[nabs-l] Different places to get Scholarships?

Tue Jul 24 22:26:37 UTC 2012

Hello all,
There are many resources when graduating high school. My high school
actually had an award ceremony. Basically, if you were a great
student, very active, good grades etc., the guidance counselors would
submit your name to various organizations around our township that
gave out small awards to graduating students. It was actually a
really, really nice thing, I got about four of those, that added up to
$7,000. One of them was from the Rotary club, you can apply to your
local branch. If you win that award, they are actually refreshable.
So, you can submit your name each year and depending on your college
GPA you can get another chunk of money from them. Along with that
thought, the ELMS Club, Lions,, Knights of Columbus, and maybe even
the Moose Lodge might have specific local awards. Sometimes the local
Fire Fighters will have a small award for graduating high school
students. And of course,, as you go on in college you will be eligible
to other awards. Be aware that some scholarships, like the NFB and
other private institutions will send you a personl check. Others will
send the check directly to your school's financial AID office.
Depending on what kind of financial aid you have, you might then get a
refund check. In college I lived for refund checks!Like Cindy said,
definitely check to see if your college has a national scholarships
and awards offices. Often these are highly competitive, but many
colleges have internal awards that you can apply for. If you would
like to apply for Roads, Marshal, Soros, Fulbright, Truman,  and other
nationally competitive scholarships, colleges often have an internal
application process, and will then refer the applications they find
the most qualified on to those scholarship committees. Keep that GPA
nice and high and apply, apply, apply, you never know what you might
win. After all, someone has to win them ,right?
Mary

