Gina
Where is a good place to start when applying for colleges and scholarships?
Money will be an issue for me that is why I'm trying to gauge my options from what schools are offering me, what scholarships I am able to receive and how much I am able to get through FAFSA, which I won't even get to do until at least February. So where do I start with all of this? I'm trying not to let it stress me out but yeah. #stressed #collegeapps #scholarships #help #FAFSA #money
3 answers
Kristen Hansen
Kristen’s Answer
Gina, it's normal to be stressed about financing college! The best place to start is at your high school. If you have a college/career counselor, they are a great resource for local scholarships. There might be local businesses and organizations in your community that are worth researching and applying for!
Ellen Lie
Ellen’s Answer
You're on the right track! A great place to start when thinking about financing college is the FAFSA form. The deadline to apply for aid actually opens on October 1st at https://fafsa.ed.gov/. As Kristen mentioned above, your high school guidance counselor can also provide you a lot of guidance with looking into aid. FastWeb (https://www.fastweb.com/) is also a great database of thousands of scholarships you can apply for. You will have to sift through them to see which ones you might qualify for. Often times, colleges/universities also can award merit scholarships - so you might qualify for some aid from the schools you applied to, too.
Cassandra Garita
Cassandra’s Answer
FAFSA is always the first place to start. Usually, programs will post the projected cost of attendance on their website so you can get an idea of how much the program will cost and the types of aid you will be eligible for. Sometimes the school may offer scholarships, merit and experience based, or may connect you to external scholarship sources. Make sure to review each program's financial aid website for that information.
There are also different apps, such as Scholly, where you can create a profile and connect with scholarship sources based on your career interests, academic accomplishments, etc. Scholly is user friendly and shows you scholarship opportunities that you might not find otherwise!