Filling out scholarships is a long and laborious process. As a senior, I cannot express how many days I have spent trying to perfect essays, transcripts, and more. Each scholarship will ask for different things, but there are five topics I send with every scholarship, no matter what.
1. A Professional Resume
At the beginning of the year, I put together a list of all of the things I had been involved in up to that point: honors, awards, extracurricular activities, service projects, leadership positions, work experience, etc. This served as a reference for filling out online scholarships, a senior brag sheet, and a convenient reference sheet to send to all other scholarship committees. I highly recommend putting together a similar reference sheet for yourself.
2. A High School Transcript
Many scholarship committees will ask for an official high school transcript, which mean you must request a specific copy from your counselor. However, you can often receive an official copy of your transcript to keep on file and copy to distribute to scholarship committees. Even if they do not request this resource, it gives them an idea of how you have challenged yourself through your high school career.
3. Letters of Recommendation
Again, this is something that many scholarship committees will ask for, but it is a good idea to add one or two into an application even if it is not requested. Additionally, if you have an interview for a scholarship, it is often beneficial to take any additional letters of recommendation you may have.
4. ACT Scores
Now, thanks to this lovely little thing called the internet, you can save your ACT scores as a PDF and make as many copies as you want. If you have decent or high ACT scores, sending a copy with your scholarship applications can never hurt. Once again, it is an additional resource that will help a scholarship committee discover who you are.
Please remember: a scholarship committee is judging you—your ability, talents, personality, character, and potential—by a looking pieces of paper. Anything you can do to help them develop an image of who you are makes all of the difference.
Written by an AdmitSee intern, who is now attending Marshall University in Huntington, WV. Whether you’re a high school or college student, share your experience and application advice with us. We welcome guest blog post. For more information, please email info@admitsee.com.
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