AO Advice: Applying to Merit Scholarships

Webinar Transcription

2023-08-15 – AO Advice: Applying to Merit Scholarships

Okay. Hi everyone. My name is Joseph Recupero and I am your moderator for today. I am an admissions officer and senior advisor here at CollegeAdvisor. And welcome to “AO Advice: Applying to Merit Scholarships.” To orient everyone with the webinar timing. We’ll start off with a presentation, then answer your questions in a live q and 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.

Take it away, Matthew. Hey. Hey everyone. My name is Mat Garrison. I am. About 20 plus years in higher education. Mostly in recruiting and admissions. A lot of my world is dealing with military veteran, ROTC, non-degree, but also traditional students. And I’ve worked in the United States and I’ve worked overseas in higher education.

So happy to have you all here. Fantastic. So we wanna start tonight off getting to know you all a little bit. So please, I’m gonna start a poll on your screen that you can answer. Let us know what grade you’re in so we can get an idea of kind of who we’re helping out tonight. And Mat, would you, what would you say is kind of.

The quickest tip you can give someone when it comes to thinking about the college process and where to start. The, and you’ll see this on my first slide, is start second slide. You start early. Early, early, early, early, early. Just like anything, I, I equate it to if you’re an athlete running a marathon, very few people go out and decide next week, Hey, I’m gonna go out and run a marathon.

They prepare, they build up, they start working smaller and work their way up. Education, preparing yourself to go to college, to go to university does not start your senior year, doesn’t start your junior year. It starts your freshman year. So early, early, early. That’s the biggest piece of advice I’ll give you.

So, absolutely, it looks like we’ve got a really good group. We have about 170 people with us tonight. Primarily 12th graders and 11th graders. Okay. But a good smattering throughout of the rest. So I think it’s gonna be, A really great presentation. I’ll hand it over to you. Thanks. Alright, so merit scholarships.

Merit scholarships are, are very, very popular for a lot of reasons. But one of the more popular things is a, most universities offer different levels of merit, merit scholarship. And in my estimation, in my experience high school students have control over earning merit scholarships. They can control their G P A, they can control ACT/SAT scores.

They can control class rank. So young men and women have a say in how this all fits together. So what is a merit scholarship? Again, real simple. It’s based on your achievement. Most merit scholarships are academic based, so they’re gonna look at your achievement through your high school and reward you for doing that.

Criteria for merit scholarships, really the main three that we’ll focus on. Now, we’ll see that there are other, other ways that you can get scholarships based off of merit, but it’s gonna be your overall G P A. It’s gonna be your class rank and it’s gonna be ACT/SAT. And even if most universities now coming out of COVID have become ACT/SAT optional, it is going to help you to, most schools will require you to Submit a standardized test score if they’re going to give you merit-based scholarship.

Okay? The other one is big that a lot of students, most people get GPA and standardized tests. Class rank actually plays a big part in merit scholarship as well. And we’ll talk more about that. So that is really what merit scholarships are in a nutshell. And we’ll, we’ll kind of look at a few examples.

So I know we have mostly juniors and seniors on the call tonight. But if there are any younger students, ninth graders, again, early, early, early, you need to start thinking about these things because your GPA preparing for standardized tests that starts earlier than you think. So ninth graders, you’re really looking at.

Exploring what a merit scholarship is, maintaining your strong academics and, and developing those extracurriculars that are going to be the icing on the cake. Junior year. So our juniors start looking at what the criteria is for the universities or the colleges you are interested in. I would start with, and we’ll look at ways to do that, but I would start looking at their websites more importantly.

The other thing I’m gonna emphasize is speak with your admissions counselors or your admissions advisors for the schools that you are working with. One of the things, like most things in life, they put things on a website. That’s the information out there for, to give people a general idea of how things work.

But a lot of times there’s what we call inside baseball that. There are some leeway, there are some give, there are different ways to go about it. So the more you talk to individuals on campus who know how these things work and also who are making these decisions, the better picture that you’re gonna get.

So look for what the criteria is. Start. Practicing your standardized tests, taking your pre ACT pre SAT understand what tests, even though they’re optional, but what tests that schools prefer. Most schools do ACT/SAT. Most schools super score those, which is good. And the most important thing is build relationships.

I know from experience working with admissions counselors that when push comes to shove, and there are a lot of students, kind of all the same, when there’s a relationship built with the student that they know that wants to go to their school and is communicating and working with the admissions counselor like a young adult, A lot of times those people will go to bat for you to try to get you a scholarship and get you in if you can, if you can meet the criteria.

So build relationships, that’s phone calls, and that’s emails that’s going to campus and having meetings to face-to-face. That’s good practice. That shows you’re mature and you’re serious about wanting to go to that university. Seniors a lot of the academic stuff keep working hard. A lot of that’s already made.

A lot of the standardized tests you may retake and, and, and try to get some last ones in. But most importantly is make sure you have your college list down. CollegeAdvisor does a great job with that. Find out what your schools are and you have to apply. Early 99.9% of all merit scholarships are offered and given in the fall of your senior year.

So when you’re a senior, you do early enroll, early application, an early notification. All that merit money’s gonna go out. Then if you’re waiting till the spring for the Merit scholarship based off of G P A class rank and standardized tests, most of that money is gonna be gone. So early, early, early, early.

So make sure you have a good, strong application, which there’s a lot of tools to do that and make sure you submit for FAFSA and show that you’re doing fafsa. That FAFSA piece shows that you are serious about going to school, that you’re looking for your funding. That’s it’s just another piece of, yes, this is, you’re part of the school I wanna go to.

