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It’s money. Monday, our money expert Jini Thornton is here. We’re getting into the groove of our children being back in school, but now it’s time to start applying for college scholarships for the 2024-2025 school year and Jini Thornton is here to help us get our part of this $46 billion in scholarships that are awarded annually. Well, that’s a lot of money. When does the process for looking for money begin?
Jini Thornton:
And I’m happy that we’re starting here because Erica, people don’t understand how early the process begins. So if you have a graduating high school senior or if your child or your student is already in college, a lot of the key application deadlines.
So this is not intended to stress anybody out, but I think culturally for a lot of us, we’re always looking for money like, you know, once we know where that our child is going, that’s when we start doing the deep dive key application deadlines are happening right now. But for the rest of the parents, those of you who have freshmen through junior.
You all need to be familiarizing yourself with the process now, and that’s very important. You want to know when the deadlines are, you want to know how many community service hours may be required for certain scholarships, certain courses that they may have to take to apply for certain scholar.
Again, please familiarize yourself now so that way when you get to senior year, you are ready to get that money.
GUMEC:
Let me tell you, a lot of students are just intimidated. I know my daughter in her circle. They were like, ohh. The scholarships only go to straight A students. They only go to sports players. But there’s so many more scholarships. What would you say to a student?
Their parent, who feel like they’re not entitled because their kids didn’t get great grades.
Jini Thornton:
Well, you’re right. I think it is about the whole student. You have to tell your story. You know, you you’re right, you may not have the highest GPA you may not have killed that SAT, but maybe you really had a heart for service, you know, maybe community service was your thing. You need to play up on whatever your strengths are and there’s money available, but I have to tell you and be honest, it is work looking for it and it is worth applying. But it is absolutely worth putting the effort. In right now on the front end.
GUMEC:
Yeah, you know, I got a junior in high school right now. So where’s the best place to look for the scholarships and the websites? And put me on game?
Jini Thornton:
Alright, here’s the game. A lot of people ignore really going directly to the school that the student wants to add. And typically we’ll stop right at the financial aid office, which is fine. You definitely should be engaging with them on the school’s website, but you need to go a level deeper. And, for example, if your student wants to go to North Carolina A&T and study engineering, I would be contacting the School of Engineering and saying, hey, what is your pool of funds and what are the qualifications for that money as? Well, a lot of money is given away at the school level. Second, don’t forget about your community organizations. The churches, the Greek letter organizations, they still give away a lot of money too. But you want to tap in know when their deadlines are and what their requirements are.
GUMEC:
What are some good websites to go to look for scholarships.
Jini Thornton:
Here a few that I like collegeboard.org that’s ORG CollegeBoardfastweb WEB is another popular one. Scholarships.com is another one, but again, I’m going to encourage everybody please don’t forget to go deep at the school level. There’s a lot of scholarships that are specifically given at the at the college level. So don’t bypass those schools websites as well.
$46 Billion in College Scholarships | Money Monday was originally published on getuperica.com
