Seventeen years old. Female. Mexican, Irish, German, and Norwegian, to name a few. Adopted. Daughter of an Air Force Veteran. Thespian, National Honors Society Member, Varsity Quiz Bowl Member. Never had a job. Loves to write. Atheist. First generation college student. Never been pregnant. Has no family working for any company where you cannot be related to get a scholarship.
So what’s wrong here?
My parents make over $100,000 a year, together. Mom works as a branch manager at a financial institute, and Dad works at a company that works on scissor and boom lifts. I live in a big GM area, so I lose out to their kids on scholarships. Neither place of work for my parents offers any form of scholarship for family members. I have neither a car nor a job. I’m not my father’s biological daughter, which puts me out for some veteran’s scholarships. I’m not actively fighting for everyone on the planet to become an Atheist, so I can’t apply for most of their scholarships. There’re a lot of NHS members nowadays. Since I’ve become a Thespian, I haven’t been in any shows, plus, I don’t plan on majoring in theatre. A lot of people have no flipping idea what Quiz Bowl is. I love to write, and I’m told I do well, but my teacher enjoys ripping apart my papers because they aren’t “AP standard”, according to her. I’m not Mexican enough to qualify for most scholarships, and the Caucasian scholarships I’ve tried applying for aren’t thrilled when they realize that I consider myself Hispanic, and not White.
I don’t qualify for a lot of scholarships. I haven’t been active enough in my community (I live in a tiny town that’s basically anti-child. It’s hard to go up to people and try to help them when they think you’re going to pull out a gun and bust a cap in them for drug money). I haven’t been in every single club in my school (I used to be in Forensics – S&D, and the Anime Club, but one was shut down, and the other just went *poof*, and recently came back with underclassmen running the show and putting on cutesy things. Oh, heck no). I don’t have a 4.0 GPA. I’m not a teen mother, and I was never a foster care child. I’ve never had an interest in sports past the age of 8 (which some people think is absolutely horrible, and that my parents should be shot). My mom took me out of ballet when I was 10, and I was out of Scouts at 12.
I’m basically your average teenager. I’m not super-human, and I’m not abused. I’m trying to apply for things and finding that, because of one choice that I made, didn’t make, or wasn’t offered, I’m losing out on so much.
Maybe we need to stop worrying so much about everyone being a leader. If everyone was a boss, who would be the laborers, working to get the idea of one person done? If everyone were doing his/her own thing, nothing would ever, ever, EVER be done.
Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be “normal”. Now, if only the foundations giving scholarships away would see that…
No, the average student asking for a scholarship is wanting a miracle. It's crazy that scholarship foundations wouldn't be willing to give money to students who are dedicated to achieving their goals. I am sure that you have already tried this but look on Fastweb.com. They might be able to narrow down the search for a scholarship that fits you.
Fastweb sucks. Try something like scholarship-monkey.com, collegetoolkit.com, or even onedollarscholar.com.
~C
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Fastweb is actually how I found out about this, to be honest with you.
It just bothers me that, in my school, when there's scholarship opportunities, the same three people end up either winning it, or being a finalist for our school. It bothers me that a few of my teachers think that, if you're not within the top 10, you don't have a chance of getting anything, and you might as well go sign up for the military (nothing against it, but not everyone is military material. Like me). It bothers me that I look at most scholarships and find that the requirements are some form of documentation of leadership activities.
I've applied for countless scholarships, and have yet to get any form of response from any of them. It's rather discouraging, at points.