I’m submitting my FAFSA for that. So that’s when we need to start thinking about it. Different kind of merit scholarships. I’m not gonna go through all of them. The biggest ones for most probably the people that are on the call tonight are gonna be the academic base. That’s the class ranked GPA and ACT/SAT.

Below that, you’re, you’re going to start to look at scholarships that there won’t be as many and the money won’t be as much, but different universities like to divide it below that academic piece. So you’re talking about leadership, if there’s some extracurricular type stuff. For example, the university I’ve worked at has a very strong music department and they give almost full ride music scholarships for students who want to major in Part of theater or music.

So not every school has that. Some schools prioritize that. So that would be a I would say a talent-based scholarship. There’s some community service. You can get into the athletic scholarships. For those of you who are thinking about being a college athlete at the division one, division two level, division three sports and AI sports, they don’t give specifically athletic money, but they do get you money as an athlete.

So again, my advice would be do your research do your research, find out. What’s available at your specific schools? ’cause each school is different. Find out how much money find, even ask, Hey, what is the average merit scholarship that the class before me earned? A lot of schools, one of the, the big priorities is getting more merit money to get school, to get students to come to school.

So that does change. It can be a moving target. So always that, so even if you read something on the internet do that research and see ’cause a lot of times there’ll be more money than they, than they’ve set. So requirements for merit scholarships, again, G P A class rank, we got that. Standardized test scores, we got that.

And again, your extracurriculars national recognition, sometimes your financial need depending on how that university wants to prioritize your money. And then the application deadlines. This one Following deadlines and meeting deadlines, especially for applying early and when they need things. I would say when you do your college list, When you’re looking at your 5, 6, 10 top universities and you’re thinking about the scholarships, have every one of your deadlines clear crystal clear of when things need to be due.

I have had many phone calls with heartbroken parents and students who have missed a deadline by a couple days, a week, a month. They’ve done everything right and they just missed a deadline or they misread it or they were confused. And it’s hard to tell those parents like, Hey, there’s not much we can do.

We can put you on a waiting list. You’ve missed out on money. You have to apply the normal time. Know your application deadlines for the regular application, and if they need anything else for you, when it comes to the merit based stuff, each university’s gonna be unique and different. Make sure you have each one of those, what your deadlines are for each piece to make sure you don’t miss out on anything.

Because just missing a deadline by doing everything else great and four years of hard work, that can be frustrating. You don’t wanna start your college career on the wrong foot. So where can you find merit-based scholarships? We can Google the, they’re, they’re everywhere. So I would start again with your list is if you have the universities that you’re interested in and you’re serious about, go to their webpage, go to the admissions page, find out what kind of scholarships specifically merit based that they offer, and then I would reach out and email your admissions counselor.

So most schools have a regional specific admissions counselor. So let’s say you’re from New Jersey. Look up who the New Jersey. Who works the New Jersey area for the school. And email them and ask, or even pick up the phone and call and just say, Hey you know, I, do you have a place where your merit scholarships are listed out?

What do those look like? How much money? Find all of that. And then there’s a lot of other resources, resources when it comes to smaller scholarships. So a lot of times there’s community-based scholarships. There’s private organization scholarships. If you serve in the military or mom or dad, were in the military, you can get some VA funding.

There’s all different smaller scholarships that you can earn. Your high school counselor should be a good resource for those smaller local scholarships, depending on what your extracurriculars are, what you’re interested in. You could be thinking of being a STEM major. They give money for those.

So do the. Just don’t go to the university and go, okay, here are the scholarships. Here’s my G P A, here’s my A C T S A T standardized test. This is what I need. Great. But there’s more money to be had. So do the work. You have to look this stuff up and find it because if you aren’t, I will put donuts to dollars.

There are thousands of other kids who are applying for the same stuff, who are doing the work, putting in the applications and getting things done, and they are getting the money. And if you’re not, I’ve never heard anybody get a scholarship for not applying for it or asking about it. It just doesn’t work.

Okay? So you need to do the work. And then don’t be afraid. This is a bit of a side note. Don’t be afraid to apply for scholarships that you maybe don’t think. You fit. So if there’s maybe five or six criteria for that scholarship and you meet three or four, still apply. Worst thing they can say is, Nope, sorry, you don’t meet the requirements.

But a lot of times I have seen students who go, I’m just gonna put it in, see what happens. And they’ve gotten money because there weren’t anybody else. And they’ve given people that scholarship. ’cause a lot of times they have to spend that money depending on what the organization is. So, apply, apply.

Do your research, do it. So sorry, I, my two year old, Hey, you gotta go downstairs please. Perfect. And social media and networking. That’s gonna be good to hang on y’all.

No problem. Take your time. My cats usually jump in at some point too, so you’re all good.

Sorry, y’all. I got a cranky three year old, so all right. And then social media and networking as well. Most schools have an Instagram account, Facebook for, for us. Old fogies, most people are in Facebook. They will post LA organizations, not only the university themselves say, Hey, our merit based stuff is opening, or, here’s, here’s a merit based scholarship winner.

This is what they look like. A lot of organizations on campus that can give money will also post stuff on their specific Instagram accounts or social media accounts. So for instance, if you are into sustainability, I know university I’ve worked at, they will give sustainability scholarships if that’s something you’re interested in or majoring in, and they’ll push that out in social media because they’re trying to attract people to a, be a part of that office, and b, be one of those majors.

