The Ultimate Guide to Merit Scholarships

Webinar Transcription

2023-03-14 – The Ultimate Guide to Merit Scholarships

Stacey: Hi, everyone. My name is Stacey Tuttle, and I am your moderator today. Welcome to, “The Ultimate Guide to Merit Scholarships.” To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we’ll start off with a presentation and then answer your questions in a live Q& A. On the sidebar, you can download our slides. And you can start submitting questions in the Q and a tab.

Now let’s meet our panelist.

Ashly: Hi everyone. My name is Ashly Cargle-Thompson, and I’m a former admissions officer here at CollegeAdvisor. I am also the team lead for our financial aid specialist team. And I have about. Eight, nine years of financial aid work at the college and graduate level under my belt. So, um, I was just saying I am a huge financial aid nerd and I’m so happy to be able to share some hopefully very helpful tips about securing.

And so I’m excited to be able to share some of my merit scholarships with you this afternoon this evening, wherever you are. Great.

Stacey: so much. I’m so looking forward to learning from you as I’m sure everyone is here today. So let’s get a sense of who is in the room today. Can you tell me in a poll, and we’re going to start this now.

What grade you’re in. And that poll should have started. You can go ahead and submit your responses now. In the meantime, Ashly, while we’re getting in these responses, they’re coming in slowly. Can you give me a sense of kind of what got you into financial aid?

Ashly: So financial aid is I started out in admissions like a lot of financial aid people do.

Um, and you realize that pretty quickly that financial aid is as important, if not more important, um, than, you know, All of the admissions things because it’s really kind of the one barrier or the open door to whether or not you’re able to attend these schools. So, um, from an institutional side, it was really important for me to make sure that our programs were as accessible as possible to as many different people as possible.

And so that meant that, um, financial aid needed to be A part of that discussion. And then on the CollegeAdvisor side, it’s really important for me to explain to my families, how financial aid works kind of behind the curtain, because I’m a big believer that the more, you know, the more effectively you’re able to advocate for yourself.

So even if that context doesn’t mean much in high school, it will all start to come together in college and graduate school, and you’ll be a much better self advocate.

Stacey: I absolutely love that. That makes a lot of sense. Um, and just looking at the poll results coming in an overwhelming amount of students, um, 83 percent in the in the webinar today are in the 11th grade juniors.

So, it seems like an ideal time to start learning about financial aid and the whole process. So, with that, let’s. Keep going with this really important webinar. Ashly, I’ll turn it back over to you.

Ashly: Great. So just to get you oriented, let’s talk a little bit about what a merit scholarship is. In the simplest terms, a merit scholarship is basically any scholarship that you could be offered that doesn’t have a need based component, where your financial need is met.

Is not considered part of the eligibility criteria. Um, a more detailed look, uh, look at merit scholarships. Um, is that they’re either, they’re usually either institutional scholarships. So meaning merit based scholarships being offered by individual colleges and universities to their students, or they can be external aid, meaning that they are third party organizations outside of a university or college that are helping fund, um, students with scholarships based on, again, merit.

As I said before, they’re always need blind. So if you are asked to produce any sort of financial data or, uh, information, then that’s not truly a merit scholarship. There are a lot of scholarships that, you know, There’s kind of some overlap there. Um, but true merit scholarships are not going to look at your need.

Instead, what they’re looking for is a sign of your excellence and achievement in a specific area. So whether that’s Whether that’s fine arts, um, they’re looking for excellence and achievement. Um, there are also some scholarships, which would technically fall under the merit scholarship category because there isn’t a need component, but their eligibility criteria are not so much focused on.

excellence and achievement in a specific area of your academics or extracurriculars, but they are based on some demographic, um, identity that you might have. So it might be based on the state that your, your home state, it might be based on a religious, um, affiliation. It runs the gamut, but those are also, again, if they don’t ask you for any sort of financial information.

Those are also considered merit scholarships. So this is a really big slide. You will have access to it later, so don’t panic, um, if it seems like a lot of information for you. But thinking about the timeline for when it’s best to start thinking about merit scholarships. I would say about 10th grade is when you want to start getting your arms around it.

Now, I know we have a lot of 11th graders in here. You’re fine. You still have plenty of time to get everything together, but if you really want to have A nice, smooth transition, um, in terms of finding, researching, and applying for, uh, merit scholarships. Starting at 10th grade, uh, is the easiest way to do it.

So in 10th grade, you’re doing what we usually recommend most 10th graders do. One is making sure that your grades are good. And two, just starting to research what college options are out there. Just starting to get yourself acquainted with the world of colleges and universities. As you’re doing that, You always want to look at the financial aid that’s being offered and what sorts of financial aid are being offered from those colleges.

