Expert Tips for Finding College Scholarships
Have I mentioned how much I love writing articles and blog posts for My College Guide? One of the reasons I enjoy this so much is that I get to talk to college administrators, admissions professionals, and financial aid staff all around the country and get their best advice to help high school students prepare for college.
These professionals often have so much great advice to share that we can’t include it all in the magazine articles. This was the case with information on finding and applying for college scholarships for a recent article. Because of this, I compiled the “extra” advice into a new blog post. See expert scholarship advice from professionals at Iowa State University and William Peace University in my latest post.
My College Guide Blog: Anti-bullying Scholarships
In September 2013, I started writing the My College Guide blog. The blog provides college preparation and college life tips and advice primarily for high-achieving high school students.
To date, my blog post topics have included SAT and ACT preparation, fall college fairs, college rankings, online degree programs, and scholarships. I also introduced a “Major of the Month” series to highlight a different college major each month.
While researching general scholarships available to students, I came across several organizations that offer scholarships or other award money to victims of bullying or to students who actively lead anti-bullying efforts in their schools. With the prevalence of bullying among students (about 13 million American kids are bullied each year) and with National Bullying Prevention Month happening in October, I thought these college scholarships and contests were timely to write about.
See my recent blog post on college scholarships for National Bullying Prevention Month, plus check out the National Bullying Prevention Center’s website and StopBullying.gov for more information on bullying prevention.
Emerging Trends in Online Higher Education
In the last decade the number of schools offering fully online degree programs has doubled. But traditional online degree programs aren’t the only educational offerings on the internet—there’s also massive open online courses (MOOCs), online certificate programs, and competency-based online programs.
For the October 2013 Wisconsin Woman magazine, I interviewed students and administrators from various University of Wisconsin (UW) schools and programs to learn about all of these different types of programs and trends in online education.
In the process, David Schejbal, dean of the UW-Extension’s continuing education division, told me I was the first writer to know the date when students can begin applying for the UW-Extension’s new competency-based online degree program: November 18.
Check out the October 2013 Wisconsin Woman magazine (pages 7-9) for my article on emerging trends in online college education.
Wouldn’t It Be Nice if Scholarship Money Grew on Trees?
For high school students (and their parents), figuring out how to pay for skyrocketing tuition, room and board, fees, and books is no easy task. Unfortunately for students, college money doesn’t grow on trees. But there are tons of scholarships, video contests, and essay contests students can enter from 9th through 12th grade to earn money to help pay their future college bills.
In my recent article for My College Guide‘s Sophomore 2014 edition, I spoke with college professionals from William Peace University and Iowa State University to get their advice on starting the scholarship search early.
Read the My College Guide scholarships article. (My article starts on page 36c of the digital edition.)
Dana's Creative Services, Dana McCullough, Freelance Writer and Editor 