scholarships

Fun Ways to Earn Cash for College

Two Unique Scholarship Contests!

Where’s FRANKIE the Diploma Frame? Scholarship Photo Contest

Take FRANKIE the Diploma Frame on a summer adventure, and he could earn you $500 to help pay for textbooks for the 2010-2011 academic year! At Church Hill Classics, we are looking for the most creative and fun-themed photos of our mascot, FRANKIE the Diploma Frame.

All you need to do is print and cut out a copy of FRANKIE, available on our diplomaframe.com website, and take a photo of (or with) him. Take FRANKIE to the beach, have him play sports, or make him the life of a party. You can submit any photo, as long as a cutout of FRANKIE is included.

Take a look at submitted entries as well as an overview of where in the world FRANKIE has visited so far!

This scholarship is open to students attending college full-time for the 2010-2011 academic year. Family members can also enter if they have a student attending college full-time for the 2010-2011 academic year.

  • Moms and dads, enter to win the money for your son or daughter in college
  • Brothers and sisters, enter for your siblings
  • Aunts and uncles, enter for your nieces and nephews
  • Sons and daughters, enter for a parent returning to school!

Entrants need to be a legal US resident and 18 years or older.

We’ll select six Finalists to be posted on our website, and two weeks of public voting will determine our $500 Winner!

This deadline is coming up fast…entries need to be submitted through our website’s online entry form before Friday, August 13, 2010 (10 am ET), so print out FRANKIE, and snap your favorite photo of him! Visit the contest page at http://www.diplomaframe.com/FRANKIE.cfm for full details.

“Frame My Future” Scholarship Contest 2011

Coming up soon is our 3rd annual “Frame My Future” Scholarship Contest, where we award $6,000 in scholarships! Five students each receive a $1,000 scholarship, and one student also earns a $1,000 donation to their college or university’s scholarship endowment fund!

The best part is that it provides an opportunity for students to be creative! To enter, you submit an original creation that shares with us how you frame your future and what you want to achieve in your personal and professional life after college.  The main guideline is that your creation must be submitted within one image. Entries range from photographs and collages, to fine art and graphic design pieces, to poems and written submissions.

Check out our 2010 Winners and Finalists!

This scholarship will open for entry on October 7, 2010, and is available to students who will be attending college full-time for the 2011-2012 academic year.  Sign up to receive more details as the contest start date approaches: http://www.diplomaframe.com/ScholarshipInformation.cfm

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This guest post was provided by Jessica Joram, Marketing Assistant at Church Hill Classics. Church Hill Classics is a leading U.S. manufacturer of custom diploma frames, certificate frames, and photo frames, as well as a line of desk accessories for thousands of institutions of higher education, the military, professional associations, and corporate clients.

college housing, college planning

Off-Campus Housing 101

I recently did a guest post for WilliamPaid.com, a website dedicated to helping renters establish credit, pay off their student loans early, and manage their debt. The post was titled, “Your college student wants to move off campus–now what?” Take some time and head over to WilliamPaid’s site and read it. You might not need it now, but there will come a day that you will use the tips.

That post has spurred some additional thoughts that I felt would be helpful to parents of college-bound teens. Here are some things you might need to consider and/or know about off-campus housing.

Most colleges encourage freshmen to live on campus. It helps your teen bond with other students and get involved in campus life. Living off campus during freshman year can cause the student to feel out of touch with the goings on on campus and contribute to instability during an already emotion packed change.

Some colleges (due to size and location) can’t house all the students. If this is the case, get your housing form in ASAP. It’s first come, first serve and if you don’t act quickly, your child could lose a spot in the dorms. If you’re too late, try and connect with other incoming freshmen and find an apartment or house off  campus to share. Check with the campus housing office for information regarding off-campus housing and contact information. Being around other students from the same college will help with adjustment issues.

If you have more than one child headed to the same college, consider buying a house as an investment and let them live there (with other students). This happens often at Texas A&M and University of Texas. Once they have graduated, you can sell the house or keep it and make a hefty profit on rent each year. These rentals are in demand by college students and their families. (Here’s a new site I discovered that will help your search CampusHomesOnline.com)

If your child chooses to live at home during college, encourage them to get involved in campus activities. My daughter had a close friend that lived with family during her first semester at the University of Texas. She was a smart girl that worked hard to get accepted. But living off campus with family caused her to struggle in such a huge campus environment. She never felt involved or accepted among the students. She ended up dropping out after just one semester.

Upperclassmen are often encouraged to move off campus to make room for incoming freshmen. Know the policies and campus housing guidelines of the colleges your teen applies to. If this situation is not acceptable to them, don’t apply to a college that can’t provide housing all four years. Don’t get caught by surprise and have to scramble for senior housing (along with thousands of other college students).