So again how you access for eligible, same thing. Look at the academics. So your G P A. A C T S A T class rank. Look at what their minimum requirements are, but again, do that research and ask, Hey, what, you know, what does a merit scholarship kind of look like? Past scholarships, winner, you know, what, what were they at?

What were their class rank? You know, they won’t maybe give you specifics, but they’ll give you, you know, the last two years. Here’s the class rank and g p A of some of our merit scholarship winners. Okay. Look at what you’re interested in, what your strengths are, what you wanna study. A big field where there’s a lot of money to be had is in the STEM field, specifically in computer science.

Specifically for girls. They’re trying, there’s a big push in higher education and then in the industry to get more females into computer science. So if that is your intended major, you wanna be in the STEM field, you wanna study computer science, a lot of times there’ll be money there if academically you meet that because a lot of donors and a lot of people are putting money towards getting more females into the what has traditionally be male heavy areas of study in business.

So essay writing recommendations, submitting your applications, following those, those timelines, making sure you don’t miss anything. Making sure you’re crystal clear about all the requirements. Pretty standard issue stuff. Again, these are things that I’ve spoken about to make sure you’re successful.

And then we have a poll which part and I’ll have, I’ll have Joe put this up, but which part of the merit scholarship is the most daunting to you? I’ve probably melted faces but what, what is the most daunting thing? I’ll let that poll run. Yes, it is definitely an important question. I know one question I think we could think about while the poll was going on is some people asked like, what should you ask when you’re reaching out to admissions officers in establishing that relationship?

What are, what are some good things to start with? Yeah, introduce yourself, where you’re from. Talk about, it’s really transparency. A lot of people talk about playing chess. I’m a play Checkers guy. You, you don’t have to try to outsmart or try to impress a, an admissions counselor. You just say, Hey, this is my name I’m calling from.

I’m from Michigan I’m a rising junior. I’m really, really interested in your university, specifically. You have a x, y, Z program, which is, I think I wanna study. One of the things I’m interested in is preparing myself to not only get admitted, but also earn a merit scholarship. I’ve been working hard the last two years.

I wanna continue working hard. You know, is there anything, any advice that you can give me specifically for your university on, you know, what you look for to hand out merit, scholarships? How much money do you have? Don’t it’s okay to talk money? One of the things one of the things that, that colleges and universities and academics, and I, I would consider myself and I.

Partial academic is when we, we look at universities as, okay, a business, customer service, all that stuff. It’s what it is. You are paying universities to get an education to further your career, to have those experiences and hopefully get a job and be successful. It’s okay to ask, well, what kind of money is available?

You know, what, how many merit scholarships do you, do you give in a year? Because you might have a university that you’re, that is one or two or three on your list, and they go, Hey, well we only give, you know, we only gave four merit scholarships last year. You might have a university that’s four or five, but they have a lot more money and a lot more merit scholarships and, and it’s close that, that might switch that, that might, you might focus on that four or five and move it up to a one or two of that focus, so, Awesome.

Well, it looks like most people right now are between finding scholarships and writing the scholarship essay, which is usually the case. Yeah. Especially when you have to write essays for different scholarships. But I think, I think we’re gonna answer a lot of those questions for ’em, so I’ll let you keep going.

Perfect. Alright. Finding scholarships I spoke about that. Again, start at the university ’cause each scholarship’s different. Their website is a great place. Their social media is a great place and specifically, Have those conversations either through email. If you happen to visit the campus and you just wanna see what campus is like, go into the admissions office, ask to meet with a counselor.

Most places will have somebody who’s on call if you’re an in-state or an out-of-state student to sit down with you and they’ll walk you through everything. Have your questions available. The website is good. And then anything that is not based of that specific university. A, a campus-based scholarship.

Again, search engines, Google are great. Just look for merit-based, different kinds of merit-based scholarships. You might qualify for also your academic advisor or counselor at your high school if they’re worth anything. They should, they should know where to look at least point you in the right direction.

So I, I think, and, and I’ll, I’ll do a caveat. High school counselors can be great. High school counselors can just do an average job. And some high school counselors can be terrible, just like any other person in any other kind of job all over the world. So your responsibility as a young individual who is taking, going to college seriously, you need to take responsibility to make sure that you have all that information.

Do not rely on, Hey counselor Susie, could you give me a list of the merit scholarships or things I could qualify for? That’s great if they can help, but they have other students and another, and other things to take care of, you need to take responsibility for it. Okay? Because you’ll be sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting, and then you’re missing when other students are doing the work.

So there’s a lot of ways to find that. Again, start with the university essay writing. All right. A lot of schools coming out of Covid have become essay optional. And you always wanna write an essay. I, I, I think coming out of Covid, it’s a, it’s a new thing in the world of how universities are performing, how they’re evaluating.

It has changed, things that have happened. So essay writing is taking on a different form, but it’s still important because you need to make yourself stand out. Just like anything, just like running that marathon, write it, practice it, edit it, write it, practice, edit it, write it, practice, edit it, get eyes on it.

Get somebody who has some college experience on it. Have a bunch of people look at it. It’s just like writing a dissertation or writing a paper for school. You don’t write it the night before. Very few people can do that. It just isn’t possible. So start writing it and build it and change it and grow it.

Okay. And have as many people look at it to edit it, change it, give you recommendations. It should not be, again, this goes on with the early, early, early. This should not not be something that you do the week before and then turn it in, develop it, and grow it. That could be also another question of what to write about.