Um, always looking at merit awards and seeing if merit awards are available. It’s a, it’s a good idea. Um, with that, Highlight whatever schools have strong merit award programs that align with your interests. So you might find schools say that you want to be a civil engineer. You might find some schools that have merit awards, but my gosh, most of them are for students who are studying in.

Humanities. Um, or who are in computer science. And so that might not be a school that makes it really high on your list because you know, that’s one element of funding that won’t be available to you most likely at that school. But there might be other schools that do have really robust financial aid and merit based scholarship opportunities for engineering students.

So those are the kinds of things, again, as a sophomore that you just want to know broadly. What are the schools that are strong for this? And what are the schools that are a bit of a gamble? And then finally, again, you want to continue to set achievement goals in those areas. So, If you know what you want to do, or if you have like a, even a broad idea, I want to, you want to go into STEM.

You want to go into fine arts. You are an athlete. It doesn’t have to be super defined. in the 10th grade. Um, but you do want to start narrowing in and honing in on what your actual interest is going to be. And you want to start setting goals to start that honing in so that by 11th grade, you’ll be able to go back through that school list, say, okay, I have a better idea of what it is that I want to study, or I have a better idea of, you know, what it is that I’m going to be.

doing and at what level I’ll be performing in, um, academics or extracurriculars that might be, um, good hooks for a merit scholarship. Um, and now you’re able to start Winnowing down that college list, um, or at the very least, adding the, um, merit scholarship eligibility criteria to that Scott, that college list.

So important things to know are, you know, there is a huge fellowship at this school, but it has an additional application component. to it. So those are the kinds of things that you would want to look at. There’s other schools where all you do is submit your application and they’re going to decide based on the strength of your application.

So knowing how to apply for the scholarships, knowing how the scholarships work, Those are the sorts of things you want to start filling in during your junior year. You also want to make sure that you’re working with someone. If you’re a CollegeAdvisor student, then you can work with your advisor. Um, otherwise work with a college counselor, anyone that you can to start developing your curriculum and making sure that you’re enrolling in classes, um, in your junior year that are getting you toward your goal, um, that you’re Prepare to take any exams or participate in any kinds of competitions that might highlight whatever skill it is that you’re wanting to really highlight for merit funding.

Um, this is also the time where I really recommend that you Really explicitly start seeking mentorships if you haven’t already with faculty or coaches, program administrators in your junior year so that they get to see you early on in your junior year. They get to see you chart the growth through your junior year and later on those will be excellent recommenders for your scholarship applications and your admissions applications.

I also would Recommend that you take the PSAT your junior year. You don’t have to take the PSAT, but the National Merit Scholars Program, which is probably kind of the largest scholarship program, um, merit scholarship program. Available to students in the U.S. taking the PSAT is one of the eligibility criteria.

So a lot of that, um, federal funding, federal grants, federal scholarships, which the, the national merit scholarship falls under that, um. require you to take the PSAT. So you should prepare to do that if you’re wanting to put yourself in the best position for that. Then finally, in 12th grade, you’ll be finalizing your college list.

You’ll be confirming that, um, you have everything together for the application process for each school, um, the merit, the scholarship application process for each school. Um, you’ll want to make sure, now this is where the strategy really comes in, Most merit scholarships will have some sort of description about what they are, what they’re about, what they’re for, who started the scholarship fund, um, and they make it very clear what it is that they’re looking for.

Um, it, they might use language like this scholarship, um, funds outstanding future leaders in the field of. Blah, blah, blah, who’s shown great promise and creativity in their research. Right? So now you know that you need to play up leadership skills. You need to play up creativity. You need to play up research.

Those are all things that you want to organically weave in and out of your application out in and out of your essay. Um, so that when they’re reading this application, they’re like, wow, this is. Written for this person and you want to be able to do that without just echoing the eligibility criteria back at them.

Um, you want to make sure that you’re also asking your mentors who you kind of hooked up with in your junior year to write your recommendations. And then again, you also want to take the SAT because that is often a criteria for federally funded scholarships. So the different types of merit scholarships, I’ll run through these really quickly.

Academic, Those are scholarships where the eligibility criteria are focused on your academic performance, so they’re going to look at things like GPA, ACT and SAT scores, whether or not you’re taking AP or IB credits, and what your test scores are for your AP and IB exams, um, and the strength of your curriculum, the, um, difficulty or rigor of your high school.

Those are all things that they’re going to look for for academic. Merit awards. Um, there are also athletic merit awards. Um, That’s it. That’s its own sort of wheelhouse. Most athletic awards are granted through the college, the college’s athletic department, which means that there’s an entire recruitment process.

There’s a whole NCAA clearinghouse thing that you have to do. But that is not something that if you’re an athlete and you’re already being recruited or you know you’re going to be recruited, whoever is recruiting you from those schools will walk you through that process. That’s not something that you have to worry about doing on your own.