On 7/24/12, Cynthia Bennett <clb5590 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm sorry. I got the fastweb URL wrong. But those are other great
> resources. I'm sure that many states have college websites that help
> you find colleges, apply, and find scholarships. NC's is www.cfnc.org.
> So search for something like that. But a meeting with your guidance
> counselor is definitely a good idea. They will have that kind of
> information for you. My school had the Lion's club application on hand
> since it was for all students, but if yours doesn't, it wouldn't hurt
> calling a member of the club and asking.
>
> Cindy
>
> On 7/24/12, Humberto Avila <avila.bert.humberto2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> The lions club in my area does not offer any scholarships. I've asked
>> them,
>> and they said that they didn't offer any. They just give out special
>> equipment for low vision offered through their low vision clinic and, if
>> you
>> request and get them to, they'll be willing to give other equipment.
>>
>> By the way, thank you for all these scholarship searches. I will consider
>> these that you've sent out, and to you, Cynthia, thanks for yours also.
>> I
>> have also some suggestions. If you ever feel like you have a great sense
>> of
>> luck, there are a bunch of context-like and drawing-like scholarships,
>> also
>> called "sweepstakes", that you can apply for. Providers such as:
>> 1.  Fastweb, http://www.fastweb.com/
>> 2.  College Prowler, http://www.collegeProwler.com/
>> 3.  Cappex, http://www.cappex.com/
>> 4.  MulahSpot, http://www.MulahSpot.com
>>
>> And many others, one word of wisdom though. Don't rely on these as much
>> as
>> you would rely on, for example, the blindness ones. However, it doesn't
>> hurt
>> to apply for some or all of these; who knows if you are the winner, and
>> then
>> what? You go to college without Rehabilitation agencies paying for you!
>> (Smile).
>>
>> You can also setup a profile on many websites that also attempt to give
>> you
>> with scholarship search results for you. Web sites such as:
>> 1.  www.collegeanswer.com/
>> 2.  www.fastWeb.com/
>> 3.  www.scholarshipDetective.com/
>> 4.  www.scholarships.com/
>> If you live in Washington State, there is a free web-based tool that you
>> can
>> setup a profile with, it is http://www.theWashBoard.org.
>>
>> Have a nice day and happy scholarship hunting!
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>> Behalf
>> Of Brandon Keith Biggs
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 12:33 PM
>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Different places to get Scholarships?
>>
>> Hello,
>> Here's the Jewish guild scholarship website:
>> http://www.jgb.org/guildscholar.asp?GS=TRue
>> They are one of the largest scholarships I've seen.
>> Just for reference, $1000 is average, $10000 is exceptional. $500 is
>> pretty
>>
>> good.
>> Jewish Guild is $10000-15000 and they are for high school students.
>> Also attached is a document that talks about scholarships for the blind.
>> There were some I've never heard of, but that I'm totally going to apply
>> for!
>>
>> Also about the Lions Club, if you Google Lions club and your area, you
>> should get a list of clubs in your area. I've never applied for lions
>> club
>> scholarships, but I plan on doing that this next year. I'm guessing that
>> you
>>
>> call them in the fall and or send them emails and say that you want to
>> know
>>
>> if they offer any scholarships to ambitious young college students.
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Brandon Keith Biggs
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Cynthia Bennett
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 11:50 AM
>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Different places to get Scholarships?
>>
>> Brandon:
>>
>> You ask a very important question. I divided my senior year into
>> halves. I spent the fall applying for schools and the spring applying
>> for scholarships. This isn't always the best way, but that's what I
>> ended up doing. There are a plethora of resources regarding
>> scholarships. I would first look at the schools in which you are
>> applying. Your application for admission will put you into some
>> scholarship pools if basic criteria like GPA or SAT score are met. But
>> some universities have more competitive scholarship programs that have
>> separate applications. Even if you are already a student, many
>> entities on campus have awards. For example, if you have been
>> volunteering with the counseling clinic on campus, they might have a
>> scholarship program. I know the psychology department at my school did
>> a scholarship, and so did our chapter of Psi Chi. Sometimes these
>> awards are smaller, but anything helps, and within university
>> recognition will always help you if you want to apply for other
>> accolades like doing an honors project or working in a research lab.
>>
>> You missed a couple of blindness-related scholarships. I know the
>> Jewish Guild for the Blind gives out a nice award each year which is
>> pretty competitive. Also, several Lions clubs have scholarship
>> programs. Many Lions clubs accept applications from sighted students
>> as well because of the lack of competition among blind students in a
>> local area.
>>
>> www.fastweb.net is a potential resource. I personally thought it an
>> absolute mess, but it would be worth your time setting up a profile.
>> It is a giant database of scholarships, and you can enter in all of
>> your information, and it will pull up scholarships that you are
>> supposedly eligible for. Supposedly is an important word though. You
>> need to triple check. You will see lots of giant scholarship programs
>> for corporate companies like Coke and Wal-Mart. Go ahead and fill them
>> out. The applications take about 5 minutes. But the way I see it is
>> that if that is all the effort you have to put into the application,
>> the winner is basically drawn. It wouldn't hurt to dedicate a small
>> fraction of your time to those applications though just to test your
>> luck. But you have to be careful. Any application asking for sensitive
>> information should be carefully scrutinized. You should never provide
>> your social security number or credit card number. Yeah, some
>> scholarships are definitely gimmicks to get your money. Why anyone
>> would pay money to win a scholarship, I don't know. So the moral of
>> the story is that fastweb can be good, but as you will see in the
>> following paragraph, local is better. If you are applying for
>> scholarships based on financial need, you might have to provide your
>> ssn. But, I would talk to a resource in person such as the examples I
>> am about to give, because they will know the legit financial need
>> based scholarships.
>>
>> Every school has some type of scholarship office. If you are in high
>> school, it will be in the guidance counselor's office. If you are in
>> college, then there will probably be an entire office dedicated to it
>> or somehow connected to financial aid. These offices are the best in
>> my opinion, because they have information about local scholarships.
>> Local scholarships are better, because they might present less
>> competition. If a scholarship requires that you attend a school in NC,
>> or whatever state you're from, or if it even requires that you went to
>> a certain high school, or to school in a certain city, you could be
>> narrowing your competition. However, the bigger advantage is that your
>> local involvement will mean more to the scholarship committee. There
>> will likely be members with kids who do the same volunteering, or
>> members that still volunteer with the organizations in which you are
>> involved. I received 4 scholarships my freshman year of college, and 3
>> of them were local scholarships given to me at the awards ceremony my
>> senior year. Look for state-wide applications as well. Some pan
>> disability organizations offer scholarships. One of mine came from a
>> family in NC who had a son with a disability who unfortunately passed
>> away. So the family set up a scholarship for anyone with a disability.
>>
>> The possibilities are endless, and as you can see, scholarship finding
>> and applying can become a full-time job. So I would encourage you to
>> concentrate on scholarships that are really looking for the strengths
>> that you have or scholarships in which you fit more than the average
>> criteria. Blindness-related scholarships are a great resource, but I
>> would encourage you to get out of that mold. I personally enjoyed the
>> 2 scholarships I had with interviews, because it gave me a second
>> chance to prove myself, and many locally based scholarships conduct
>> interviews with their top candidates.
>>
>> Cindy
>>
>>
>> On 7/24/12, Brandon Keith Biggs <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>> I thought this thread would be good for those of us in college and in
>>> high
>>> school.
>>> Where can one get scholarships?
>>> The NFB has their large 30 scholarship program:
>>> http://www.nfb.org/scholarship-program
>>> ACB has their smaller but still substantial scholarship program:
>>> http://acb.org/node/148
>>> Light House has a rather large scholarship:
>>>
>> http://www.lighthouse.org/services-and-assistance/scholarship-award-programs
>> /
>>> AFB Has scholarships:
>>> https://www.afb.org/section.aspx?Documentid=2962
>>> CCLVI:
>>> http://www.cclvi.org/scholarships/
>>> ABC:
>>> http://www.abc.org/Education_Training/Scholarships.aspx
>>> Association of Blind Citizens
>>> http://www.blindcitizens.org/abc_scholarship.htm
>>> Learning Ally
>>> http://www.learningally.org/Scholarship-Opportunities-Information/615/
>>>
>>> Your financial aid should have a website or list of places to get
>>> scholarships. There are scholarships like the Jack Kent Cook Foundation:
>>> http://www.jkcf.org/
>>> and all the other places listed on this page:
>>> http://www.radford.edu/~nchc/other-links.htm
>>> Gates, Churchill, Carnegie, Goldwater, Javits... All those rich families
>>> have scholarships.
>>> clubs like 4-H, Girl Scouts, Pathfinders, FFA, ROTC, Basketball,
>>> Toastmaster's...
>>> Interest groups like NAACP, National Rifle Association and the Christian
>>> Coalition also have scholarships.
>>>
>>> I'd like to know where other people get their scholarships from?
>>> Where do sighted people get scholarships? The above is mostly
>>> scholarships
>>> for the blind...
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Brandon Keith Biggs
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Cynthia Bennett
>> B.A. Psychology, UNC Wilmington
>>
>> clb5590 at gmail.com
>> 828.989.5383
>>
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>
>
> --
> Cynthia Bennett
> B.A. Psychology, UNC Wilmington
>
> clb5590 at gmail.com
> 828.989.5383
>
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-- 
Mary Fernandez
Emory 2012
"A pioneer is not someone who makes her own soap. She is one who takes
up her burdens and walks toward the future."
--
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich