Claudia Mosqueda envisioned having to spend years paying off loans when she finished college, but the DePaul University senior will owe no money when she graduates in June.
To supplement her financial aid and an academic grant from DePaul, Mosqueda won more than $25,000 in a half-dozen private-sector scholarships to pay for the rest of her undergraduate education.
“I have no loans, thank God,” Mosqueda said. “The [scholarship] money is really out there. You just have to sit down and meet the deadlines.”
Mosqueda knows it isn’t quite that easy for everyone.
She had prepared herself well in high school and had several things working in her favor. Good grades, her Latina heritage and leadership positions such as student council president at Bogan High School in Chicago gave her an edge over other scholarship applicants.
More than $1 billion dollars in private-sector scholarships are awarded every year to students who take the time to fill out applications and write those dreaded essays.
While some things, such as ethnicity, are out of a student’s control, there are many other ways students can increase their chances at winning a piece of that billion-plus pie.
As the cost of college has skyrocketed, the amount of financial aid in both loans and grants also has risen.
The College Board estimated students received almost $90 billion in all types of aid in 2001-02, with 42 percent of that being grants.
A College Board trends survey showed that grant aid has doubled over the last 10 years.
The largest chunk comes from federal and state governments and individual schools, which don’t hand students checks but instead give them tuition discounts.
Students who aren’t awarded those government or institutional grants shouldn’t despair. There is a growing amount of scholarship money coming from the private sector, with literally hundreds of thousands of scholarships available each year.
The total pot of private sector scholarship dollars hasn’t been precisely counted.
“There’s no magic number you can point to because they don’t collect the data that well,” said Bill Nelsen, president of Scholarship America, which calls itself the nation’s largest private-sector scholarship-support organization. “But it’s safe to say there’s a great deal more in the last five years or so of non-profit private-sector scholarships.”
A welcome change
A change in the way financial aid is figured at some schools is making it more worthwhile for students to pursue scholarships.
Scholarship America and other organizations have been successfully lobbying universities to change the way they figure aid packages so students aren’t penalized when they win a scholarship.
More than 430 schools have agreements with Scholarship America to reduce the loan or work-study portion of the student’s aid package and not reduce the school’s grant, which would financially penalize the student for winning the scholarship.
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“We’ve been fighting this battle for 15 years,” said Nelsen, who estimated that fewer than 20 percent of schools still practice radical displacement–replacing a student’s grant dollars with the student’s hard-won scholarship dollars.
Elmhurst College tries “very hard not to reduce what they already have [from the school] because we want there to be an incentive for the Ladies Auxiliary or whomever to give money to our students,” said Gary Rold, director of financial aid.
“And if they know we’ll just take the money away, they’re less likely [to give the scholarship]. The more savvy financial-aid people will try very hard not to take money away” after a scholarship is won.
This good news is tempered by a bit of reality.
The myth that millions of scholarship dollars never get awarded each year because no one applied for them is just that–a myth, several financial-aid administrators said.
There is certainly a small amount of money that goes untapped, but it’s because the criteria are so narrowly defined.
“They are so specific that nobody qualifies,” said Jerry Cebrzynski, director of financial aid at Lake Forest College.
Nina Tate, career/college counselor at Zion-Benton Township High School, said, “Most organizations that have money available will find someone to take advantage of it.”
The competition for national corporate scholarships is particularly intense.
The Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, for example, gets more than 100,000 applications each year for its 250 scholarships. That’s why some counselors recommend students start looking locally first.
`Think local,’ counselor says
Richard Fleck, a counselor at Bremen High School in Midlothian, knows his students have a better chance of winning one of the five scholarships offered each year by the Midlothian Chamber of Commerce than a national scholarship, “where they may give two scholarships in the Chicago area or five in the state.”
He added, “Then, it gets tough and that discourages students from even trying.”
Fleck used to give students the huge directories listing scholarships, but now he sends students to Web sites such as www.fastweb.com, which has a huge, free database.
He posts fliers about local scholarships on a bulletin board–and then tries to convince students it’s worth their time to apply for them.
About 25 percent of last year’s Bremen seniors received at least one scholarship.
“The toughest thing is always the essay,” Fleck said. “They don’t want to write it.
“They’d rather have Ed McMahon show up at their house with a big check,” he added, referring to the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes.
Kelly Stadter, a senior at Bremen, has applied for about 10 scholarships and is waiting to hear if she has been awarded any.
She assessed her experiences and decided to apply predominantly for scholarships awarding leadership ability. She is in the National Honor Society, helps organize food and blood drives, and is active in her church youth group. She also was a Girl Scout.
She also applied for scholarships given by the unions to which her parents belong.
“I looked for scholarships that described me,” said Stadter, who will attend Monmouth (Ill.) College this fall. “I picked ones where I met the requirements and I thought I’d have a chance to get it.”
She added, “My advice to other students would be to start applying early. If you wait until the last minute, then you have to rush to make the deadlines.”
Counselors recommend examining every aspect of your life and your background when deciding where to look for scholarships.
A national club for tall people awards scholarships to people over a specific height. An epilepsy foundation awards scholarships to students with epilepsy. Name an illness, an ethnicity, a career category, or a hobby and there’s probably a scholarship earmarked for it.
Yes, merit is rewarded too
Another myth that counselors say needs dispelling is that only students in dire financial straits or those with straight A’s can win scholarships.
Nelsen said the overwhelming percentage of private scholarships are awarded on a combination of need and merit. Those with less need might receive a smaller award, but they aren’t shut out.
“They do want to recognize merit in some way,” Nelsen said. “They also want to reach out to lots of kids, not just the A and B kids, but the ones going to vocational schools too.”
Debra Reed, a guidance counselor at Kenwood Academy in Chicago, has had students tell her they aren’t going to apply for scholarships because their parents make too much money.
“They do get discouraged because they believe the rumors that they’re only need-based or you need a 3.5 GPA or higher,” she said.
About half of her students apply for scholarships, but it should be more than that, she said.
Scholarships run the gamut, she said, from mostly need-based to some that only look at students in the top 10 percent of their classes.
The problem is finding the time during senior year to sift through lists and do the paperwork.
Praise yourself–objectively
It also helps to be involved in activities while in high school that will help you meet the criteria of specific scholarship–and then not be afraid to brag a bit about yourself, the counselors said.
Mosqueda said her extracurricular activities–volunteering in her community and being captain of the soccer team–helped her get several scholarships. She applied for about 25, using the same essay and recommendation letters when possible.
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“I looked at the criteria and applied for whatever I could,” she said.
“If you’ve worked since you were 15–use it. If you’ve taken care of your little brothers and sisters–talk about that. If you’re a student of color–use it to your advantage.”
Zion-Benton counselor Tate has had a few students who won more money than they actually needed, but that’s rare.
“They were strong in academics and they were strong in activities,” she said. “It takes a well-rounded individual to actually access that much. And it takes a lot of work to access it while still keeping up with school work.”
The downturn in the economy has resulted in an increase in applicants for scholarships, reported the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which awarded $22 million in 2001-02.
The fund has had a 50 percent increase in applicants this year, said Mario De Anda, director of scholarship programs.
That has made it more competitive, but the fund has responded by trying to increase its funding through a diverse portfolio of donors and partnerships.
“So we’re looking to award even more money this year,” De Anda said.
Page turners
To read more about the college admissions process, check these out:
“The Truth About Getting In,” by Katherine Cohen, is a handy, common-sense guide to all aspects of the admissions process, from tests and essays to letters of recommendation. Each chapter contains a “myths and truths” section. (Hyperion, $21.95)
“Making the Most of College,” by Richard Light, is a balanced look at what students should aim to get from their college experience. (Harvard University Press, $24.95)
“The Gatekeepers,” by New York Times education reporter Jacques Steinberg, is a widely read title on what goes on in a selective school’s admissions office. (Viking Press, $25.95)
The Atlantic Monthly’s September 2001 cover story on early decision still is worth reading for what it reveals about the state of college admissions (“The Early-Decision Racket: How a controversial tactic in elite-college admissions has distorted the admissions process and added an insane intensity to middle-class obsessions about college”). “The Old College Try: Who gets in, and why?” is a companion article; it showcases Atlantic articles from 1892 that “consider the art, the science, and the gamesmanship of college admissions.” Visit www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/09.
— Nathan Bierma
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For a list of resources to help you research scholarships, visit www.chicagotribune.com/scholarhelp.