Don’t be afraid to ask an academic, an admissions counselor of just, Hey I have different essay ideas. I really wanna stand out. Do you give recommendations of, of. What you think would be a, a good topic to write on, they’ll recommend that. That’s their job. Admissions counselors, most of what they do outside of looking at a G P A and a standardized test score and evaluating, they’re reading essays.

So they’re experts at it. They know what to look at and they know they know what trends are out there for high school because they’re gonna see the same essay over and over and over and over again. So don’t be afraid to ask for advice from people who are experts. The other thing I’m gonna bring up, and now you take this the way it is, ask the specific university, but I know for a fact that universities are making decisions on ai, specifically chat, G p t, using artificial intelligence to write your essay.

Now, I’m not telling you Yes, no, anything other, I’m just giving you perspective of what I’ve known universities. Some say it’s okay in the sense for two reasons as one. They know students are gonna use chat, G p T, they know AI is going to change this as it develops and grows, and who knows what it’s gonna be in the next year, two years, three years.

But currently they know students are gonna use chat, g p t to, to help write their essays. And the universities I know of and, and have familiarity with most are that’s okay in the sense of it’s not writing it for you the night before. You cut and paste, you throw it in. That’s not what they’re, they’re saying, okay, now you can do that and, and how would they know?

But that’s not what I’m recommending. They’re using it as a way for you to develop a guideline to use it as just another tool to get an essay together. But it has to be about you. You have to give it that feel of who you are as an individual. So I would call and ask again, transparency is okay. You might be surprised at what they’re gonna say.

And most universities I think are. Are, are, at least in the admissions piece of applying, they know students are probably gonna use these things. So it’s another tool that you can use. So I would ask and see what, what their thoughts are and what they think of like, Hey, with the essay, with the chat, G p t and using ai, what, what are your, what are your policies?

What have you discussed? Don’t be afraid to ask. So those are the two main things you’re afraid of. There’s probably gonna be some other things you’re afraid of. Don’t be. If you educate yourself, work on it, understand what’s happening, you guys are gonna do a, a great job. Again, it’s that early, early, early preparing for the marathon.

By the time you get there, by the time you start working on these things and getting serious about it, you’ve already been working on it. It shouldn’t be fearful to you. Okay? And if it is, reach out to experts and support and help as much as possible. Alright. When to hear back from applying from a merit scholarship, that can be a bit of a moving target.

Again, ’cause each institution, depending on what their incoming freshman numbers are, their in-state out-of-state rate, what their board of directors has handed down to them saying, this is what we want our clients to look like this year. That can depend most the, the rule of thumb is it’s gonna happen early, plain, and simple.

That money’s gonna be decided and given out that fall before. Your spring of your senior year before you even graduate, that money’s gonna be handed out. So they’re gonna spend most of the fall going through the early applicants. They’re gonna look and decide. And I would say, again, look at, most schools will say, here’s the deadline to have your application in for merit base.

Here’s the date that we let people know that merit base is coming out. So usually it’s by November, further early, and then usually December 10th. And that can, again, that can change, that should be part of your questions when you look at the website and talk to universities. But usually December 10th ish, they wanna have it out before winter break.

That’s when they’re, they’re gonna let you know, a, you’re in, and B, you’ve got some, you’ve got some merit, merit based money. So a lot of things are gonna depend it’s volume, how many people are applying. Clearly if 10 people apply and you’re one of those 10, you’ve got a better chance than a thousand people.

The numbers are just in your favor. Just the timing. You need to know communication. So a lot of times they, they will, once you apply, they’ll say, Hey, if you have any questions, contact your admissions advisor. Or you’ll get an email. Or a lot of times now universities have their portals and they put information on the portal.

It saves manpower. It says you know, time and money. They can just put in a portal and then the individual logs in and sees what’s what’s happening. Patience is key that in this process because, For you as an individual, it’s your life. You are serious about it. You are trying to do the best for you.

At the same time, there are a thousand other kids doing the same thing, and that academic counselor or that team have a lot of students they probably have to work with. So please be patient, be informed. I would say, again, this ties back into what I said earlier, developing a relationship with individuals on that campus and that admissions team will help you in the long run.

Again, I’m not saying this is what’s gonna happen, but maybe you reach out and say, Hey, I’m just wondering you know, when those decisions are gonna be made, you know, what are the chances? If it’s a counselor that knows you and it’s, and it’s Johnny from Chicago and you’ve had a good re rapport and a good relationship, you might get that wink, wink, nudge, nudge of, hey, Just hang on for another week.

You’ll be pleasantly surprised. You might have a Merry Christmas. That does happen. I’m not saying it’s gonna, but develop those relationships because academic advisors and, and admissions counselors will go out of the way for students that are mature, respectful, reach out, develop a relationship.

That’s, that’s why they do what they do. They wanna help kids. So it’s super important. Again, organization is key. Keeping things written down, I would say again, why we push creating your list and then having your information for each of universities. So when you start to interact with that university and you start to add that information, you have an.

A framework, an outline of what I need to fill in. So deadlines, checklists, when okay, application is done, merit information is done. Next step for me for university A is December 10th, that’s when I’m gonna get a notification so you know exactly what’s going on, being lost in the sauce in this, and just sitting back and wondering and waiting.

Mom and dad get nervous. You get nervous. Everybody gets nervous ’cause you’re just on pins and needles wondering, a, did I get in? B, did I get money? If I didn’t get money? Am I gonna be able to go to this school? This is my number one school. I’m putting my heart and soul into this. I, the, the thought of not having the option of getting into that university scares me.