Part of being a parent college coach is being prepared for all scenarios, including off-campus housing. If you’re prepared, you won’t have to panic when/if the day arrives that your college student approaches you with the “best plan ever” for living off campus.

If you liked this, you might also like:

Smart ways to live cheaper on campus

Sleeping with strangers

admissions, college planning

The Common Application

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On August 1st, the NEW and IMPROVED online version of the Common Application goes live! Here’s a sneak peak for you and your college-bound teen:

2010-2011 Common Application

If you’re on Twitter and would like to get some more information, you can attend a chat TODAY at 3PM PST for “Everything Common App”. Just use the  #collegejoin twitter chat hashtag and follow along. If you can’t make it, you can always review the tweets at a later time.

The Common Application is used by 391 member institutions. The benefits? You can fill out ONE application and submit it to any participating college. The same is true of the School Report, Midyear Report, Final Report and Teacher Evaluation forms. This saves your college-bound teen time and that translates into more time available for the other important college admissions tasks.

college guidance, college planning, parenting

That all-important college deal-breaker

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college student
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been having conversations on Twitter about the emotional aspect of choosing a college.

As a parent of two teens who headed off to college, this is no surprise. My daughter’s college deal-breaker had nothing to do with academics or college rankings. From the time she was small, she wanted to go to college in Boston. Coming from Texas, that was a bit of a surprise–especially since she had never visited Boston. But when college decision time came around, Bentley College beat out SMU because of location. My son’s college deal-breaker came when a buddy of his in the Marine Corps told him a college in Texas had “hot chicks”.

I also heard a college student say she transferred freshman year because another school had a sink in the freshmen dorm rooms. That has to be the first time I’ve ever heard that described as a college deal-breaker!

While parents are thinking academics and cost, their college-bound teens have that deal-breaker in mind. It might be Greek life, or the fact that it’s the #1 party school. But trust me, there’s a deal-breaker in the back of their head. And you might be surprised to find out what it is. All this time you thought they were looking for a college with an excellent engineering program, they really wanted a college where the girls outnumbered the boys!

What does this mean for you as a parent? Talk to your college-bound teen. Find out what their deal-breaker is and help them choose a perfect-fit college that addresses it. There’s nothing wrong with having a deal-breaker, but it’s your job to guide them to find the college that makes them happy and provides them with an education that benefits them in the future. If the college with the sink in the dorm rooms also values your teen and offers an excellent program in her chosen field of finance, you’ve found that “perfect fit” college!

college guidance, college majors, college planning

Choosing a major–now or later?

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There was some talk on #collegebound chat recently about college majors and how important they are to your chosen career path. While many students know what they want to major in from day one, a greater number haven’t a clue. My opinion–that’s what college is all about–finding your passion and trying out varied interests.

Here’s some excellent advice along this vein:

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Question: Do I have to choose my major before leaving for school or can that wait until I get settled in? I have too much to think about right now!

Answer: Of all the things weighing on you this summer, choosing a major can be crossed off the list. Many, many students enter college with no idea of what they want to study. This is largely the reason for many schools’ general education requirements, which allow you to study a bunch of things before picking what piques your interest the most. (You can often get away with dragging your feet to declare a major until the end of freshman or even the beginning of sophomore year.) If you don’t know what you want to major in, take some intro classes your first semester and knock out some of your general requirements. Then, once you choose something, take more classes in that area.

If you have already chosen a major, great! Take a class or two in your field, then use the rest of your credit hours for electives and requirements. It’s important to remember that as a freshman, you might not get all the classes you want, so have backups and realize that there’s always next semester.

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This Q&A is from Liz Cruger of  The Real College Guide. It is made available to Parents Countdown to College Coach through a partnership with The Real College Guide.

college planning, parenting

From High School to College…

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…What your student needs during the transition.

high school to college
–photo courtesy of University Parent–

Now that your student is done celebrating high school graduation and ready to settle into summer, it’s the best time to gather important information from high school before it gets forgotten in the bustle of back-to-school excitement.

Grab a folder – or a flash drive for the computer – and save the following items for the fall:

  • Previous college credit: Before registering for fall classes, students must provide the university with all college and dual credit information. Save paperwork from previous credits or AP classes, and contact the university to see what they need. Most schools need an official transcript if your student completed credits at another school, and if he/she received an AP credit by exam, those results must also be sent to the university. Have your student contact the high school to request official transcripts, and request unofficial transcripts for your own records. If the official transcripts come to you, be sure not to open the envelopes, and forward them to the university.
  • High school work: Hopefully, your student didn’t throw his senior year’s work in the air, singing, “School’s out for summer!” and leave it behind, never to look back. Important papers, tests and notes can come in handy – especially for overwhelmed freshmen taking college courses, possibly learning how to study for the first time. Professors don’t take valuable class time to review what students learned in high school, so students should do that on their own.
  • Scholarship donor contact information: If your student received a scholarship or grant to attend college, a big “thank-you” is in order. Donors, alumnae, philanthropists and even corporations that provide college scholarships love to hear how their money is used. Sending a formal letter after the first semester is a great way to thank them for their contribution and explain how the first semester went. Cultivating those relationships can be the best tactic to ensure more scholarship money, if they make ongoing gifts.
  • Teacher and coach contact information: Many high school seniors leave a small pond feeling like a big fish – and the first few weeks in college can be overwhelming. If your student had a special relationship with a teacher, coach or mentor, that doesn’t have to end when he/she moves on to different waters. An e-mail or phone call from your student to a trusted adult can be encouraging and provide them with support beyond their parents, and thank-you notes go a long way to show appreciation for teachers who have made an impact. Keeping up with these relationships is important because past teachers can be a good reference for students looking for on-campus jobs or internships.

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This guest post was provided by Sarah Schupp, founder and CEO of University Parent Media in Boulder, Colo. UPM publishes print and online guides for parents of students at universities and colleges in 38 states. Online at www.universityparent.com.

Uncategorized

Snag a fishing scholarship

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I can hear my readers smirking as they read this. Fishing scholarship? Are you kidding me? Believe it or not, it’s no joke. There are some hefty scholarships out there waiting to be reeled in. Let’s look at bass fishing, for example:

  • A google search of “bass fishing scholarships” reels in 45,000 matches.
  • There are 220 colleges with bass fishing scholarships

Take Bethel College in McKenzie, Tennessee, for instance. Their bass team was featured in The New York Times just  two weeks ago. Bethel made Lauren Stamps the first woman bass angler ever to be awarded a college scholarship for bass fishing. Tyler Wadzinski, a senior at Franklin (Tenn.) High School, was awarded a $4,000 ride to fish for the Bethel Wildcats. Wondering about Bethel College’s academic reputation?  It was founded in 1842; has 2,700 students; offers 28 undergraduate programs and five Masters. Their athletic program includes 16 men’s and 13 women’s sports (NAIA). In addition to their home campus in McKenzie, they have five satellite campuses in Tennessee.

Not convinced? Look at just some of the top colleges with bass clubs — Duke, Cornell, Northwestern and Texas A&M. If you’re looking for a complete list, go online to www.collegebass.com. Odds are you might be surprised by some of the colleges listed that have bass fishing teams and scholarships.

Remember, sports are not just “stick and ball” anymore. If student-athletes can win scholarships for skiing, shooting and tumbling, why not bass fishing? Here are some great tips from an angler to help your student perfect their fishing and snag some of those scholarships: 30 Actionable Bass Fishing Tips You Need to Catch More Bass.

It may not be for everyone, but if your child is  interested, put them on a scholarship track now by suggesting that they investigate this new financial boon.

Get your chance to win $1000 college scholarship from ThePensters.com.

college guidance, college planning, Uncategorized

Start NOW on recommendation letter lists

If your teen is heading into their senior year in the fall, summer is the time to start thinking about that list of people who might write glowing letters of recommendations to the colleges they are aspiring to attend. Put some thought into this list and hit the ground running in the fall!

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What class did you do best in last year? Which class was your favorite? Who was your favorite teacher? Does your guidance counselor know you well? Who knows you the best (both adults and fellow students)? Who will write you the best recommendation?

These are questions to answer this summer if you are going be entering your senior year in the fall. Once you have your answers, make a list of the people who would be your best recommenders. Put some serious thought into who you will ask because these letters are important!

After identifying these top recommenders, ask them if they can write you a strong letter of recommendation. Teachers will greatly appreciate having time to work on your letters. So hit the ground running in the fall before they are drowning in recommendation requests on top of lesson plans and other school-related activities. Get a leg up by approaching them EARLY!

If you remember particular instances where you demonstrated your creativity, intelligence, responsibility, or other impressive qualities, don’t be shy about reminding your recommenders about them. You can even provide a list of things you think your recommenders might want to cover in their letters. The best letters tell stories, and you probably remember those stories better than anyone else!

Examples of things you might want to share with your recommenders:

  • A list of your activities and accomplishments
  • Copies of your best papers in the recommender’s class
  • Copies of your creative writing
  • Notes about particular contributions you made in class
  • Your transcript
  • Your student resume (yes you should have one!)

Any and all help you can give your recommenders, whether it’s giving them plenty of time or helping them with material to put in their letters, will be appreciated and will make for a stellar letter of recommendation!

The benefit to you, besides that you’ll have great recommendation letters, is that when December rolls around, you won’t be biting your nails worrying whether your letters will be in by deadline.