However, there are some scholarships available to students who from third party, um, organizations to students who have just participated in a certain sport. And those are the ones that you would find yourself. Most athletic scholarships are sport specific though. So if you are a tennis player, you are going to be recruited by the tennis team, or you’re going to want to look for Merit awards for students who played tennis in high school.

Um, there’s also artistic merit scholarships, which are usually, um, which are for students who are participating in the fine arts. So whether that’s visual arts, um, whether that’s drama, music, um, any of those types of things, those are the artistic ones. And in those cases, you might want to be prepared that you would have to audition.

Uh, if you’re. Especially if you’re a musician or that you might have to provide or compile some sort of portfolio of your work so that they can see, um, what you what you’re capable of. So you want to be prepared for that. If that’s what you’re going to go for. There are also leadership. Merit awards. So those are going to focus on your participation in things like school government, um, whether or not you’ve been an elected leader for other student groups or extracurriculars you’re a part of.

Um, but here’s the really important thing. They want to see, and you’re going to hear this a lot over the next year, they want to also see what your impact has been as a leader. So that means that you have to be able to show them how you’ve affected change through your leadership. And in order to do that, it’s usually helpful to provide them with both qualitative and quantitative evidence, right?

So telling a story is great about, you know, a time that you help someone out. But it’s even better if you can tell that story and then say, and from that we decided to Create a clothing drive where we collected more than 1, 200 pounds of clothes from students at our school and within our school district, something like that, but put numbers on it.

Give give those, um, give those experiences some sort of quantifiable. Or, um, value. Um, similarly, there are, and sometimes these are smashed together, there are community scholarships. So those are the ones that are going to be focused on volunteering. Um, if you have like a core cause or an issue that you have been, um, volunteering for and advocating for.

That’s what you would talk about. Again, you also, in those situations, want to be able to talk very explicitly about how you’re affecting change and provide quantifiable evidence for that impact. And then finally, and I mentioned this before, there are special interests, which don’t, it’s kind of a catch all.

Um, So that would be, um, awards available to people from a specific demographic group, um, to students who are interested in a particular major or have particular career interests. And that’s also where I would put any merit scholarships that are focused on. non athletic, non arts club and extracurricular participation.

So that would be things like Eagle Scouts, Robotics Club, debate, those types of things would fall under the special interest category.

So the requirements for a plot for qualifying for a merit scholarship are very broad. You’re always going to know what the requirements are by looking at the applications, which is why and reading kind of the summary about the merit awards, which is why I recommend that you start this process sooner than later.

Um, so that you can know as you’re narrowing down your college list, as you’re getting ready to write applications, whether or not you qualify for additional funding, that’s all part of your college plan. So. When you’re doing that, there are certain things that you need to have prepared and ready to go, no matter what type of merit scholarship you’re looking to apply for.

So you always want to have the strongest academics you can. Do you have to be the valedictorian of your class? Absolutely not. There are plenty of scholarships out there for students who don’t have perfect grades or who didn’t take all AP courses. But you do want to be able to show that you work hard in the classroom, that you care about your grades, that you’re responsible for your grades, because after all, this is to go to college.

This is for them paying for even more of your school. They want to know that you’re a committed student. Um, they also want to see a depth and a breadth of passion from you. So, um, When I say a breadth of passion, they want to see that you’re interested in something, but that you have the curiosity. Um, to expand upon it while you’re in college.

So if you are in drama and you’ve only done musicals, right, but you want to be a drama major and you’ve only done musicals in high school, they want to see that you’re interested in doing one acts, that you’re interested in doing. Just straight dramas that you’re interested in directing that you have a breadth of passion But they also want to see a depth of it in that you’ve put a lot of energy Into your craft so far and that you have very specific ideas Of how when you’re at college, you can continue to grow in that craft and in that way.

Um It’s always good to have strong documentation. So again, even if you’re not submitting the documentation being able to Look at things. Um, look at your own documentation and say, Oh, I did this. I got this award. I got this award I placed here in this competition. Um, we created this. We started this club.

Having that list makes it much easier, not only for you to write your applications, but for you to remember how much stuff you’ve done. A lot of times, by the time you get to 12th grade, you’re writing these applications. You can’t even remember all of the things that you’ve done, and getting to see it on paper is usually really gratifying and is a great confidence boost on top of that.

Um, and then they also want to see an articulation of a personal mission. Why is this thing, this sport, this form of art, um, this club? Why is this important to you and what are you going, what positive things are you going to do with your experiences and the skills that you’ve acquired in that, in those experiences to make the world a better place?

So a lot of it is like writing your personal statement. But again, Ideally, you want to be able to weave all of these things into your admissions application and into your personal statement, especially if it’s for institutional funding. Um, additional things that everyone won’t have to do, but some merit scholarships might require are tryouts and auditions.