The more informed you are about the deadlines and the process, the less nerves you’re gonna have to face. Okay? So use technology, have your calendar, set your reminders. Say, Hey for university a on their website, they said that they’re gonna let people know this date. So the reminder before, you know, okay, here we go.

And, and just, just keep track of information. If you know you have terrible organizational skills, if you the are the take my homework and cra it in my backpack and crumple it up and, and worry about it next week, I. That is something that is a deficit. You need to change that. Start working on being organized.

’cause not only is that gonna help you with getting into school and getting money, but when you go to college and there isn’t anybody else there to do it for you, you’re already prepared. It’s running that marathon. You are not gonna go out and run that marathon next week. You gotta prepare. And part of that is being organized and, and how this all works.

Alright. Any final advice? Applying for merit scholarships? I think it’s been pretty clear. Do your research, do it early, know exactly the details and do. You know. Exactly. I got have little questions and for all of you who’ve asked the question I’ll, I’ll, I’ll get to those during the q and a.

I just wanna get through this, so don’t worry. I’ve been ignoring it. Make sure you have your application materials prepared. So that’s not only your essay, that’s making sure you have your standardized tests, your G P A, and then all those tertiary things, the leadership, the recommendations, the varsity letter winners, the volunteering, all of those things that make you as an individual who wants to go to that school.

And read and follow instructions carefully. One thing that you are gonna notice, and I think it’s, it’s, it’s. Just a trend of universities. We utilize technology to our advantage, and a lot of things that you get, emails specifically are automated. The reason why is because we email so many students and it’s so difficult to go in and type an individual email.

So we automate most of our emails to make sure the information’s correct and then that goes out. Now to you, you’re getting it individually. You go, oh, somebody sent me an email. It’s automated. That’s not a bad thing. You’re getting that good information. The two things that you’re gonna probably notice is a, you get a lot of emails not only from one school, but if you have 10 schools, that’s a lot of emails.

So you may miss an email set up in your inbox that some rules to make sure that you don’t miss an email, and it gets lost in the thousands of other emails that we get in in today’s age, or it goes into a spam folder because. I’ve heard a lot of times, oh, I didn’t know to do that. The university’s gonna go, well, we emailed you.

There’s three emails. We track them. We know when we emailed you, we, what do you want us to do? We, we can’t, you know, a thousand other students saw it. You didn’t. What? What can we do? So make sure that you prioritize and follow those communications clearly so you know what’s happening. And then if they’ve asked for something else, the other thing is, is make sure, and this goes along with the deadline aspect, is make sure you know the exact deadlines, what they want, when they want it, and how they want it.

Follow those clearly, because you could be a great student, you might look great on paper, but at the end you miss something. You forget to turn something in. Some schools will say, Hey, you’re missing this piece. We need to get in and we really were excited about you. You need to finish this. Other times they’re moving on to the next student.

They just don’t have the time or, or the bandwidth to, to follow up with students who just aren’t gonna follow up and, and, and put stuff in. And a lot of times that’s an indicator of, well, they must not care. Or they’ve found a different school. You know, they don’t know. They, they’re, they’re working with the unknowns, so they’re gonna move on to the students that follow the directions.

So follow it clearly and prepare yourself. And then the other one on there again, this is, this is everything with it. Develop the relationships, develop a personal relationships with that. Counselor, please. Let’s see. Sorry. Now so how can CollegeAdvisor help you basically help you with all the things that we’ve spoken about? Find the experts, CollegeAdvisor are all people. Who have gone to college, who have gone through the experience, who have worked in the admissions process, who are advisors, they know what it’s like, reach out to the experts.

It’s just like getting your, bless me. It’s like, get in your car fixed, go to an expert. Don’t do surgery on yourself. Go to an expert. It’s the same thing. Personalize your scholarship search. They’re gonna help with that application strategy, essay guidance, most of you, and that’s pretty common.

Everybody’s afraid of the essay. Have an expert, have somebody help you write that essay. Have that set of professional eyes that’s gonna look at and give you feedback so you can grow and develop and get a, a right essay. Same with the application of what to do, when to do it, and make sure your application is, is locked up tight and as best it can be.

So you can put the best foot forward. That, that, that’s the most important thing. And I will say this guys. In my experience of working in higher ed all the things that I’ve done in the world, all over the world we, we go for experts for everything. We go to the doctor, we get our car fixed, all those things.

When we go to buy a house, we get an expert to help us buy a house, and that’s a big investment. One of the biggest investments in your life is going to pay for school and, and, and spending those four to how many year, every years you’re gonna be in college with grad school and everything, why wouldn’t you get expert help to do it correctly and help get money for it?

It, it’s just is, it is something that is so huge in everybody’s lives, especially with the cost of higher education. Invest in yourself on the front end with it. It, it’s, it’s the most important thing. Find an expert and find somebody to help you with it, and, and they’ll walk you through it. Okay. Enough of me because.

I’ve talked to. Alright. Oh, sorry about that. You’re fine. I might have my three year old come up and finish it, so, just kidding. Okay. So this is the end of the presentation, part of the webinar. I hope you all found this information helpful and remember that you can download the slides from the link in the handouts tab.

We’re gonna move on to the live q and a. I’ll read through some of the questions you submitted in the q and a tab, paste them into the chat so you can see them, and then read them to our panelists so we can get you the answers. As a heads up, if your q and a tab isn’t letting you submit questions, just double check that you join the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page.

