Xatal

Now that your college applications are (hopefully) submitted, it’s a good idea to start applying to scholarships. Many kids put them off until March or so, so by applying now you gain a few more opportunities to  win than you would otherwise have if you procrastinate.

Occasionally in high school, we would have opportunities to work on scholarship applications during classtime in a computer lab. Wherever I looked in the classroom, people were working on online scholarship applications, most found on the website FastWeb.

Although online scholarships are worth applying to, in actuality, they are not as effective uses of your time as a local scholarship.

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Although of course every college has its due date, a huge amount of colleges have their applications due tomorrow.

Hopefully you haven’t put it off too long, as by now it’s nearing the end. Try not to cut it any closer than you have to. When my brother turned in his UC applications, he was technically too late, but they ended up giving another day because the server crashed from all the last minute applications being sent in. You don’t want to take that chance.

Good luck with your applications. Now you can take a rest from the stress of them and simply wait to see where you get in :)

Last year when I submitted my college applications, I remember wondering often if I was sure enough of where I wanted to go to school. Now, my girlfriend is beginning to apply to schools, and she’s feeling anxious because she’s really not sure where she wants to go still.

You do not need to know which school you want to attend when you submit your application

Obviously, before turning in college applications, you have a nice variety of colleges to choose from. But once application due dates start hitting, your options will become much narrower. This can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing, depending on how you want to look at it.

But whichever way, it’s important to feel at least some level of certainty with the schools you chose to apply to. You want each school you send an application to be a potential choice for you, not just some school you choose for the sake of choosing. Unless you have enough money to apply to schools simply for bragging rights, applying to schools on a whim is going to cost a lot of money (and time).

Here are some ways of helping to feel good about your choices:

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Your student resume, sometimes referred to as a ‘Brag Sheet’, is a collective list of all of your accomplishments as a student. When you fill out scholarship/college applications and ask for letters of recommendation, you’ll find yourself referring to it all the time, so it’s definitely best to get a head start on it.

My biggest recommendation is to add to it as you go. Keep a list saved on your computer of what you have done. If you take part in something that should go on the list, add it and save it before you forget. Of course, very few people are that dedicated — myself included — so chances are you’ll find yourself struggling to think of everything to write a good one at the last possible moment.

Not to worry!

The important thing is trying to remember everything you’ve done that’s noteworthy. Don’t worry about what’s applicable yet, you just want a nice big list of your accomplishments. You can always take some out based on the circumstances. Here are some aspects of your life to consider:

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So I’ve told you how to get started on scholarships, but let’s not overlook how essential (and pesky) that letter of recommendation can be.

Most local scholarships will request at least one letter of recommendation, usually more. Some college applications want them. So before you even get to that point, it’s always great to make sure you have a healthy supply in your arsenal.

You always want the letter of recommendation to show you at your best, so it’s crucial to do your best to get a great one. Read the rest of this entry »

Does August seem a bit early? It’s not.

As students start to decide where they’re going to go to school, paying for that starts to take shape and scholarship applications start to become a priority. So, around that time, the competition for scholarships becomes much steeper because of more applicants.

Don’t believe me? Check out the pattern of Google searches for “scholarships” over the past few years:

The blue line designates the amount of searches. Notice how this amount jumps up around January.

As you can see, more searches are done for scholarships in the first few months of the year than any other time. This is generally the time when most kids are hunting around for scholarships.

By getting a start on scholarships early, you’ll have far more opportunities to get money than the average person who procrastinates.

Here are some good tips to help you get more free money: Read the rest of this entry »

When you start looking into colleges, you’ll notice that all of them boast any weird ranking that they can. Their websites are always full of things like:

• Ranked 6th for lowest dropout rate!
• Ranked 8th for best feminist studies program!
• Ranked 17th for nicest dorms!

Schools try to use these rankings to advertise and look impressive, but most of them really aren’t at all significant to you. What do you care about the feminist studies program if that’s not your major? Probably not at all.

These rankings are nice to look at and are good to talk about, but they shouldn’t hold much weight on your decision at all unless it’s something that you feel applies to you specifically, like if it involves your major. Think about it like in a professional sport — if you hear that such and such quarterback is the top in the league for scoring touchdowns on third down, that’s good and all, but aren’t there more important aspects?

The rankings that are a bit more important are the overall rankings.

US News ranks colleges, and their rankings are usually pretty accurate and held in high regard. They take into account a lot of different factors in making the rankings. For the list of the top rated schools, check here.

Princeton Review, the same site you can use to look up college information, also ranks schools as well. I couldn’t really find a definitive list, but they do rank in a bunch of different categories. You can look at their lists here

So what do rankings mean for you? What should they mean for you? Read the rest of this entry »

Seeing as it’s summer, now is the time when a lot of kids will start touring campuses they’re interested in attending. Visiting a college is huge, and a lot of times that’s what will inevitably make or break a decision. I know I would have chosen a different school had I not visited all of my options beforehand.

If the college is only a short drive away, then visiting it won’t be too big of a deal. However, if the college is far away from you, you might only get one chance to go there and tour it. It’s important that you get it right and make the most out of it.

For me, the most important part of college tours was the general feel I got from the campus. Some schools I saw had a very prestigious feel, while others had a very laid-back feel. In the end, that vibe you get will help play a crucial part in deciding where you want to go.

You want to make sure that overall feeling is accurate. Here are some suggestions to ensure that it is by making the most of your college tour: Read the rest of this entry »

Short answer

Yes.

Long answer:

As I mentioned earlier, colleges primarily look at your junior year academics when making a decision about you. But that doesn’t make your senior year unimportant at all.

Let’s put it this way. Say you’re an employer trying to decide who to hire. You look at one person’s application and see that he was a great worker at his current job, but you find out that once he had the prospect of being hired by you, he stopped working as hard and kind of turned a blind eye to things. The other person kept on working strong, even with a decent chance of being hired by you. Who would you hire?

Colleges are likely to do the same thing. Depending on how competitive the school you’re trying to get into is, having a shorter day your senior year can hurt you, especially depending on what you do with it. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re starting to choose a college, the best place to begin looking for information is always the Internet. Several websites have quality a “college finders or “college search” to help give you some ideas of where to go to school based on what you tell them. Most of these will ask similar questions about what you’d like in a college, such as your major, ideal distance from home, size of campus, sports, and so forth.

A lot of these websites are also great for providing general statistics about colleges or universities, such as male/female ratio, tuition, average age, ethnicity distribution, and so forth.

Much like the Student Search Service, a lot of the college searches are only helpful if you don’t already have a school in mind. If you’ve already narrowed it down to a few, the searches won’t be too helpful to you. However, the information that these sites provide is useful no matter who you are.

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