Sources of Money 16: Double Your Scholarship Money with Zinch

Tuesdays we review a source of financial aid available to help pay for college

Ed applied for several scholarships and earned them. He used 5 scholarship search engines, worked closely with the scholarship guidance counselor at his high school, and financial aid counselors at the four colleges he targeted for admissions. His original list of potential scholarships numbered more than 600. He reduced the list to 145 potential scholarships by spending 30 minutes a day deleting the contests, surveys, scams, and scholarships for which he had almost no change of winning.

Purpose of Zinch

Zinch (www.zinch.com) describes itself as

“Almost all colleges find and recruit students through standardized test scores. Zinch allows students to be seen for what they are -- not just numbers, but people. With more than 800 schools and $1 billion in scholarships, Zinch has quickly become the standard for helping students succeed. Zinch is now 3 million plus students and growing fast.”

Free Services on Zinch

Zinch, by Chegg, offers

• Weekly 3 sentence scholarships for $1,000, asking you to answer a questions like “You are more than a test score.” in no more than 3 sentences
• Tips, advice, news, and motivational stories to encourage students to apply
• Great interactive help and FAQ’s allowing comments from others that help you
• Cheap textbook sources and exchanges
• Articles from Forbes and other major publications about college and paying for it
• Video clips about the admissions process and what helps and what doesn’t help
• Scholarship search tools with clear and easy summaries with an “Apply Now” button
• Checkboxes to only show scholarships with “no essay required” or “Apply online”
• Easy ways to create scholarships so that you can help others
• Opportunities for study abroad, international students, internships, and jobs
• Calendar of events from educational programs across the country

Additional Services for Members

You may join Zinch by completing a very simple profile under the “Sign up” button AND agreeing to receive emails from other organizations. Members may

• Double Your Money using Zinch
• Match scholarship money from other sources

Thursday we review how to outline reusable essays to impress scholarship committees

Tips to Get Money for College 8: How to Avoid Frustration or Wasting Time

Saturdays we share tips or cautions to facilitate getting scholarships or avoid problems

Sherry was a junior in college when she first started working with us to get scholarships. She went through a couple of scholarship search engines, but found the process frustrating. She tried to balance her schooling, work, and finding scholarships. It all seemed overwhelming.  She had worked so hard on her master application. However, she couldn’t find actual applications to complete. It seemed that most of the scholarships on her lists were contests, surveys, or other scams. She gave up looking for scholarships several times.

Frustrations You Will Encounter in Applying for Scholarships

Applying for scholarships creates frustration, anxiety, self-doubt, and feelings of rejection. All of these feelings may come to you before you hear back from a single scholarship committee. In fact, you may feel them before you even send of one application.

Several factors in finding and applying for scholarships or other financial aid create these feelings:

• Scholarship search engines try to fool you into soliciting information you don’t want
• Results of your scholarship profiles generate confusing lists of contests, essays, scholarships, contests, and more chaos
• Investigating, researching, verifying, and preparing all the information on your reusable application, reusable essays, and letters of recommendation requires a lot of time
• You will only marginally qualify for many of the scholarships listed on your results, yet you still have to look at them to review all the qualifications
• You find yourself half way through an application when you find a piece of information that disqualifies you from applying
• You feel you are wasting your time
• You submit twenty applications and receive only one for $500

How to Reconcile Yourself to the Frustrations

You may maintain your motivation with several thoughts.

• If you apply for 20 scholarships and take 1 hour each, get 19 rejections, and only 1 ward for $1,000; you will have earned $50 an hour for your time
• How many hours—and at what frustrating labor—would you have to work to earn $1,000

Tuesday we will review how Zinch can help you double your scholarship money

Reusable Materials 16: Working with Teachers on Reusable Essays

Thursdays we discuss how reusable materials help you WOW committees and save time

Sarah enjoyed the 10th grade. She attended one of our scholarship workshops with her sister when she was in 8th grade. She began her master application in the ninth grade. She recorded her grades, service projects, achievements, and began creating home run statements. She also worked with her English teachers to prepare reusable essays. She would ask her 10th grade English teacher to substitute an essay topic from her list of scholarship topics rather than the topic they assigned. As a result, Sara had 8 reusable essays within one year.

