There are two major obstacles for students when competing for scholarships and college acceptance. This can make planning for college stressful and overwhelming for parents and students.
Obstacle One:
The first obstacle is having all the information from four years of high school written down and organized. Having everything written down is the only way to ensure that filling out applications is not an overwhelming experience. The more organized a student’s information, the less time it takes to fill out applications. The less time it takes to fill out applications, the more likely the student is to apply.
FACT: Small local scholarships often go un-awarded because not a single student applied.
Obstacle Two:
The second obstacle is the student knowing what they need to do to get the scholarship, program acceptance, internship, fellowship, or job. Typically, students do not know this until they see the application. However, then it is too late. Proper preparation and planning is the only way to make sure you will be able to create impressive applications and avoid regret. By the time you are applying, it is too late to prepare.
When to start planning?
You might be thinking, “but my student is just a freshman, isn’t that too early, don’t we have plenty of time left to prepare?” In our next three posts, we will walk you through the process of how to best prepare for college and scholarship applications. You will find out:
- when to start
- what questions to ask
- what information you should be tracking
- how to get organized
- how to avoid regret and missed opportunities
There is no way to know in high school what the perfect choices are to prepare for college, as students frequently change their minds. However, we do not want students to reach their senior year and realize they should have taken the ACT test one more time, or that a scholarship they want is going to someone with more volunteer hours.
Please share your thoughts with us in the comments below! Have you come up against these obstacles?
Other posts in this series:
