College/University Scholarships

[BantyHugger]

Hi everyone,
I am happy (and scared) to say that I am now a Junior in High School and have joined the millions of other students looking for scholarships. I am sure that some of the members here and their kids have located some good programs out there. I am looking at Architecture colleges personally. However, i think that this thread should become a list of links to all types of scholarships. It would be really helpful to me and all the other teens on here. Scholarships and grants seem kinda hard to find (mainly ones that i could apply for). If you have any links or information that would help those of us college bound, We'd love to here it!

Mariah

 

[silkiechicken]

I would say your best bet would be to talk to your career counselor at your HS. They should have a listing of what is available and the best places to look. Your chances at a scholarship are likely the best in local based things where companies and individuals make them for your school/city/county. I probably applied to dozens when I was in your place, but only got a few tiny ones that were merit or project based. If you have financial need, see what kinds of deals and scholarships a school you have applied to is willing to give to get you to go there.

I chose to go to school in state to save on tuition seeing as I had more than a BS in mind and figured it would be useful for later costs.

Good luck!!!

 

[BantyHugger]

Yeah, i was starting to get that feeling. However, the best Architecture schools are all seeming to be the most expensive. I looked at The Cooper Union (I'd never heard of it until I did a search) and on its website it said "Tuition is listed at $33,000 per year. Every student receives a full tuition scholarship and is not responsible for tuition-related costs.". Does that me if I were to get accepted all I'd have to pay was cost of living? That would be awesome!
My HS counselor is occupied with helping the graduates get everything were it should be, so i'm not going to bug her for a couple weeks.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

I went to architecture school a couple of decades ago. My first two years were paid for by scholarships. Most were not all that large. There were just a ton of them.
My biggest came from a local women's club. They gave out $1000 a year for all four years. Check your local women's clubs to see what is available.

Others came from Civitan, Elks, athletic boosters, etc. You really have to get out and beat the bushes. Your high school counselor should have a list of what is available locally. Apply for EVERYTHING you are qualified for. Of course, the higher your grades and the better your ACT/SATs the better your chance of getting money. Take the ACT/SATs as many times as you can in an effort to up your final score. My ACT jumped 6 points after taking a summer math class. Huge difference!

CLEP or test out of as much stuff as possible. That's like free money. Make sure once you are in college that you don't fail your classes. Seems like a dumb thing to say, but you would be amazed at the number of kids that just blow off a class and have to retake it. You have to pay for it every time you take it. That's a HUGE money suck.

Go ahead and get a job now and start saving everything! College is really expensive and it is only going to get worse in this current economy. My university is losing $19.3 million of state funding over the next year. That means tuition is going up and services are getting cut. Back in my day the state picked up about 80% of the cost of each students' education. Nowadays that has reversed. The state is only contributing about 20%. Your cost is huge! Maximize what you can.

 

[saddina]

Take a summer class at the local jr. college, might I suggest pottery? In your last year of highschool take a few electives and transferr those credits, many states have programs where high school students can take a class for free. That'll knock off some time, and you won't have to pay university costs for electives.

Go to fastweb.com, and fill out the scholarship search forms, and have it emailed to you and appily for everything you might qualify for. Fastweb is the same thing the counselors out here use to pull a list of scholarships anyways.

Pre-write up some 500 word essays on things like "the person I most admire" or "ways kids can change the world" etc. That waay if a good scholarship/grant comes up with a short due date, you're set. Your english teacher should be willing/delighted to read it and offer suggestions.

Make sure you fill out your FAFSA as soon as your parents do thier taxes, schools figure out thier awards packages in spring, and the longer you wait, the less funds they have to pass out.

If you have any savings/bonds etc in your name cash them out now. The school expects you to contribute a large chunk of $ in your name and only 7% of your parents savings in thier formulias. You really are better off to sell the bond aunt Susie gave you when you were 6 and stash the cash, or buy a laptop to use.

Do half of what I suggested and you're way ahead, I used to manage 20 freshman interns and many scrambled for cash to pay tuition because they didn't plan ahead.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Actually, if you are going to take classes at the local community college you might as well be getting some of those general ed classes out of the way. You have to take them no matter your major and most states have a deal where they have to transfer from the community college to the other institution.
Be aware that if you are really interested in going into an architecture program, their curriculum is probably very tightly scripted. In my day we didn't so much have elective slots. Almost every class was dictated by the program. Check with the school you are most interested in and look at their course catalog. That should give you a better idea of what you are looking at.

Schools vary dramatically in cost. State schools are usually less expensive than private. In state cheaper than out of state (although some states have deals with neighboring state for particular shared programs).

 

[BantyHugger]

Ok, Everyone has told me to take some local college classes NOW. Well, i am happy to say I am already signed up. My High School offers several free AP Classes. I am taking AP Chemistry and AP Composition (at the end of the year we test and if we pass we can get credits for college). My HS also has a teacher come in from NCTC (North Central Texas College) that teaches us Dual-Credit courses for $150 a semester. Next year I am taking World History and during senior year i can take Government and Economics i think. The only danger with this is if i fail it could jeopardize me graduating High School (I'm not worried about this at all). NCTC won't allow anyone to take summer classes there who isn't about to be a senior, so i'll do that next summer.
From what i understand i don't need to do my FAFSA until i turn 17 or 18, correct?
If the job market wasn't so tight i'd have a job. I don't have any bonds to trade in, but my parents bought me this laptop and have a little (and i mean little) money saved away for my college.
Since i looked at college tuition fees today I am now advantly aware that In-state is cheaper than out of state. lol
Thanks saddina for the website, I will check that out.

Thanks everyone ~ Keep it coming!

 

[saddina]

Correct, you would fill out your FAFSA in the spring of your senior year (and every year after).

 

[silkiechicken]

Honestly, having taken 5 AP classes in HS, the community college "running start" program that was also offered would have been the better choice. Largely because if you get credits at a community college, you have a greater chance that the credit will transfer to the university and get you out of things. With the AP credits, you had to get a certain score and it would transfer more as an exemption rather than actual physical credits. At least this was the case for when I went to U of Washington. The feeling we all had looking back was they endorsed AP classes because if we took those, the school would get the money per head that was there, vs if the student went to community college, the community college would get our head money.

Another thing I'd suggest is to think about going to a big school vs a very specialized school, just in case you change your mind. You can always do a cheaper instate school for the first year, explore options, get college credits that WILL transfer to other universities and switch to a specialty school when you are 100% sure of what you want to do.

 

[Rosalind]

Quote:
+1. Always, always substitute actual college credits for AP classes wherever you can. You will have to get permission from the school guidance counselor and so forth, but it can be done.

Also, if you take community college credits (vs. state/local university credits) check with the state university whether or not these credits are transferable. Do not bother to check with the community college; according to the comm. college, all credits will transfer just fine. In fact, more often they do not transfer at all and people end up re-taking stuff, unhappily--one of my techs had a rough time because she was paying for college herself, so she went to community college for her Associate's for two years. Then when she needed a Bachelor's to get a better job, she found the community college stuff wasn't going to transfer and she was forced to start over.