Jumping Through Scholarship Hoops The Money’s Out There, But You’re Going To Have To Work For It

Senior year is well on its way for thousands of college-bound Spokane and Kootenai County teens, their mailboxes have been stuffed for the past 10 months with If-you-come-to-our-college advertisements and promises of free doughnuts if you visit in two weeks or less, but now they’re pressed with a new worry.

Money.

Yes, the cost of higher education doesn’t come cheaply these days unless, of course, $12,000 to $30,000 a year seems like chump change.

Many obstacles surround the pot of gold that many students are searching for.

“One of the biggest challenges of looking for scholarships seems to be sifting through those that don’t pertain to you,” said Luke Tolley, a senior at Rogers. Some have incredible restrictions - A $40,000 scholarship to a senior girl who has dark hair, wears a size two, rides a camel in her spare time and is engaged to be married to a contortionist in the year 2000 is an example of this phenomena.

OK, so it’s not that bad, but you get the idea.

There’s also the issue of finding the big money and winning it.

“I usually do qualify for the smaller scholarships, but I’m having more trouble finding the big ones I really need,” lamented Osman Gruhonjic, a North Central senior.

The good news is the scholarships are out there. The problems seems to be finding enough time to search for them. One place to look is the public library. And many students are overlooking the abundant resources available at their own schools that make this process quicker and less painful.

Recently, the career centers in Spokane School District high schools have received a new program called the Pepsi Tuition Funding Source. Students are able to plug all their information into the computer - including grade point average, SAT scores, hobbies, extracurricular activities, gender and nationality - and receive a list of all the private and public scholarships they’re eligible for. Many students have been enjoying the service and have had success with it.

“The computer did all the work, and it was a lot quicker than scouring through books at the library,” said one senior.

Not only does the computer find the scholarships, but it also prints out a letter to request more information about them. This saves a considerable amount of time and energy.

Even with these time savers, many students devote sizable amounts of time out of their already busy schedules specifically for the search.

Katie Cashatt, a 4.0 student at Ferris, has been at work since her junior year. Though the work was far from easy, it did have its payoffs. Cashatt acquired the Executive Womens International $2,000 scholarship and continues to excell in school. She recommends that seniors write one essay for a scholarship and see if they can apply it others.

Sebastian Townsend of Lewis and Clark had different advice.

“I try to do my essays like homework,” he said. “Every day I’ll write one or two paragraphs and then come back to it the next day and take up where I left off. This keeps me more focused and I have time for other things.

Contrary to popular belief, a student’s cumulative grade point isn’t the most important element of getting a scholarship, although a good GPA certainly helps.

“The GPA isn’t really as important to them as your activities and involvement in the community,” said Tolley, who has a 3.98 GPA. “(That) seems to be more of a cut-off point.”

Bonnie Smeby, a senior from Rogers, agrees. “As long as you have at least a 3.0, you’re pretty much fine,” she says.

It seems the more involved student is sought more often than not. Students who have focused on academics without taking time for activities and hobbies are sure to be faced with a feeling of major disappointment, as both colleges and scholarship boards search for the well-rounded individual.

The busiest time of the year for college-bound students is between December and February, said Russ Bishop at Rogers’ Career Center.

“Students should be applying to colleges and checking with their admissions office about scholarships no later than December,” he said. “Waiting longer than January is really just hurting yourself.”

Yet many students do just that. Don’t. The competition for scholarships has been compared to that of two pirate ships searching for the same sunken treasure. It takes a lot of effort, but those who get started early will benefit from a beautiful payoff.