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tokenadult
Member
| Joined: | Thu Apr 13th, 2006 |
| Location: | Minnesota USA |
| Posts: | 6 |
| Mana: |    |
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Posted: Fri Apr 14th, 2006 01:04 pm |
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Hi,
I'm wondering about the world of huge third-party scholarships, like the Coca-Cola scholarship, the Toyota scholarship, the Davidson Fellow awards, Intel or Siemens awards, etc. Is there anyone posting here who is acquainted with a winner of one of these? (I am not.) How do scholarships of this kind interact with need-based financial aid at schools that say they offer only need-based aid? What are deadline gotchas that applicants for such scholarships should look out for? What else might be surprising for someone who aspires to a scholarship of this nature?
Thanks for all information and opinions you kindly share.
"tokenadult"
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CaneMom
Member
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Posted: Fri Apr 14th, 2006 02:09 pm |
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My son went to school with a girl who won one of the top (I believe it was 15,000) scholarships from one of the very well known "honor" society like clubs. The thing was...she didn't need it. She went to the local community college on a full-ride there, and my understanding was that the "whole" scholarship had to be used freshman year. I'm not sure how the situation was handled, but I've heard rumor's out of hometown (we don't live there now) that the organization "pulled" the scholarship. I'd be really curious to know if it were true or just rumor of a small town.
Last edited on Fri Apr 14th, 2006 02:09 pm by CaneMom
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Ashley
Member
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Posted: Sun Jul 9th, 2006 01:25 am |
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tokenadult wrote: How do scholarships of this kind interact with need-based financial aid at schools that say they offer only need-based aid? What are deadline gotchas that applicants for such scholarships should look out for? What else might be surprising for someone who aspires to a scholarship of this nature?
I'm a recipient of one of the scholarships you listed. It did not affect any of my other aid at my college, and we receive both need- and merit-based, though I obviously couldn't combine both sources to go over the annual cost. In other words, my scholarship plus institutional aid still had to equal no more than the school's price tag. I couldn't get extra funding. I get to use the full scholarship, and then they use my institutional aid to meet the rest of the cost. The bottom line, however, is that every college is different, so there's no one right answer to this.
I don't think there were any deadline issues. I know I couldn't fax or e-mail anything, but that was really it. The deadline was clear for submission, and so was the response deadline.
What was surprising for me was comparing myself against people who got turned down. I had just gotten back from a national leadership conference when I got home and received the acceptance letter. While I had been at that conference, I had spoken with people who had 4.0s and 500 hours of community service, and they didn't get the scholarships. (Mind you, I wasn't far off in my stats, but it was still shocking to me.) I also didn't think my essay was that outstanding, but I know my reference was, and I think that's what really did it for me.
I think the scholarship application process is just like admissions -- it's all about the intangibles, and there's no way to predict any of it. I was positive I wouldn't get it, and I did. People who'd been told by their counselors that they were "locks" got the earliest denial letters. You just never know with any of it. I have a friend who was a Gates Millenium Scholar, and she says the same thing -- there's no way to know what you're doing, so just do what feels right and hope for the best. Who knows?
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