We talked about that portfolios or films. If you’re an athlete, you should be, you know, collecting, Film and making sure that people are filming your competition so that you can make a little real, um, they might require an interview or even proof of membership. So if you get one of those demographic awards and religious affiliation is a requirement, then you might need to get a note from a pastor or a priest or any religious leader, um, to, um, confirm that you are indeed a member of that church or place of worship.

So now that you know how to organize everything, where do you even find these things? Institutional merit scholarships are the easiest to find because you’re going to go to the website of a particular college. The first place you want to look is at their financial aid website. Um, a lot of times they will say, Right out of the gates, whether they have offer merit awards or whether they don’t so and you’ll start to be able to kind of grasp which ones just just by skimming after a while, which schools are going to be going to have merit award opportunities and which ones won’t, um, for instance, the Ivy League does not offer merit awards.

merit awards anymore because they are fully need based. So you’ll see as you’re going through their websites that you’re not going to find a whole lot of information about additional scholarships or merit funding. Um, so look at the financial aid website and sometimes it’s buried, so stay with it and try and find it.

Um, you might also though find information about merit awards in your prospective student portal. So once you submit your application, um, sometimes you, you get a little, you get access to a little portal. Sometimes they’ll update it and there’ll be a link about scholarships that you can apply for.

Sometimes the, the admissions office will reach out to you directly and, and encourage you to apply for a scholarship. Um, but. Sometimes, instead of it being on the financial aid website, it’s something that shows up during the application process in your portal. If all else fails, and you can’t find any information, contact the admissions office and just ask, are there any additional merit awards, um, that I can apply for, or before I submit my application that I should be aware of so that I can make sure that my application is addressing, um, you know, the, the criteria for those scholarships.

External merit scholarships are the tougher bit, and at the end of the day, there’s no way, really, unfortunately, there’s no hack for Um, kind of getting around the amount of legwork that’s required to find external scholarships. So, um, I usually recommend that students start with scholarship search apps.

I love going, Mary, if you haven’t heard of it, um, please just Google it. Or it’s, I think it’s just www going mary.com. Um, it is a fantastic resource for finding scholarships and also being able to. Um, uh, select application opportunities, apply for them and track them really efficiently. It really prioritizes efficiency and if they have a lot of great kind of educational tools about financial aid too.

So Going Merry is a good one. Scholly is another one that a lot of students use and also ScholarshipOwl. There are dozens of these apps and platforms, um, out on the internet. So. You know, you don’t have to use any of these, you could use one or two, you could use none of them and go in a different direction.

Whatever it is, I usually recommend though that you work between at least two platforms. You will see a lot of overlap, but there will always be a couple of scholarships that wiggle into one that the other one didn’t capture. So scholarship search apps are a great way to start, um, but also talk to any group program activity leaders that, that you’re working with.

So if you are a volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club, talk to the director of your club and ask, Hey, are there any scholarship opportunities for volunteers, um, who are about to graduate? Ask. You know, if you go to a church, ask if they have any funding, um, ask the, the staff leader of the robotics club, if there are any scholarships that they know of, or if any former members of the robotics club got any funding that they know of because of their participation in robotics, um, your high school college counselor, or, you know, kind of high school, college office is also a good resource for that.

Um, My recommendation when talking to your college counselor is not to just go in and ask, Hey, are there any other scholarships you know about? That’s a huge question and more likely than not, they’re going to just tell you to Google it or to go find it yourself and maybe give you a couple of tips on how to do that.

If you want to get really specific information from them. What I usually recommend is that students ask their college counselors, um, Hey, do you keep track of the different scholarships that are like former senior class? landed and were able to secure most schools do most schools will have some sort of honors day Where they talk about where the seniors are going and how much money they’re getting Or will be listed in the graduation program.

There is usually some Some sort of documentation that lists the funding that the outgoing seniors have received. And the reason that that’s valuable, one, it’s a specific thing that the college counseling office can put their hands on. But two, that gives you a list of students who, from your school, who presumably had a very similar curriculum, who are from the same part of the country, um, as you.

So in a lot of ways, you’re matching up. It’s giving you a list of the scholarships that were well suited for them. And while it might seem counterintuitive that, Oh, well, if they just got it, why would they give one to me? At the end of the day, because you go to that school, you have name recognition. They already know, Oh, this was a really strong application that came out of main high school in Idaho.

Um, so let’s, you know, Let’s like really read this one because we always get really strong applications from this. They have a positive, um, a positive correlation with your high school. And then finally, alumni networks. both at the college level and in your high school. So if your high school has any sort of alumni network, tap into that, because if alums themselves have not created a scholarship fund, they might work places that have scholarship funds.

