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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. Keep reading »

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: Keep reading »

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? Keep reading »

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: Keep reading »

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. Keep reading »

If you’re starting to choose a college, the best place to begin looking for information is always the Internet. Several websites have a quality “college finder” or “college search” to help give you some ideas of where to go to school based on your preferences. 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.

Keep reading »

When taking any test put on by CollegeBoard, such as the SATs, PSATs, or AP tests, there is an option on the forms to submit your name to the “Student Search Service”, which will allow you to receive information from colleges.

When I took the PSAT my junior year, I checked this box, thinking that it would be great to get more information on colleges. That was a bit of a mistake. Keep reading »