So one of the first big questions I’ve seen a couple times in the chat is can you explain the, the changes to FAFs FAFSA this year, or FAFSA this year, including the deadline and should everyone be applying for fafsa? So they moved it to December. It, it traditionally was January 1st for many, many years.

Then they moved into October, and now they’re moving into December, which I’m actually not sure why. Either way, universities know that they know that the FAFSA deadline has changed, and so they know that you aren’t gonna have FAFSA information in there. Again, when you’re developing and speaking with counselors indicate that, yes, I know FAFSA is now in December, is the deadline.

We’re applying for it, we’re going through it. They know that, so it won’t be a, you know, they’re not gonna be sitting like, why are these students don’t have their FAFSA information? They know that the date has changed. So that the FAFSA thing is big for admissions. Should you Yes, absolutely apply for fafsa.

Here’s why. One, it’s free. Two, you wanna know what kind of money that the government may or may not give you, whether that be Pell Grant or free money, which we all like free money and Pell grants. You, you don’t have to pay back and you wanna know what your options are. You are not required. If you fill out fafsa, you are not required to take any of that money.

Take the free money, please. The other stuff, the loans, you are not required to do that. Okay? The other thing that you will find with private scholarships, so let’s say you’re applying for a scholarship through the V F W because your grandfather fought in Korea they will ask for FAFSA information.

A lot of private scholarships use that FAFSA info. So you have it all ready to go and you’re ready to hand it off. And just to indicates that you’re serious about it too. So FAFSA’s free, you don’t have to take any of the money. You might if, even if you don’t have free money, and they’ll say, Hey, we’ll loan you this.

You don’t need to take it. Awesome. This question is a little more specific, but I do think it’s important for students considering early decision applications. So the student or early action, the student asked, what happens if I apply and I’m accepted to my first choice school? I’m assuming they mean early decision, but don’t get any merit or scholarship aid.

Can I accept an offer from another school that does offer aid? Yes. So the other part of the deadlines is after you apply, after you give an offered, the university’s gonna say, Hey, you need to indicate by this date that you’re accepting. And usually what that means is you do what’s called an enrollment deposit.

So your acceptance is great. And you may get accepted into 20 schools. What saves your spot and usually saves your academic money. Sometimes you’ll have to sign a letter for your academic money, depending on what the university does. Some just go, you, you, you say yes, and then you have to put your enrollment deposit down.

That’s your deposit to, I wanna save my space. That also doesn’t mean that you have to go to that school and that maybe you’re waiting on a school where their timing is later, but you think, maybe I have more academic money. The worst case scenario is you’re out $400 depending on what the enrollment deposit is.

A lot of times you ask for that. If you’re early enough for a refund, they, the school will give it back. You know, if you ask for it two weeks before school starts, they’re not gonna do it. So. You, you just because you put that deposit down, you’re not required for any of that. You can always accept another merit-based scholarship.

If you know your second school comes in and goes, here, we accept you. Here’s money. You go, that’s great. And then two weeks later, your first school comes and says, gives you more money, or gives you some money, which you didn’t think you were getting. And that’s your number one. You certainly, you can always switch.

You have control over the situation. So don’t feel pressure. It’s a good question. Yes. Can you explain the caveat of that for early decision applications? So early decision, early decisions. Again, universities do a little bit all again, do it differently. Early decision is you’re gonna apply leading into the fall.

You’re gonna get that notification in the fall that you’re accepted, and then you have that merit-based scholarship. You may, here’s the other thing to be accepted. You may, a couple things can come out of that. You may get accepted early decision or early action, depending on what they call it. And you might not get any money, okay?

Which means you’re still in, you’re just not getting a merit based. Even. They may come back with you and hand you some money after the fact because they may hand out 10 merit based scholarships and eight people accept and there’s money left over and you’re next on that list. They may come back to you and say, Hey we have some money left over.

We’d like to offer you you were next on our list for merit based. We’d like to offer you that. Okay, that money isn’t gonna sit there. They are gonna use that money and try to help people out. The other thing they might do is you apply for early decision early action, and they go, eh, no. That doesn’t mean no, you can’t get in.

They’re gonna go two things. They’re gonna go, we’re gonna move you into regular decisions. So into the spring. And that means usually academically they wanna see either a little bit higher of a. Standardized test score, or they wanna see what your spring grades are, maybe halfway through the, the semester.

So it doesn’t mean you’re not gonna get in, just means that they’re gonna push you to regular notification. Probably not getting any merit base off of that. So and then the third thing usually happens is they’ll put you on a waiting list overall. And just say yeah, we’re gonna put you on a waiting list.

If something opens up after the spring and we have notification, we’ll let you know if there’s an opportunity for you. I would say this to save yourself, sort of that, I don’t wanna say heartache, because it happens, it’s life. It’s no big deal. Do the work on the front end. Know exactly what they look for and only apply for early action.

If you know that you’re, you’re really eligible, you’re close, you can make it. Okay. It’s, it’s that simple. Don’t do early action. If you look at what their, their merit based stuff is and what they require and you’re not close, what? There’s no point because they’re gonna move you to the spring anyway.

Communicate with the academic advisor or the counselor, the admissions counselor. Say what you’re working on, show what you’re doing grade wise and shoot for the spring. You’re not gonna get money, but if that’s the school you wanna get into, it’s a better strategy than just trying to apply early. ’cause you think, well, I’m gonna get in early, get on the list, they’re gonna look at you and go, you’re, you’re not close.