And now you’ve networked with somebody who, um, who knows you and you’re going to apply for money from their organization. Um, and also at the collegiate level, a lot of times. alumni groups will get together and create a scholarship to make sure that they’re, that the school is continuing to be attractive to students like them.

So whether it’s, um, you know, black alumni or, um, a lot of times it’s geographic. So alumni from Georgia, those types of things, they’ll put money together and create a scholarship. scholarship.

And then finally, how do you figure out whether or not it’s worth it to apply for a merit scholarship? Uh, first of all, the criteria are usually right there on the application. It’s the first thing you see. Um, and if they’re not listed again, read the kind of summary very closely because they’ll tell you all of the things that they’re looking for.

But the really important part is in terms of reading the criteria is not to count yourself out too quickly. A lot of times students will read the criteria and if it’s not a perfect match, they’re on to the next application. Sometimes you have a good shot at getting the funding if you just know how to frame your experience and you know how to kind of advocate for yourself in those situations.

So of course there are criteria that you cannot you know, zhuzh up to make, to make yourself fit, right? So if it’s residency or citizenship, like you live where you live, you can’t change that age, religious affiliation, race, those types of things that you just can’t change. Okay, move on. Um, but there are also usually flexible criteria, criteria that talk about experience, coursework, um, your academic skills.

You know, academics, um, your career interests, what do you want to do after college? What do you want to major in in college? I call those flexible criteria because those are places where if it’s not a perfect match, you can still make a case for yourself, right? So if there are, so if you’re a student who is interested in studying religion, for instance, Um, I was a religious studies major.

That’s why I keep talking about church. I’m sorry. It’s not it’s me. Um, but if you’re interested in studying religion, right? And you see a scholarship that’s out there for students who are interested in studying history and your interest is in. You know, um, pre,

pre modern politics, you know, having to, like, after the fall of the Roman Empire and Christians or something, I don’t know. Um, but if your interest is historical, if your interest in religion is historical, then functionally you are a historian. And you can make a play for funding for people who are interested in pursuing history.

So, um, similarly for experience, if they say the student has to have X number of years of experience, um, volunteering at the YMCA, um, and while you didn’t volunteer at the YMCA, you volunteered at a local community center, um, You can make an argument for that as long as it’s not like a YMCA scholarship.

So figure out how to frame your interests and your experience in a way that even if all the criteria aren’t a perfect fit, if you can see a connection, you’re able to make that connection.

Stacey: Okay. Thank you so much Ashly. This is a lot of wonderful information and I know for me personally, you know, just going through the application process to college was daunting and then the financial aid of merit scholarship piece could be equally, if not more daunting. And so with that, we do wanna get a sense from you all.

I’m gonna start the poll now. Which part of applying to merit scholarships do you feel is the most daunting to you? Um, and so you can go ahead and submit your answers. To the poll now and while those are coming in, uh, actually I kind of have a unique question for you um can you talk about or uh Tell us a little bit about maybe a unique scholarship merit scholarship You’ve seen recently like for example, i’ve seen one recently for dog lovers Um any fun ones that you’ve seen in recent weeks or months?

Ashly: Um, well, there’s there’s there’s a lot of Interesting scholarships out there. Um, I’ll say that this, yeah, I guess this is unique. Um, what you’ll find if you spend as much time looking at merit scholarships as I have is that there are a strangely high number of personal injury law firms that have Scholarship programs.

Um, and usually want just, you know, a paragraph about, um, a time that you suffered an injury and how you. How you were able to overcome that. Um, or sometimes they’re just sweepstakes. One thing that I do want to point out is that as you’re searching for scholarships, you might see a lot of these no essay scholarships popping up.

And a lot of times people will skim over them because they seem sketchy. Um, And in a way they kind of are because what is happening is that organizations have figured out and businesses have figured out that there’s a tax benefit to having a scholarship program, but they don’t want to actually administer a scholarship program.

So they don’t want you to send in essays and transcripts and all that. They want to be able to put the money aside, get their tax break, and then just like pick somebody out of a hat. So these no essay scholarships are really just. sweepstakes that these companies are running. Um, so there’s no harm. A lot of times in, in filling them out.

Um, I would say if you’re fine, like if you are going to do that, do it through a site like Going Merry or Scholarship Owl so that you know that those are vetted. And I would say that if you’re going to opt into doing those, create a financial aid email account just for that so that if they also decide that they want to spam you until you’re 45 years old and have maybe had a fender bender and need some representation, then it’s not clogging up your actual emails.

Stacey: Oh, that’s such great advice. I love the email advice, Ashly. So looking back to the poll, we’re going to close that up now. Um, the responses overwhelmingly, again, kind of followed the three top categories. It doesn’t seem like everybody is really concerned about expressing their financial need or, um, assessing whether or not you’re eligible for merit scholarships, where the pain points that I seem to be with writing those essays, the researching, which we really talk about in depth here, finding those merit scholarships.

