finding. applying. winning
Scholarships

looking for large scholarships

Here is additional information that can help you get a portion or all the money you need to pay for the full year.

If you are going to need a thousand dollars to go to a community college, apply for government scholarships. If you are going to attend a public four-year college and will need about $15,000 dollars, you should apply for government scholarships. If you need $33,000 to help pay for a private college or a public college out of your state, you should definitely apply for a national government scholarships. Are you seeing a pattern?

It seems to surprise most persons that attend our LSAC conferences that they may be able to qualify for thousands of dollars in financial aid, from the federal government, and that their school grades play no direct part in how much one qualifies to get. In applying to the federal government, all you will have to show is how much money the family makes per year. Again, they are not going to ask anything regarding high school or college grades or grade point average (GPA).

Does this mean that getting top academic grades are not important in getting scholarships? As far as the qualifying for financial aid from the national government, quite honestly, the answer is NO! No student grades are taken into consideration in order for determination of qualification
for the financial aid program from the national government. I want to reemphasize, though, that this only applies to the federal government.

You will, however, still need to earn high grades in order to be admitted into the majority of four year colleges or universities.

Scholarships that are awarded based on high academic grades are normally called "merit" scholarships. In some states a portion of the financial support available to tudents are merit based, but again they also offer scholarships based on the ability of the family to pay tuition, and not grades.

Students that earn high grades may also be able to get additional financial aid monies from scholarships that colleges can offer their students. Students may can apply and compete for scholarships from local and regional agencies. Almost all those agencies mentioned here do look carefully at grades, and in a large portion of circumstances, but not all, high academic performance does help decide who will win their scholarships.

I need to also point out that since not all grades are created equally, it's not the students with the highest grades and grade point average that will automatically win the scholarships. We will discuss this issue in greater detail in upcoming articles.

In order to apply for and find out exactly how much money the federal government can contribute to the student for their college education, one will have to complete the 2002-2003 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms. Applications are normally available and distributed in the Fall months. Start looking for the application around October or thereafter and it should be completed and mailed by the first of January 2002. The 2002-2003 FAFSA application is the form that one needs to use in order to try to get financial aid for the college year which begins in August/September of 2002. First time or continuing college students all need to complete the FAFSA.

Free copies of the 2002-2003 FAFSA application should be available after September 2001 and they can be found in public libraries, financial aid offices at both high schools and colleges and it should also be available on-line on the Internet at www.fafsa.ed.gov/.

If you have never filled out the FAFSA in the past I strongly recommend you find a 2000-2001 FAFSA application and begin looking over and studying the instructions and do try to fill it out. Although next year's application will not be identical to the one that was used this year, and the 2000-2001 application deadline has also already past in many states, most of what next year's FAFSA application will ask for will most probably be similar to what they ask for on this year's application.