Ask Teachers to Substitute Topics

You may ask teachers to substitute their essay assignments for topics typically requested by scholarship committees. We provided a list of typical essay topics in a previous post. You may present the list to your English, history, science, or other teacher. Then, request that they allow you to write on one of those topics rather than their writing assignment.

You can influence your teacher to allow the substitution by describing the purpose of the essay in the following terms:

“Teacher, I plan to use this essay to apply for more than 100 scholarships. Would you mind substituting the essay topic you assigned for one of these topics preferred by scholarship committees?”

Ask Teachers to Edit Essays More Deeply

Explain to your teacher that, since you will be using the essay to apply for more than 100 scholarships, you would like them to

• Edit the essay more deeply than usual
• Allow you to correct the essay according to the teacher’s edits
• Edit the essay again to make it as perfect as possible
• Allow you to correct it again according to the edits
• Review the essay one last time

You may also ask your guidance counselor—or the guidance counselor responsible for scholarships—to review and edit your essays. However, make sure that the last person to review the essay is an English teacher to ensure the best grammatical edits.

Saturday we share tips to help you avoid frustration or feelings that you are wasting time

Sources of Money 15: Helps from the Federal Student Aid Web Site

Tuesdays we review a source of financial aid available to help pay for college

Marco started graduate school in May of 2012. He applied for, and received, a federally guaranteed a Stafford loan. Midway through his third term the government informed him that congress had changed the rules governing student loans for graduate students. First, he discovered that the interest rate for the loan had doubled. Second, he found that interest began accruing, not after he graduated as in the past, but at the beginning of the loan. This added thirty months interest, at twice the interest rate, onto the total he would owe. The news devastated he and his wife.

Advantages of Federal Student Aid

Federal Student Aid (https://studentaid.ed.gov/) is a web site for students, parents, educators, and others. The site structures around  5 questions:

• “How do I prepare for college? Learn about exploring careers, choosing and applying for schools and taking required tests. Use checklists to help get ready”
• “What types of aid can I get? Read about the types of financial aid available from the government and other sources: grants, scholarships, loans, and work-study”
• “Do I qualify for aid? Most people are eligible for financial aid. Find out who gets aid, how to stay eligible, and how to get eligibility back if you’ve lost it”
• “How do I apply for aid? Learn how to submit your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)  how aid id calculated and how you’ll get your aid”
• “How do I manage my loans? Choose a repayment plan, pay on time, avoid default, and get help with problems”

Each section provides excellent backup material, articles, and helpful tools. In addition, the site provides calculators for student loans, managing finances, and methods to find help. You may also find the checklists and surveys helpful.

“Financial aid is money to help you pay for college or career school. Aid can come from

• the U.S. federal government
• the state where you live
• the college you attend, or
• a nonprofit or private organization“

Thursday we review how English teachers can help you individually with reusable essays

Caveat Emptor or Buyer Beware 9: Avoid Identity Theft in Financial Aid

Saturdays we share tips or cautions to facilitate getting scholarship or avoiding problems

Becky searched for FAFSA in a search engine. Several options presented themselves to “Help You Complete Your FAFSA”. She selected one that was not sponsored by the US Government (the site she selected has since been shutdown). She read the instructions and entered her information. At the end of the process it asked to enter her credit card information to pay $5.00 for using the service. She hesitated, but eventually entered her credit card number. Unfortunately, the web site was a scam to both get money for the FREE Application for Federal Student Aid and to steal her identity. She spent three years fighting the consequences of the identity theft associated with this one mistake.

Reduce Your Risk of Identity Theft

Applying for student financial aid increases your risks of identity theft. You share personal information in applications, search engine profiles and other places.

Federal Student Aid shares the following tips to reduce risk of identity theft as one of the scams to avoid. They advise:

• Only use www.FAFSA.gov to complete your Free Application for Federal Student Aid
• Close your browser when you finish to delete any online cookies you created
• Never share your Federal Student aid PIN with anyone “even if that person is helping you fill out the FAFSA.”
• Track and compare financial aid documents you submitted with what you received
• Never share personal information out on the phone or the Internet unless you initiated the contact
• Review the privacy information policy (we know this is a pain) for any non-government lender or provider before you give them all your personal information
• Store any document or receipt with your personal information on it in a secure location
• Keep your wallet or purse secure and protected at all times
• Immediately report lost or stolen identification to the organization that issued it
• Contact your college or the Federal Student Aid Information Center with any questions or concerns about an offer for student aid

Tuesday we review the US Department of Education’s pages on Federal Student Aid

Reusable Materials 15: Working with Schools on Reusable Materials

Thursdays we discuss how reusable materials help you WOW committees and save time

Jennie attended a scholarship workshop several years ago as a mother wanting to help her children pay for college. Jennie also worked as a high school guidance counselor. She invited one of our staff to meet with her principal, all of the guidance counselors, and English teachers in her school.

As a result, the faculty and staff changed the essay topics assigned in their 10th grade English classes to reflect the current topics requested by scholarship committees. Scholarship recipients in that school increased by 17% over the next four years (at which point we stopped monitoring). In addition, 4 other high schools in that school district made the same changes.

What Schools Can Do to Foster Scholarship Preparation

We honor our overworked and underpaid educators. We recognize that not all schools can implement what we advocate here. That does not make them bad schools. They work hard to prepare students for an increasingly difficult and changing world.

Some schools offer multiple assemblies a year to motivate students to prepare, qualify, and apply for scholarships. Other schools focus every guidance counselor on preparing students for both enrollment in, and obtaining financial aid to pay for, college OR technical OR trade occupations.

Some change their curriculum to emphasize applying for financial aid. Here is a very short list of possibilities:

• Ensure that students recognize the efforts to help them prepare for and pay for post-high school training (not just college)
• Encourage students to participate in clubs, activities, competitions, and service projects that will enhance their qualifications for scholarships
• Assign scholarship essay topics in 10th grade English and make them perfect
• Assign students to prepare reusable master applications and FAFSAs as part of their careers classes (for scholarship, college, and job applications)
• Teach, in financial management classes, how to wisely use student loans
• Emphasize in classes the financial and experiential benefits of working your way through school and managing your time to do both

Saturday we share a caution about avoiding identity theft as you apply for financial aid

Sources of Money 14: Adventures in Education, a List, Not a Search Engine

Tuesdays we review a source of financial aid available to help pay for college
Katie used several scholarship search engines to identify possibilities for financial aid. Her lists generated more than 500 options. Unfortunately, many of the results from the search engines seemed to duplicate one another. In addition, many of the scholarships listed proved to be contests, surveys, and worthless scams. Her discouragement almost caused her to stop looking. However, when she persisted and eliminated the duplicates, contests, and useless options; she found she still qualified for 95+.

Advantages of TG’s Adventures in Education

You will find Adventures in Education at http://www.aie.org/College/Scholarships/index.cfm. TG, who sponsors the site, states “Our vision is to be the premier provider of information, products, and services to help students and families realize their education and career dreams.” TG is a nonprofit organization founded in Texas in 1979. Their web site states “TG offers resources to help students and families plan and prepare for college, learn the basics of money management, and repay their federal student loans.”
Adventures in Education offers several advantages:

• A quick search feature of 15,000 scholarships
• You may search for scholarships based on keyword, exact phrases, words in the name
• They provide a list of frequently searched words that you can click to search
• You may use the advance search to include demographic information about yourself
• You may browse the entire list of scholarships for the following information:
  • Title and summary information about the scholarship
  • Minimum, maximum, and average award given
  • Deadline details
  • Information about the sponsor: name, address, phone, email, & web site
  • Number of awards, minimum, and maximum
  • Award type: scholarship, grant, essay, or other

In addition, the web site offers:

• Articles, videos, and testimonials about all types of financial aid
• How to organize to find more scholarships
• Financial aid calculators
• FAFSA assistance, guidance, special information, and college comparison charts

Disadvantages of TG’s Adventures in Education

The only disadvantage we found was the amount of work you must do yourself without assistance of profiles or filters.
Thursday we review how to work with English teachers to prepare reusable essays

Tips to Get Money for College 7: What to Do When Children are Young

Saturdays we share tips or cautions to facilitate getting scholarships or avoid problems

Sally led a very active life from her childhood up. She excelled at sports, played the piano and clarinet, served as class president in junior high and high school, and participated in several service projects at school and for her church. All of these activities would have impressed scholarship committees. Unfortunately, she and her parents failed to record the details about what she did. As a result, she had to reconstruct most of her information and estimate the details. It took a lot of time and failed to impress as well as the full details would have.

Foster Activity in Themes

As we discussed in earlier posts, you will identify themes in your master application. Themes highlight important facets of your life. You create your themes by what you enjoy doing and how you spend your time. In addition, evidence of themes appear early in you life. They occur naturally. Examples of activities—based on themes—you may pursue include:

• Leadership activities include when you serve as
  • An officer in elementary, junior high, & high school classes
  • Team captain or co-captain of a sports or academic team
  • A youth leader in your church or service organizations
• Athletic activities include participating in
  • Childhood or teen sporting teams
  • Individual athletic endeavors like golf, tennis, track, or other
• Service activities include donating your time to help
  • Charitable or nonprofit organizations with service projects
  • Clean up or respond to natural disasters
  • Elderly people, single or battered women, people with disabilities

You should record the details of your activities beginning as young as 2 years old or more. Do not start searching for scholarships until after you complete 9th grade.

In closing, parents encourage children to pursue their interests. Their pursuit, however, should be a healthy balanced search for activities. We caution against obsessive, hyper-attention pushing children to unhealthy imbalances that crush interest, twist priorities, or overinflate self-esteem. We also caution parents against trying to live and achieve vicariously through their children.

Tuesday we review TG Adventures in Education scholarship search page and links

Reusable Materials 14: Reusable List of Awards, Achievements, Transcripts

Thursdays we discuss how reusable materials help you WOW committees and save time

Maryann started dancing when she was 2 years-old. She performed at the county fair when she was four and at the state fair each year from age 5-12. She continued dancing on increasingly advanced dance teams. She performed major dance recitals twice a year for 10 years. She danced featured solos the last 3 years. She went to college studying dance and became leader of the dance team her senior year. Luckily her father loved to videotape her performances. Consequently, she had a great record she could use to apply for scholarships. She received dance scholarships to college.

Lists of Awards and Championships

Part C of your master application lists your themes, categories, and home run statements. Part B includes the raw material you use to create the home run statements. Your parents may record the information until you gain the skills to write them down.

You include the following information:

• Writing, photography, art, or other creative awards
• Reflections and other contest awards
• Scholastic, spelling bee, math, science and other awards for competitions
• Sports team awards and championships
• Choir, orchestra, band, and drama awards and competitions

Lists of Performances, Seasons, and Personal Best

Part B will also include dates, times, and number of people attending the following events:

• Vocal or musical performances in school, church, community, or civic organizations
• Win-loss records of athletic seasons for either team or individual sports
• Plays, theater, and drama productions you participated in either as actor or techie
• Personal bests or improvements in track, field, weight lifting, or other pursuits

You may want to maintain photographs, videos, MP4, or other copies of actual performances and games for use with scholarship applications. Also post them on your Facebook, Pinterest, or other social media channels.

Unofficial Copy of Transcripts

In addition, copy your high school and college transcripts into your master application for reference to hours, GPAs, or class credits. Do not use them as official transcripts.

Saturday we share a tip about what you and your children can do before the 9th grade

Sources of Money 13: The Search Engine Peterson’s.com

Tuesdays we review a source of financial aid available to help you pay for college

Winston coached people to find scholarships. He helped them complete their profiles on various search engines. He guided them to several scholarship search engines. Peterson’s.com was one of his favorite search engines. After recommending it for 2 years, Peterson’s implemented changes that reduced its use for current college students. Then, he found people started receiving spam and invitations to surveys more than they received information about actual scholarships. He finally stopped recommending Peterson’s.com to people.

Advantages of Peterson’s.com

www.Petersons.com offers help with undergraduate, graduate school, continuing education, and international students. They provide assistance with:

• Test preparations
• Scholarship search
• Paying for college
• Essay writing help
• GRE, LSAT, and MCAT preparation
• Paying for Grad Schools
• Choosing a Graduate School
• Distance learning
• Different colleges and community programs for continuing education

Peterson’s uses Cappex for its scholarship search.

The web site offers articles for finding and obtaining financial aid, completing the FAFSA, and other trends in financial aid.

Disadvantages of Peterson’s.com

Cappex stipulates that to use their service, “You also agree that Cappex may share your information with Peterson's or its affiliates, including but not limited to Student Marketing Group, subject to the Peterson's Privacy Policy and Peterson's Terms of Use” Our experience indicates the Student Marketing Group sells email addresses, includes ads disguised as offers, and surveys to share your information with several other of their clients.

One of the most depressing changes Peterson’s made was to limit the number of years you could use as your high school graduation date. When we first starting recommending Peterson’s, you could mark a high school graduation between 1955 and four years in the future. In the last 2 years we found it was limited to this year and four years in the future. As a result, they eliminated all current college students and all non-traditional students.

Peterson’s seemed to share more surveys, contests, and other speculative awards than real scholarship offers. We stopped recommending it.

Thursday we review how to list achievements, awards, and more on your master application

Caveat Emptor or Buyer Beware 8: Do Not Underestimate College Costs

Saturdays we share tips or cautions to facilitate getting scholarships or avoiding problems

Erica, with a 3.0 GPA and 31 ACT test score, applied for scholarships . She earned a full-ride scholarship to the college of her choice. She stopped applying for more. She failed to consider how much it would cost for laboratory fees, books, computers, food, and transportation to fly to school, fly home for Christmas, fly back to school after Christmas, and back home again at the end of the semester. She and her family paid for the additional costs out of their own pockets.

Prepare for all the Costs of College

Many students fail to consider how many things they need to pay for to go to school. They consider tuition, yet never add in the other aspects of college life. For example, you have to pay for

• Tuition
• Books, laboratory, and more
• Laptops (So you can upgrade half way through college)
• Housing (which includes rent, utilities, and sewage)
• Food (and drinks for many students)
• Clothing for school, internships, and job interviews
• Transportation (gas locally and flights out-of-state)
• Social expenses like dating
• More and more college students include a new car in those costs.

Too many students fail to consider they might marry during school and pay for all of the above for two people or more. We encourage you to consider all the costs of college. Prepare a budget forecast to cover costs. Set a goal to earn enough financial aid to cover all the costs.

Scholarships with Strings and Those Without Strings

A lot of people tell us “scholarships won’t pay for all costs. You can only use the money for tuition, books, or housing.'” We tell them “It depends on the kind of financial aid you get.”

• Some declare that you may only use the money for tuition, housing, or books
• Others require proof of enrollment, but do not specify how you use the money

You use money without strings (unspecified) to pay for the costs not covered by scholarships with strings.

