Scholarship Application Follow-through

  One question I get asked very frequently is how do I apply for scholarships? Parents and students seem to understand that scholarships can be a windfall for those who are willing to do the work to find and complete applications, but I find that follow-through is often a problem. 

As I’ve said before, supposing that you can pay for college entirely with scholarships isn’t practical. That might be slightly more logical than relying on winning the lottery to provide income. Families should anticipate some sacrifice as they plan to send their children to college. However, scholarships are easy to find. Almost every community in the country has some organization (or many organizations) offering a scholarship to students. Secondary institutions all offer their own scholarships, and the state and federal government offer grants and scholarships. If you play your cards right, you can make a significant dent in college costs. That’s the problem though. You do have to take some action to be considered for scholarships and I am astonished by how few people are willing to take that action. 

I beat my head against the wall trying to convince students to complete scholarship applications. I counsel in a fairly affluent community so we have a lot of local scholarships available. Our senior classes usually have around 200 students and our students are often competing with a neighboring high school and a smattering of homeschool and private school students. 

I would guess most of our local scholarships have about a dozen applicants. I can tell you that low number is not from a lack of promotion of these scholarships at my school. Most of these are for $500 or $1000 awards–sometimes a little less, often more. The applications themselves usually aren’t complicated. They usually just require some brief academic numbers like GPA and test scores and a brief written statement or response to a question. I think most scholarship applications can be completed in less than a half hour. So, I tell my students this; “You probably have a job where you work an hour for, like, $12, right? If you told me I could consistently work a half hour for a one-in-ten or one-in-twelve shot at $1000, I would quit my job as your counselor right now and just do that. As a senior, this is probably your only chance in life to have that sort of opportunity. Put the effort into these scholarship applications!”

It’s important to note too that you don’t have to be the valedictorian or the senior class president to win a scholarship. In fact, I think local scholarship committees in particular often hope to find some under-the-radar students to award their funds to. So, the answer to the question, “how do I apply for scholarships?” is a lot about follow-through. Stop reading this blog. Put your phone down and go do an application right now.

Teens and Anxiety

  There’s something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while, but it’s a hard topic and I just haven’t been able to do it. When I’ve thought about writing this, I feel overwhelmed and I can’t do it. It’s been easier to write about something or not write anything at all when I think about teens and anxiety.

That was a joke, in case you missed it. I don’t really want to make light of this issue, but I do think it’s something that is starting to get out of hand that needs to be addressed. Schools are seeing a tremendous uptick in the number of students who report feelings of anxiety and I’ve personally written countless 504 plans to address it in the past few years.

To the student, feelings of anxiety usually manifest as an immobilization to face the outside world. This leads to poor attendance in school, a weakening of relationships and social skills, and a snow-balling of more negative feelings and problems.

Teen anxiety has always been a thing, but I don’t think it used to be this bad. I think most of today’s parents can remember answering a phone and talking to a person when you didn’t know who would be on the other end. They can remember getting dressed and going out to a store or restaurant to buy stuff. They can remember socializing with friends in person, and certainly waking up every day and going to school. It doesn’t have to be like this anymore though. Young people text mostly. If they do receive a voice call, they certainly know who is calling. A variety of apps mean we can facelessly order the simplest necessities like food and even have them dropped on our doorstop without human interaction. We can spend all of Friday night hanging out online with our best friend even if they live in another state, and we can even do our school online. Then there was Covid when we were encouraged to stay away from others. That’s when the bottom really found out.

So, what we’ve created are far too many teens who don’t know how to interact. We all have days when the demons in our heads are fierce and we’d rather not face the world. Whether or not to suppress those didn’t use to be such a choice though, and when we don’t force ourselves to learn how to overcome those demons, we make it easier for them to win each progressive day.

It’s easier to use technology to avoid human interaction, we all do it, but parents would do well to stay diligent and require their children from an early age to order for themselves in restaurants, avoid the self-checkout, talk to their aunts and uncles on the phone, go to the weird kid’s birthday party, and take their AirPods out. Do the things that are certainly less convenient, but make us stare down the little demons before they become big ones.