Hello all!

Because I had my semester one exams in the last week of January, I’ve had a few days off this past week before semester two began. Rather than spending that time distancing myself as much as possible from anything involving school, I was at home, at my desk, knee-deep in scholarship application forms. Any other third year Rangers out there been doing the same?

In my planner I have October 1, 2010 marked with “Start Scholarship Hunting”. A combination of confusing websites, applying for university, and having very little time pushed that date forwards by about four months. Luckily, Student Awards has revamped their website and I’ve had some less-hectic-than-usual days to figure these applications out. As many of you will be heading off to post-secondary in the next few years, I thought I’d share some of my findings on what is a necessary part of going to school – finding the money to pay for it!

Although there are still some scholarship applications that aren’t due until the beginning of February, March, or April, many of them need to be submitted before or shortly after Christmas. The Loran Award, a pretty prestigious scholarship, was due at the end of October, and the major admissions scholarships for Queen’s and the University of Guelph were due in mid-December and mid-January, respectively. Even though you might not know where you want to go or what you want to do that early in the year, plan ahead for scholarships. Most applications can’t be completed off the cuff – they require signatures from guidance counsellors, school transcripts, references’ telephone numbers, and for you to write things about yourself. Scholarships can take a long time to fill out, and I’ve learned the hard way that leaving them until late in the year isn’t the best way to go about things.

Besides starting early, another piece of my own scholarship advice that I didn’t take was getting more involved in grades 9, 10 and 11. Granted, some applications don’t ask you about what you did extra-curricular or volunteer-wise that far back, but why not try something new early on in high school? I was surprised by how many scholarship applications took your marks into consideration, but were more focused on your involvement in your community and school. (Not that marks aren’t important – some applications ask for your averages from the last 2, 3, or even 4 years, but you certainly don’t need to be a 90%+ student to qualify for many!) I don’t think looking good on paper is the best motivation to start participating in an activity or volunteering more, but it is one of the benefits. Most importantly, you’ll have a lot of fun.

My last bit of advice when it comes to scholarships is to look around. www.studentawards.com is a really helpful website for finding scholarships now that they’ve revamped it. I found that sorting through all of the “scholarship matches” I got in order of due date and hiding all of the ones that I didn’t meet the requirements for gave me a compact list that made sense. www.scholarshipscanada.com is the other website you can try, but I don’t think that it’s as user-friendly. These special sites aren’t the only place to find scholarships though. Check organizations or unions that your parents are involved in to see if they offer scholarships, ask your relatives if they know of any, and take a look at the requirements for entrance scholarships at the schools to which you’re applying. Research what options your provincial/territorial government has for helping to finance your education and apply – even if you don’t think you qualify you might get a bit of money. If you have any other suggestions on where to look for scholarships, leave them in the comments!

Finally, I have to mention the scholarships Girl Guides has available! This website has a section all about the different scholarships offered by Girl Guides, which ones you can apply for, and the necessary application forms. For any third year Rangers, if you haven’t already heard, the applications must be mailed to National and postmarked with April 1, 2011 at the latest.

I hope that anybody who is planning on attending post-secondary in the future found this post helpful (: As I foray into the unknown that is university I’ll be blogging about my experiences, and I’d love to hear your input on the matter of post-secondary. Is college or university so far away that you don’t even want to think about it? Or have you already applied and are heading off next year? Post any thoughts you have in the comments!