You need to wait till the spring anyway, if that makes sense. So, Yeah. The only thing I’ll add, keep in mind you really wanna read the policies because some schools, their early decision is a binding decision. Yeah. So if you, if you do get an early decision and you don’t get aid, you are still expected to go to that university and it is a difficult thing to get out of.

Yeah. So make sure you read those things really, really closely. Yeah. The good thing is we have people who can help give you that advice. So CollegeAdvisors team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts is ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process.

In one-on-one advising sessions. We’ve already helped over 6,000 clients in their college journey. And after analyzing our data since 2021, we found that CollegeAdvisor students are 3.6 times more likely to get into Stanford. 4.1 times more likely to get into Vanderbilt, and 2.7 more ti more likely to get into Harvard.

So increase your odds and take the next step in your college admissions journey by signing up for a free 45 to 60 minute strategy session with an admission specialist on our team using the QR code on the screen. During the meeting, we will review your current extracurricular list and application strategy.

We’ll discuss how they align with your college list and we’ll outline tools you need to stand out in competitive admissions world, including helping you apply for scholarships. So with that said, we will jump back into some of our questions. One of the questions I saw that I wanted to talk through are there good websites or places to look for non university specific scholarships?

Yes. Again, Googling, starting with Google is a, is a good opportunity just to get a, a feel for what’s up there. And then you can kind of, and then traditionally, let me pull up my bear with me here. Traditionally bear with me, y’all. Traditionally there are a lot of websites that will condense those things and put ’em together. CapEx is one of ’em. Mm-hmm. Fastweb has been traditionally one. scholarships.com has been a good one. They, they will, I. It, it’s sort of like booking a flight through Kayak. They kind of put everything together.

So there are scholarship specific search engines scholarship portal. All of those things should show up if you just do a basic Google search and just say, what are some good scholarship search engines? CapEx is usually gonna show up. That’s been one that’s been around for years. They will have the list there, and then usually what you can do is you can filter by, by region, by school, by requirements, by all the, all the different things that you can look for.

So again, the merit based stuff specifically to the university. But then once you start getting to those, those, that money that floats out there in the ether by all the different organizations. There’s a lot of scholarships, search engines out there. Okay. Perfect. One question that I, I’ve seen a lot recently is why do some universities not have their own merit scholarships?

The student is pointing out Franklin and Marshall. And, and what should you do if a university doesn’t have their own merit scholarships? The why? That’s speculation. Usually it’s, they don’t have money for it. I mean, that’s really what it is. The, the, the push pull by the admissions department to, to get the right students in and to hit the right numbers and get good quality students in while making it affordable.

That’s a balance, especially now these days that admissions offices are really fighting to offset a lot of that cost. It’s, well, what’s money? What money do we have percentage available to give students to bring them here? It’s different for each school, and some schools have that funding. Usually it comes down from a board of directors that says, yes.

You can increase your, your merit scholarship base by 5%. Some just go, we don’t have the money for it because of X, Y, Z. That’s the reality. That’s why, again, communicating with those, those schools and seeing you know, what’s available, how much is available, how many students that they offer what to do if there aren’t any merit-based scholarships is ask.

What else is there, are there department specific scholarships? Do you give money for STEM majors? Even if there aren’t scholarships coming into your freshman year, are there scholarships that. You know, rising sophomores can earn or juniors can earn. Are there scholarship? What’s the scholarship structure look like for specific majors?

So, let’s say the school has a very large school of business. Most schools of business on, on mid-majors and above have more funding. They’re bigger schools because they have a lot of majors. They get a lot of money. They also have a lot of businesses that work with them and give scholarships. I know a couple universities, specific university I’ve worked for had a good relationship with Boeing, and Boeing gave scholarships every year, but they’re only giving it to specific majors.

So so even if that freshman year you’ll go in and you’re not getting any money, that doesn’t mean, well, I guess I’m on the hook for the rest of the time. There are other scholarships to earn once you get on campus. Again, looking at the website. And developing a relationship with those people who work on that campus, who make those decisions, who are gonna work on your behalf.

If you’re a good student to get you in, they’re gonna let you know what’s there, what’s available, and how to get it. Great. So this question is, can you earn both merit scholarships and federal money or need-based money, or if you get federal funding, will it be, it, will you be ineligible for merit?

No. Most schools will give above and beyond. So you can stack again, know what each scholarship outlines. The example I give when it comes to federal money is looking at VA benefits. So the GI bill, you can get the GI bill or if, if your, your son or daughter use your GI bill and pays for tuition and pays that, and then the school on top of that gives you merit-based money.

Most schools will say, well, your, your tuition and fees are, are taken care of by your GI bill. We can move that merit based over to room and board. Again, that is their decision. Now, they may have scholarships that say it’s only tuition. That’s the only thing you can use it for. So then sometimes you have to make that decision.

But usually if you know, a, what are the guidelines with the merit based stuff and then B, what is that other money that’s coming in? What are their, what, what are the stipulations? You know? ’cause sometimes you might get merit based. That can only be for tuition. And then sometimes you might get that outside that says, it’s only tuition.

What do you do? You know? You have to communicate and work with each of those people to see if there is some leeway. If there’s not some leeway, most times you, you could stack scholarships on top of each other as well. So, But again, that’s where that research and knowing exactly what the guidelines are, what the stipulations are, I would say just from experience, you’re gonna have more flexibility with the university of what they say you can use it as, as opposed to if you are getting some sort of, you know, a, a federal scholarship or a, from a big nonprofit that says Here’s this money we hand out, you know, 10 scholarships a year.

