learned so much, and continue to learn and meet great people.

I've also found that my volunteer work really goes hand-in-hand with the work I do for pay. I look at it like a continuous cycle, where everything comes back around full-circle - my volunteer work enhances my abilities for other volunteer work; my volunteer work enhances my abilities for my paid work; and my paid work enhances my abilities for my volunteer work. See, all too often, to get a little philosophical here for a moment, we tend to distinguish between volunteer work and paid work, or between personal development and professional development, as if they're all separate and disconnected from one another. In the end, however, we each possess just one mind, and it's a single, fully-unified unit. It's very vast and complex, but it's all connected through countless bridges, roads, and tunnels. In terms of the mind, work is work. Experience is experience. Learning is learning. Skills and talents are skills and talents. You get the point. There's definitely an interdependence between volunteer and paid work, where all of this learning and skill development is easily transferable to other jobs and situations. End of philosophical moment.



Areas where I've developed and reinforced skills over the years through a plethora of volunteer work and projects include leadership, negotiation, marketing, event planning and management, fundraising, customer service, strategic planning, basic accounting and bookkeeping, idea generation, presentations, and public relations and communications. 

So, we know that volunteer work is great for your resume, for preparing for the workforce, and for continuing to build and strengthen your talents throughout your life while meeting awesome people and making a difference in your community and beyond. Many scholarship and college admission applications are looking for meaningful volunteering experiences, as well. But you're asking, "Where do I start?"

Well, for starters, ask yourself what you'd like to get out of it. And really give this some thought. Put it on paper so that you have something concrete to look at, reflect on, and refine as needed. And then, go out and seek those opportunities.

Ideally, when it comes to paid work, we all want to do something that's meaningful and engaging to us, right? Something that's enjoyable for us and gives us a feeling that we're making a difference. Now sure, we all take or have taken paid jobs not living up to that ideal out of necessity at times, let's be realistic. But you get the picture. Well, the same goes with volunteer work. We want it to be meaningful for us. Something that's of interest to us and enjoyable. Something that can complement and enhance our professional and career goals. We know the work won't always be easy, but in the end, we know we're learning and growing while sharing our gifts with others and making key contacts.



So start by asking yourself what you'd like to get out of it. Here are some example scenarios to get you thinking about your own goals:

Let's say you'd like to eventually become a veterinarian. You're taking as many science courses as you can right now at the high school level. You're exploring college programs for veterinarian science. Are there any animal shelters or kennels in your area that you can volunteer for? How about a local veterinarian clinic? Or, let's say you're wanting to become a nurse or doctor. You're taking those science classes and exploring your college options. Any clinics or hospitals you can volunteer at?

You love sports. Can't get enough. You're thinking about sports management or sports marketing as a career. You're loading up on any relevant business courses you can fit into your schedule. Maybe you're taking a few English electives to augment the business classes because creative messaging, writing, and the overall ability to communicate effectively to an audience will be key. Are there any volunteer opportunities with your school's teams or athletic department? How about any local professional or minor league teams? Your community's parks and recreation department?

The trades are your thing. Maybe you're still figuring out which trade you'd really like to pursue. You're taking a variety of shop classes. Learning math. Any volunteer opportunities with Habitat for Humanity? How about your local National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) chapter? Any contractors in your area looking for help? Maybe they can help open the door to paid apprenticeships and give you some additional guidance on courses to take at your local technical college?

You're thinking about a career in law enforcement. Joining your local police explorers program is a great way to get involved in community service, network, learn about the profession, and figure out if this is a career you'd really like to pursue. In my hometown of Muskego, our Explorers regularly assist other community service clubs with projects and events around town, and we're grateful for their help! Call your local police department to see if there's an explorers program in your community and how you can get involved.

Business is your passion. You're stocking up on as many business courses as you can. Maybe you have one or more entrepreneurial ventures going for you, like your own lawn mowing or car detailing business. Perhaps you're involved in DECA, FBLA, or a similar club at your school. You're exploring business and management programs at the college level. How about calling your local chamber of commerce to see if they're in need of any volunteers? If the chamber is not in need of any volunteers itself, perhaps it can put you in touch with any of its member businesses and organizations that are looking for help? 

These are just a few basic examples out of an endless number of possibilities to get you thinking and exploring. You may find this article from U.S. News & World Report, Find Career-Focused Volunteer Opportunities in High School, helpful, as well.

Best of luck!

Scholarships and financial aid resources

Following are a number of Web sites, resources, and ideas pertaining to scholarships, grants, and other forms of financial aid for college. I feature both Milwaukee-area and broader national information. Check back from time to time, as this page may be updated and expanded.

Milwaukee-area:

A Google search on "scholarships for high school seniors milwaukee"

South Side Scholarship Foundation

MPS Foundation

Cream City Foundation

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI)

Wisconsin Technical Colleges


National/both:

Check with your local chamber of commerce and community service clubs and foundations like Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis, Moose, women's club, etc.

Check with your high school's guidance office.

Check with the colleges and universities you're interested in attending.

Check with any particular industry or trade organizations whose fields you're interested in working in.

STEM scholarships from the Department of Defense (DoD)

Everydae.com's Merit Scholarship Finder tool 

Finding college scholarships (from this blog, April 2019)