Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Scholarship Season
It is now officially spring and it is also the height of scholarship season. Many, many scholarships are due before the end of April, so seniors have plenty to do!
Hopefully if you are a future graduate, you have not put off scholarship searching until now! It is so much more effective to begin looking toward scholarships during the Sophomore and Junior years. That way, when Senior year is upon you, you already know where the scholarships are and have worked to have abundant activities to list on all the scholarship forms.

For those of you that are graduating in a few months and have only just begun to look for scholarship opportunities, don't give up hope! You are going to have to work really, really hard to find and apply for scholarships! Here are some things you might want to begin doing immediately:
  • Call the Financial Aid office of any college you are considering. Find out what scholarship opportunities are available at each school, request scholarship application forms and begin working on those.
  • Check to see if there are scholarship opportunities in your local communities. Many clubs and organizations offer scholarships to local students every year. Watch your local newspaper for announcements of scholarships. Keep your eyes open and you will find many that you can apply for.
  • If you haven't kept records of things you've done during high school, you might want to take some time to jot down as many things as you can remember....organizations you've been involved with, contests you've participated in, people you have helped. These things may be used on lots of scholarship applications. My HomeSchool2College book encourages parents and their students to keep track of all these things during high school so that you don't have to depend on memory for everything over a four year period.
  • It's getting late, but there may still be time to file a FAFSA!

These are only a few of the things that can be done, but will be an excellent place to begin. Good luck in your search!

Sunday, March 11, 2007

It is March---have you filed your FAFSA yet? If you will be a college student next fall, you need to get your FAFSA filed now. This is probably one of the most important things you can do to help you find student aid. It is the beginning point for all Stafford loans and many, many colleges use the figures from this report to decide what financial aid a student needs. Get your taxes done ASAP and then use that form to help you file your FAFSA.
I filed my FAFSA last week. It was my 8th year in a row to file it, and now I'm done forever!! It has been worth the time and trouble to get it done each year as both of my girls received substantial financial help over their years in school. Our youngest will be starting her final year of grad school next fall, so this will be our last year to claim her on our taxes and to file this improtant document.
Go to fafsa.ed.gov to file. Remember, this is the FREE application for student aid, so never pay to file this form!