They may have stipulate, they may not be as flexible. So, yeah, this is a good question that kind of goes in that area. Someone is asking, can you apply for merit-based scholarships for different things you do? The example they’re asking for is football and interior design, or do you kind of have to just apply in one channel?

Yeah, so merit and, and athletic, even though athletic is considered merit. Two separate things. Again, it depends on a which sport, which level. So division one, You’re gonna get a full ride if it’s we’re talking football, basketball, they don’t, generally, they don’t break up scholarships when it comes to the big sports at the division one level.

Baseball, you’re not gonna get a full ride. Nobody gets a full ride for baseball. If anybody tells you you’re getting a full ride for baseball anyway, take it with a grain of salt anyway, they usually break up those scholarships. So you’re gonna get that money and then if you get some merit based, usually what will happen, and I’ve seen this, is the admissions department works with the athletic department and they go, Hey, we are gonna give this student athlete a merit based scholarship, but they’re getting a full ride and everything taken care of.

What they usually do is they’ll work with the athletic department. Take that merit base and give it to somebody else who doesn’t have that money. ’cause your, your school is taken care of. And those two departments will work together. Division two, division three, n a i a they are gonna work together and put a package together.

So division two, you can break up scholarships. So let’s say you know, you’re gonna go play division two football somewhere, you get a, a room and board scholarship and then you get half tuition merit based scholarship. Great. They’re gonna put that together. You’re actually a better looking student athlete.

’cause the coaches know that they can maybe give you a little bit less athletic money ’cause you’re gonna get more academic money. And the division three is all academic money, but they package it a little bit differently as a student athlete to help you out. And AI is the same way. So, very good question.

Great. And I think an important question when we’re thinking about applications and things like that is what, what kind of makes an essay stand apart to an admissions officer, especially when we only have max 10 minutes to read these things? What makes them stand out? Making them, well, first off, well-written, grammar, all of those things.

’cause the first thing, you get into the first paragraph and there’s, you know you’ve misspelled two words and something’s off. That right there, regardless of what, how well it’s written that is gonna, that’s gonna ding you. That doesn’t mean they’re not gonna read it, but right there, you’re gonna go, eh.

So get the basics done, do the fundamentals correctly. Outside of that, I would look and look and see. A lot of times universities will have prompts of questions. Of topics maybe to look for do some research on what are some, you know, I, I will, I will fall back on chat. G P t ai. I know that sounds funny, but it’s a good system to say, Hey, what are some good you know, essay topics for college applications.

They’re not writing it for you, it’s just going, it’s just researching and going, here’s some good topics. And at least it points you in the right direction. Starts to give you an idea. You know, if you have a personal story that makes you stand out of struggle even though that can be a bit cliche, but if there is something that has defined your life, whether it’s tragedy or achievement that is very specific to you, go with that.

Go with what, you know. I would, in my opinion, I’d stay away from the 30,000 foot wave top topics of what’s on the news or because everybody’s gonna write about it. So even if you write a great essay and you have great insight, If you are the 50th essay that they’re reading about the same topic, human nature’s just gonna be like, oh, it’s another, another essay about the same thing I’ve just read about.

You’re not standing out. So maybe avoid those unless you give it a spin that’s personal. Usually finding some personal level is always a good rule of thumb. Again, communicating with that admissions counselor and talking to them and knowing that they’re the person that’s gonna read it and what they’re interested in and what their personality is, is going to help you understand, know your audience and that person is gonna be your audience.

Absolutely. I would just throw in, I always tell my students authenticity is what sells. Yeah. Don’t try and be anything you’re not, because we can sniff that out very easily. Yeah. Be authentic. A really good question. What are some of the, although you don’t wanna put all of your focus on the big competitive scholarships, what are some of the big competitive scholarships that give out a lot of money?

I know the big one I always think about is National Merit. Yeah, if you have some other ones that you’d wanna share. Yeah. I mean, national Merit is big because it’s National Merit. Anything has national on it. You’re competing with a lot of other people and it is prestigious and it’s good. You know, always work from the bottom up.

So look local, look statewide, look regional, and then go from there. And then maybe look at anything specific to yourself, your family. In, in your family situation? So you know, I always kind of go back to the military piece. That’s my background, but a lot of times outside of the GI Bill stuff there’s V F W stuff, there’s a lot of veteran based organizations that will give money to dependents.

Not the veteran themselves, but to dependents and that, you know, that could be books and, and books are expensive and if you can get books taken care of, great. Any of the bigger organizations out there a lot of nonprofits, they’ll have scholarship opportunities, especially if you’ve done a lot of volunteer work.

They will look at that volunteer work and that leadership development. They will, they will. They’ll give you money as well. Apply for everything. There’s no one big answer outside of, again, if you’re a Division one football player and you’re going to play at Notre Dame and Notre Dame picks up the $70,000 tab, great.

Most of us aren’t that person. So we have to cobble together all of this together to get through college and get it paid for. So never turn away from a scholarship, even if it’s a $500 scholarship. ’cause $500 can help with books in a semester, and that’s, that’s worth it. It’s worth it. Absolutely. All right.

So thank you everyone for coming out tonight and thank you to our panelists. This is the end of our webinar. We hope you had a really great time letting us tell you about how to apply for merit-based scholarships. I’m also going to quickly share our upcoming August webinars with you in case you are interested in joining us for any additional webinars.

We hold them often throughout the month so you can get great advice like this. And don’t forget to sign up for those free consultations. And thank you all for joining us this evening. Do the work.