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