And then overwhelmingly all of it. Um, yes, it can be quite daunting. And so let’s talk about it a little bit more. Let’s turn it back over to you, Ashly, for more of the presentation.

Ashly: Great. Um, so just to talk about a little bit about the essays again, If you start reading them now and looking at applications now, you’ll see that there’s a very similar rhythm to these essays for applications as there are for admissions essays.

So I wouldn’t panic too much. You can usually Use portions of your admissions essays to kind of fill out scholarship essays. You can do double duty. You can figure out a strategy so that you’re not reinventing the wheel the entire time. And then again, go look at going married, go look at Scali, go look at ScholarshipOwl.

All of these platforms are set up so that. You’re not reinventing the wheel the entire time, and they’re giving you curated, personalized scholarship opportunities. Um, so you’re not having to sift through as much information. Like, it’s kind of like the common app. They’re going to match you with things based on how you fill out your profile.

Um, so once you’ve submitted an application, the hardest part for, um, waiting for funding is it’s the waiting part. It’s the not knowing. Um. Most applications, well, all applications are going to give you a deadline. Most applications will let you know, um, when they will inform recipients that they’ve gotten the award.

Um, if they don’t give you that information, I would say give it six to eight weeks after the posted application deadline before following up with the organization. If you sense that that’s too long, then you can probably push it to four weeks. But I wouldn’t go earlier than four weeks. Um, you should also just be prepared that you aren’t going to hear anything.

Um, a lot of scholarships will notify the recipients, but they won’t notify the people who didn’t get it. So just to save yourself some time. Some angst and grief. Just assume after you’ve submitted the application, assume that you didn’t secure the funds until you’re informed otherwise. So submit it and move on, forget it, like submit it and forget about it.

There’s. A lot of ways, um, the, the other key thing to all of this, because you’re doing so much over such a long period of time, is staying organized and remembering what scholarships you applied for. I love a scholarship matrix. It’s basically A, an Excel sheet or a spreadsheet of Google doc that has the scholarship name, information, like the sponsoring organization, you can have a column for award amount, application deadline, a column for the link to the application.

And then. information about the application requirements. Now, the reason that I recommend this is because you should not be searching for scholarships and then immediately applying. It’s much faster for you to have kind of a scholarship search phase where your goal is to go online and I want to fill out my matrix.

I want to have 25 scholarships on my matrix by the end of this weekend. And that’s all you’re doing. You’re not applying. You’re just going and seeing what’s a good match, putting that information in. And then you’re able to sort it by your application deadlines to know, when do I need to start actually doing these applications?

Again, some of these other platforms will have. A way of organizing that information, but I also think that sometimes just having your own is really helpful. The other reason that it’s helpful is that sometimes you’re going to find scholarship opportunities that are past the deadline. Or there might be scholarship opportunities at your university that are only available to rising sophomores.

Still put that in your matrix. Still have that there because it’s also something that you can revisit. You don’t have to stop applying for merit awards. after your senior year of high school.

So that’s a lot. I know it was like drinking from a fire hose. Um, but just to wrap all of this up, if I could give you, leave you with any points from this presentation, one is play the long game, spread this out. Don’t leave financial aid until last. It shouldn’t be an afterthought once you’ve gotten your application is in.

It should be integrated into the entire process. So. Start now and keep it going all the way through the applications process. Um, make sure that you’re documenting your achievements. So start doing that now. Make a list so that you have those ready to go. And if you’re feeling like you’re a little bit light and you don’t have a lot of, again, quantitative, um, information to, to supply, then start entering contests so that you can.

place and win something. Um, start applying for grants. If you’re into volunteerism, apply for things that you can secure. Um, create a website if you need to run for leadership roles. But as a junior, those are things, those are active tasks that you want to make sure that you’re doing to continue to kind of fill out your resume.

Um, then make sure that you’re curating the criteria. So again, framing things so that you have a greater opportunity, you have greater scholarship opportunities because of those reframing exercises. And then just apply, apply, apply. For external scholarships, I recommend that students apply for at least two a week, so between 7 and 10 a month through their senior year.

Juniors, you can start doing that. Now, the reality is, is that it’s a numbers game and the more applications you submit, the more likely you are to secure funding.

And so if you’re one of our CollegeAdvisor, um, students, or even if you aren’t, there’s a number of resources that we have to help you on this journey. Um, we have a financial aid team and you’ll have advisors who are able to help you develop searching strategies. Um, Helping you find your narrative and fit for your scholarships and schools, um, and preparing you for scholarship interviews.

All of this, again, is integrated into the larger admissions process. And then finally, we have an entire team of specialists who are available to review and advise on financial aid forms, make sure you know your deadlines, and also, again, help you whittle down. your list of scholarships or find a more effective search strategy so that you can continue to submit those applications.

Stacey: Okay, so that is the end of the presentation part of the webinar. I hope you found this information helpful and remember that you can download the slides from the link in the handouts tab. So we’re going to move on to the live Q& A. I’ll read through the questions you submitted in the Q& A tab here and paste them into the public chat so you can see and then read them out loud before our panelists.

As a heads up, if your Q& A tab isn’t letting you submit questions, just double check that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page. So our first question here, Ashly, and I’m going to post this in the chat here. Do merit scholarships, um, go based on the area you live?

So are merit scholarships, um, sometimes geographically based?

Ashly: Yes, sometimes they are and a lot of times they aren’t. So, um, what you’ll find often is that merit scholarships that might be, um, advertised by a state school might be more geographically based actually in the reverse though. So out of state students are prioritized for state schools, um, but not everything.

Um, it’s, again, it’s important to have a strategy that allows you to one, identify what sort of merit awards you’re interested in. And two, um, um, Keep track of what those criteria are. And again, going married, like just do it.

Stacey: I’m muted. Sounds like a really great app. So definitely go ahead and download that. I just want to take a second before we continue with the Q and A, um, for those in the room who are already working with us, we know how overwhelming the admissions process can be, especially the financial aid and the merit scholarship pieces, right?

Our team of over 400 former admissions officers and admissions experts are ready to help you and your family navigate it all. In one on one advising sessions, take the next step in your college admissions journey and sign up for free 45 to 60 minutes strategy session with an admission specialist on our team, and you can do that using the QR code on the screen here during this meeting will review your current extracurricular lists and application strategy, discuss how they line up with your college list and outline the tools you need to stand out in the competitive admissions world.

Okay, so the QR code is there. It’s also in the slides. And with that, we’re going to get back to the Q& A. Um, and so our next question for you, Ashly, um, what about international students? So can you talk a little bit about the international student experience with the scholarship search process?

Ashly: So merit scholarships are incredibly important for international students.

International, as an international student, you won’t have access to any of the federal aid, state based aid that domestic students in the U. S. would have. Um, so finding schools that have robust merit scholarship programs is key to getting funding. There’s also external scholarships for international students.

They can be hard to find, but I did find this resource, um, internationalstudent.com, which is a really great holistic site that really puts, that really frames the entire college experience for you, but also have really good scholarship finder, uh, through the link in the chat. For you to copy.

Stacey: Great. Thank you so much. Ashly. Um, next question here. Um, a student asked about the S. A. T. specifically. Uh, so we noted on the slides that you would take it as a senior, but when you ideally take it as a junior, and I know, actually, you talked about this a little bit, but can you speak to the timing of the S.A. T. P. S. A. T. as it relates to scholarships and such.

Ashly: Yeah, so fantastic. Yes, take the PSAT as a junior and take the SAT if you are so inclined. Most people do in their junior years. Um, but not everyone does. You don’t have to do it in your junior year. Um, and a lot of students will take it a second time in their senior year.

So in terms of that timing. Um, if you took it in your junior year and you’re good, then yeah, you don’t have to take it in your senior year. You’re fine. You just want to have an SAT score.

Stacey: Okay. And on that note, thank you for that. Um, can the ACT be used for merit scholarships or only the SAT?

Ashly: The ACT, I’m sure, can be used for some merit scholarship criteria, but when we’re talking about the National Scholars Program, um, the National Merit Scholars Program, the SAT is the requirement.

Stacey: Okay, so the next question, um, a student is interested in going to have a healthcare field and, They help run a medical informational based club. Could a club advisor be considered a mentor during this process, or should they look into finding somebody in their field, um, related to scholarship searches?

Ashly: A club advisor can be a great mentor.

Just make sure that you know them, make sure that you talk to them and that you’re interested in learning from them and that they’re able to see, you know, some level of growth or be able to speak intelligently to your character and your interests and that type of thing. If you end up getting an internship in the field and building a close relationship with whoever your supervisor is at that internship.

Go for that too. Um, I would say do them above the club advisor, but if you have a club advisor, that’s great. You don’t necessarily need to go out looking just for a different mentor in the field.

Stacey: Okay, great. Um, so next question, are there any merit based scholarships that juniors can apply for specifically?

Are there junior based ones out there, Ashly?

Ashly: Yes, there are scholarships that you can apply for as a junior. Um, you really just need to search, um, for merit scholarships for juniors. Institutional scholarships will not be available to you. Um, but there are plenty of external scholarships, um, available to you and you should be able to filter those out through any of those scholarship, uh, search apps that I talked about.

Stacey: That helps answer the next question a little bit here. There was a question about, um, where to find the Merit Scholarships, if they’re in one place or are they scattered, and Ashly, uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you do need to look at a couple different places because not all of these resources will have the same scholarships listed.

