They tell you that to get into college, you've got to work hard & make good grades.
They tell you that to get scholarship from college, you've got to work hard & make good grades.
They tell you that, if you work hard & make good grades, it will be easy for you to get outside scholarships.
So, after working hard, making good grades, and staying at the top of my class throughout high school, I should expect an easy ride right?
Not exactly. I mean, I can't say they never mentioned it, but when do they ever stress the important of community service over all else. No one ever told me that community service would override pure amazing intellect.
Come to find out, when you go to fill out those promising scholarship applications, you are expected to have alaready made a huge difference in the world by the time you are 18. Now, I will admit that I have done my fair share of community service throughout highschool, approx. 200+ hours, but apparently that is not enough. Scholarships today are putting way too much focus on cvolunteer hours rather than grades. They forget that in order to make good grades, you have to spend a great majority of time on school work, so community service may only be done during free time. On the other hand, grades are no longer important. The new guidelines must be that organizations would much rather give scholarship to someone who volunteers all their time rather than someone who is studious and do what they can to help out.
It frustrates me that the fact that I have literally worked my butt off to get good grades hasn't paid off hardly at all. I mean, for example, someone at my school got more scholarship to the college I am going to purely because they had done more community service, not that they were in the 70th percentile of the class.
Thus the reason I am blogging.. to try to pay for college, since obvious good grades have no value these days.
I mean really, am I the only one who's going through this? Is anyone else surprised to find what is really valued in today's college-bound world?
I too am blogging in part for scholarship money, and in part becasue I love politics, and I understand the situation you are in. I have done almost no community service because I have been involved in many school activities that are time consuming including debate, forensics, theatre, and Model United Nations. But I am having trouble finding scholarship money becasue they are have a community service requirement! AHHHH!!! I truly know where you are coming from! I am not able to go to the college I deserve to because I cannot afford it. I have saved for college, had perfect grades and I still do not able to go to my fream college. Not because I am not intelligent enough, but because of money! That makes me so ANGRY!Hang in there, you will find academic scholarships. You are not alone :) if that makes you feel any better.
... | c.hel.sie | ...
Yeah. It's is just SO frustrating.
Here's how I see it:
Juvenile Delinquent Versus Straight-A Student
J.D. sucks at school, but had to do 500hrs of community service to get out of jail
A-Student is at the top of the class in school and holds many leadership roles, but only has time to complete 100hrs of volunteering.
The Cold Hard Truth:
The Juvenile Delinquent has a 5 to 1 chance of getting the scholarship over the A-Student.
I'm sorry, but that doesn't make any sense.
Apparently, the best advice would be to go drop out of school and rob some banks before you're 15 if you want to be able to afford to go to college. Absurd, but somewhat true.
LOL, no kidding. I only have like 100 hrs becasue if you do ten each semester that gets you out of one final. So that is 20 a year, and I havnt actually done any this semester yet, that is a spring break project, lol.
I don't think high schools prepare kids for college, I know they didn't in my area, college was a huge slap in the face. In high school I hardly ever had homework and was usually a straight A student, with college I've had to pull myself up and learn to manage time, stress, and life.
It seems like many of us are blogging for this scholarship. I never knew that community service and making a difference would be so necessary. Another thing is financial need. What they term as financial need is dirt poor and what about the people in between that get screwed.
There is still plenty of merit based scholarships out there. The community service ones are good for kids who cant get those. There needs to be more need based scholarships.
There are a lot of need-based scholarships. Check out fastweb, fill out a fafsa, or register with scholarships.com. They all offer need-based scholarships.
Find out everything you need to know about poop here:
http://progressiveu.org/000701-everything-you-need-know-about-poop
I think the cost of college is outrageous, but to get a good job to make a living.
I was ranked 4 out of a class of 500 students. I maintained a 3.8 GPA throughout high school. I even did community service, and guess what, being smart isn't enough. I attend community college, and why, because I didn't graduate as an IB student, because I was just an honors student. Wow, just an honors student. I think that college really sucks, and their standards for entrance are skewed. My family didn't have the yearly 500+ dollars it would take to stick me in IB. My family doesn't have anywhere near the amount of money it would take to push me through college, and the largest scholarship I won was just a thousand dollars, measly compared to a 40 grand yearly tuition for medical school
You should worry about undergrad before medical school... you'll have plenty of loans and grants and scholarships for medical school once you get there... they don't want you to drop out once they have you.
~C
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I agree with Triny Gyal about the financial need thing. There's this horrible space on the income meter somewhere between POOR and middle class that leaves you nowhere when it comes to need based scholarships.
I probably have some homework to do now.
It seems like scholarships aren't being offered to the kids who need if financially and have proved themselves academically. I think it needs to be a balance of grades and community service with the more obvious emphasis on grades. I have put in my fair share of community service, got a 31 on my ACT, maintained a 4.0 GPA, work 20+ hours a weeks at my job, and have participated in after school activities. Yet my friend who hasn't done most of that was offered a $60,000 scholarship. The only difference is that she is 12th in our class of 283 rather than me being 18th. I don't understand how I can work so hard and have nothing to show for it!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ashshepherd16
I am in the same predicament now. I find it unbelieveable how colleges can hide such things from their students. Many students do not realize how hard the work is until they fail a semester and they are busting their butts to get back on track.