Tuesday we review Petersen’s.com as a source of funding and scholarships

Reusable Materials 13: 5 Steps to Create 32 Home Run Statements

Thursdays we discuss how reusable materials help you WOW committees and save time

Joel applied for one hundred and seventy eight scholarships. He did not receive a single dollar for his efforts. He complained that our system did not work. We offered to review his master application and give suggestions. We discovered that his 36 home run statements did not include any specific numbers, percentages, or dollars. We recommended he use specific numbers and symbols like 350, $12,000, 45%. He followed our suggestions and earned $35,000. He could have earned more with specifics earlier.

Themes and Categories Lay the Framework

You identify 3-4 themes that describe your life. You divide each theme into 3 categories. You create three home run statements for each category. For example, consider 4 themes with possible categories:

• Academics: Math, Science, and English
• Athletics: Soccer, Track, and Lacrosse
• Leadership: in your church, in your school, and in your community
• Service: to your community, to your school, and to your church

The math is easy 4 themes x 3 categories each = 12 categories x 3 home runs = 36 statements

5 Steps to Create Your Home Run Statements

1. Jot down the ideas for each theme and each of the 3 categories for each theme
   • 9th grade president, sub-for-Santa committee chair, & 4H Club President
2. Turn your ideas into sentences
   • As 9th grade president we made quilts for a battered women’s shelter
   • Our sub-for-Santa committee raised money to give poor families Christmas
3. Convert implied numbers like “a few”, “many”, “a lot”, into real numbers like 350
   • As 9th grade president, we made 120 quilts for our 60-bed battered women’s shelter
   • Our sub-for-Santa committee raised $12,000 to give 255 poor families Christmas
4. Refine the wording of the sentence to clarify and improve
   • As president of our 9th Grade class, we donated 120 quilts to the city’s 60-bed shelter for battered women.
   • As chairman of our school’s sub-for-Santa committee, we raised $12,000 and provided Christmas to 255 disadvantaged families.
5. Ask someone else to edit it

Saturday we warn you about limiting your perception about how much money you need

Sources of Money 12: The Wiki Called Scholarship Library Can Help You

Tuesdays we review a source of financial aid available to help you pay for college

Jane complained she did everything we taught and earned nothing. We offered to review her master application. She had not prepared one. That’s why she didn’t get money.

Advantages of Scholarship Library

Scholarship Library is the first scholarship wiki we encountered in 12 years helping people get money for college. Scholarship Library describes itself:

“Welcome to ScholarshipLibrary.com, home of the first free public scholarship wiki where you can search through over 230,000 scholarships and $5 billion in scholarship awards. Our mission is to facilitate getting and giving scholarships. We hope to make it as easy as possible for students to find scholarships and for organizations, schools or private entities to advertise their scholarships. Nothing warms our hearts more than the anticipation that thousands of students each year will be able to help finance their education by using our Library.

Because this is an open-access wiki everyone can help make this site valuable. In fact, we rely on our users to make it valuable. Please feel free to make posts, submit edits or changes to content, or give us your feedback through our Feedback button to the right.”

The left side navigation bar offers the abilities to:

• Search features a search bar that fills in possibilities as you type (i.e. you type “lou” it generates a list of scholarships including Lou Ellen, Lou & William)
• Random scholarship generates scholarships randomly
• “Browse by” lets you search for scholarships by
  • State: provided information about 230 scholarships for Utah alone
  • School: listed thousands of scholarships alphabetically by school name
  • Major: showed 896 scholarships just for the political science major
  • Minority: offered 60 ethnic categories, each one offering scholarships
  • Religion: outlined 28 religious categories
  • Disability: included 45 illnesses
  • Activity: listed scholarships for athletics, academics, the arts
  • Military Experience
  • Parent’s Employer

This is an impressive web site.

Disadvantages of Scholarship Library

Click “No thanks” at the bottom of the pop up ad for school programs to move forward.

Thursday we review how to prepare sparkling home run statements for master application