There will be overlap, but there might be a few in some places and not others. Is that right? That’s correct. They are very scattered. Okay. Um, so make sure to reference back to the slides for all those apps. Those great apps that Ashly mentioned and locations for searches. Um, so another student asked, can you briefly explain what happens if you win a scholarship?

Ashly: If you win a scholarship, the awarding Organization or your college will contact you. Um, usually they’ll call and send an email or send a letter. I’m congratulating you on being recipient and that letter will also give you some amount of next steps if it’s an external scholarship, then they’ll tell you sort of what the timeline is, what you’ll end up having to do if you get an external scholarship is.

Complete maybe some additional paperwork for them. And then they will also ask for you to submit a proof of enrollment form. Um, once you’ve enrolled it, once you’ve been admitted and deposited and you enroll. at a college. You would also let that college know that you had received this scholarship and make sure that the awarding organization knows where to send the money, and they will usually send the money directly to the school.

The school will apply it to your student bill, to your tuition first, and then room and board if there’s any left over. Um, And that’s that. Um, if there’s any other kind of hanging threads, all of that is taken care of, um, by the organization. They’ll make sure that, you know, if you have to track your spending or anything like that.

In the event. that the organization sends the money directly to you. Um, and they don’t tell you that you have to use it for tuition, then you can use it for books or to, you know, for moving in supplies. But what I do recommend that you do is that you still disclose that you got that scholarship to the university, because then they’ll be able to add that, um, to a tax form and ensure that You don’t have to claim that as income that it will be claimed as scholarship funds.

Stacey: Okay, great. Um, another sort of related question in terms of getting connections and networking to a prior question. Is there a good strategy for requesting letters of recommendation, especially because you’re asking so many people during the application process for college. You want to be respectful of people’s time.

Actually, what are your thoughts?

Ashly: Um, so start early. Um, make those requests, give your recommenders plenty of time. And what I usually recommend students do is be really organized, provide kind of a dossier of the scholarships. And admissions applications that you’ll need them to be a recommender for provide them with the due dates for them.

And usually what I recommend students to do is that when you ask them to be a recommenders actually put it in writing. So ask them, sure, in person and then follow up with an email saying thank you so much for agreeing to be a recommender and then give them a little snippet of like why you asked them.

You know, I asked you to do this because, you know, the biology class that you taught last year was really transformational for me. The project we did on X, Y, and Z, really sparked my interest in da da da da da, and I’m hoping to pursue that in college. What that does is it basically tells them exactly what to write, and so you’re taking a lot of pressure off of them for having to, from having to remember why.

Or what it was that you need them to talk about.

Stacey: That’s great advice across the college application process. So definitely take note of that. Um, a really quick question for you, Ashly. Do the scholarship apps that you’ve mentioned charge a fee? Do you know?

Ashly: Um, Going Merry, they all have a free component.

Going Merry is completely free. Um, and I believe that Scholly is completely free. ScholarshipOwl might have a paid component, but you can use it to some degree for free.

Stacey: Great. Um, another question for you. How much scholarship money have you known someone to receive through scholarship opportunities? Like, what is the range you’ve kind of seen?

Maybe we could talk about this percentage wise, Ashly, um, because it can, of course, vary so much. Mm hmm.

Ashly: I would say, well, a lot of it depends on how much work you’re willing to put in on the front end. So if you’re applying for the 7 to 10 applications a month, then I usually tell students to expect that out of 20 applications that they submit, that they’ll land one.

So I’ve seen students land Literally every application that they’ve submitted and I’ve seen students who haven’t been able to squeeze one out. So, um, it really a lot of it has to do again with the level of organization that you have the. Your ability to select scholarship opportunities that are a good fit for you.

And then how many that you can pump out, but generally, I mean, I’ve seen students secure so much in scholarships that they’ve actually had to send it back because they have, um. exceeded the amount, the cost of attendance at the school that they’re at. So I’ve seen students, um, secure tens of thousands. I think the largest one was 87, 000, um, and external scholarships.

And that student already had, um, like a 75 percent scholarship to their school. So they had to, they had to decline a bunch of scholarships because they couldn’t actually take the money.

Stacey: Thank you so much, Ashly. Um, if we didn’t get to your question, we are going to wrap up the webinar this evening. If we did not get to your question, feel free to sign up for the consultation that we discussed earlier using that QR code on the handout for the slides.

It is available there. We had a really great time telling you all about the Ultimate Guide to Merit Scholarships. Uh, the rest of our seminar series or our webinar series, excuse me, for March is shown here. Uh, it’s a great opportunity to learn more about college admissions processes and thank you all again for joining us today.

Thank you again, Ashly.

Ashly: Thank you. Good night, everyone.