Tips to Get Money for College 9: Your Personal Profiles on Search Engines

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

Anna had already started college when she began to worry about scholarships. She came to us seeking assistance using our 10X2 philosophy. Based on her GPA and activities we estimated that she would qualify for 116 scholarships. When she returned a week later for her second appointment she complained that she only qualified for 53. We asked if she had checked hiking. She indicated she had not. We knew from our interview that she had gone to a girl’s camp for six years. We told her to check the things she had done whether they were extensive or not. She edited her search engine profile. They identified that she qualified for 123 scholarships.

If You Did It Click It

Scholarship search engines generally ask you to complete a profile. They use the profiles to identify potential scholarships based on your history of interests, experiences, activities, ethnic background, and memberships of both students and parents.

Most profiles divide questions into similar categories and then give you a list of possibilities to click. Some profiles limit how many of each item you may select. Typical categories include:

• Majors and minors
• Athletic endeavors
• Memberships in clubs, associations, and unions
• Ethnic background of your ancestors
• Companies that employed you or your parents
• Universities you plan on attending
• Extracurricular activities such as drama, music, and more

You may tend to discard activities you have done because you did not do it at a professional level. For example, when the profile says basketball, many people interpret it to mean “you played starting forward on the state championship team.” So, you may not select it if you just played basketball for your church or county rec team.

Our counsel: If you did it, click it! You cannot screen them out later if you never see them. Later, you can eliminate the ones that you cannot win .

Tuesday we review the Super College web site as a source of student financial aid