That’s worth a bit of thought and action right now, isn’t it?

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This post was written by Brenda Bernstein, a graduate of Yale University and the New York University School of Law. She has been helping students get into college, grad school and law school for over ten years and is proud to offer college admissions assistance to students through her company, The Essay Expert.  Brenda practiced public interest law for ten years in New York City and knew early on that her calling was in student advising, not legal practice.  She is now a J.D. Career Advisor at the University of Wisconsin Law School Office of Career Services, as well as a writing coach and owner of The Essay Expert. Brenda is also trained as a life coach by the Coaches Training Institute.

Brenda’s company and consultants have helped students gain admission to top schools throughout the nation, including:  Yale, Harvard, Brown, Columbia, NYU, U Penn, Oberlin, Carleton, Northwestern, Georgetown, U of Miami, and UCLA.

college costs, college planning, financial aid

Understanding SAFRA



The college tuition system has been turned upside down now that the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) is law. The Student Aid and Fisc-huh?!?

SAFRA is legislation President Obama tacked on to his infamous health care reform bill.

“The White House succeeded in not only getting the health care bill passed, but in making a huge change to the college loan system,” says Eric Yaverbaum, education expert and author of Life’s Little College Admissions Insights. “It’s gone largely unnoticed because it’s seemingly unrelated to the blockbuster changes in the health care industry.”

There’s been some controversy surrounding the issue of combining student aid reform with the seemingly unrelated matter of health care reform. But political views aside, let’s see how SAFRA affects students:

No. 1: You’ll get loans directly from the government — without a middleman.
While some schools have participated in the Federal Direct Loan Program since its inception in the early ’90s, SAFRA requires that all federal student loans now be originated through the U.S. Department of Education. This means funds come directly from the federal government, which provides the loans at a low interest rate.

“It’s so advantageous to students,” says Yaverbaum. “My daughter is about to enter her freshman year, and as a parent I couldn’t be more excited about it. College students are really going to benefit. Paying back college loans kills kids forever. Now it doesn’t have to be such an awful experience.”

Your credit score and employment status are not factored into your application for a direct loan … unless you have extreme adverse credit (say, your car got repossessed or you’re more than 90 days past due on that Urban Outfitters account). If you get denied, you can appeal or get a qualified co-signer.

No matter where you are in the borrowing process, visit StudentLoans.gov to find out if you qualify for one of the four types of Federal Direct Loans:

1. Federal Direct Subsidized Stafford Loans are based on financial need. The government pays the loan interest until you’re out of school.

2. Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loans are not need-based, and students are required to pay all interest charges.

3. Federal Direct Parent PLUS Loans (“PLUS” stands for “Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students”) allow parents to borrow money to help pay for their child’s education.

4. Federal Direct Graduate PLUS Loans offer the same terms as Parent PLUS for graduate and professional-degree students.

No. 2: You can consolidate loans you already have.
Federally guaranteed student loans will no longer be made by private lending institutions through what many of you already know as the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program.

What to do if you have an existing FFEL loan? For a one-year stretch — from July 1, 2010 to July 1, 2011 — current students who have FFEL loans can roll those into the Direct Loan program. The benefit is that you’ll only have to deal with a single lender (the Direct Loan Servicing Center) which means paying one monthly payment for all loans. Plus, your minimum monthly payment on a consolidated loan may be lower than the combined payments for FFEL loans.

No. 3: You’ll pay back less per month (and overall) and be done in fewer years.

Carrie Meyer, a rising senior at Ohio State University, has had to rely on three loans to cover her college tuition over the years: federal subsidized, federal unsubsidized and a personal loan. Meyer, a hospitality management student who currently works part time, still worries about paying off her loans after graduation: “With what I want to do, you don’t start out getting a big salary.”

Direct Loan borrowers can choose from several friendly payment plans, depending on needs — and you can switch to a different repayment plan if your situation changes. Beginning in 2014, the Income Based Repayment option will cap monthly loan payments at 10 percent of income and forgive remaining balances after 20 years of repayment. Sound like a lot? Actually, this is a major improvement from the current terms of capping repayments at 15 percent and 25 years, respectively.

No. 4: You could save big-time on loan payments if you go into public service.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness provides incentive for students to enter into full-time public service employment. The program forgives the remaining balance of a Direct Loan after a borrower has completed 120 monthly payments (that’s 10 years) while employed full time in public service. This includes government jobs, military service, safety professions, law enforcement, health care, social work, legal advocacy and some teaching positions.

No. 5: Maximum Pell Grant amounts will increase with inflation.

While SAFRA does not change the process for applying for federal grants, it does increase the amount of money awarded through the ever-popular Pell Grant program, which provides financial aid to low-income undergraduate students. For the 2009 to 2010 school year, the maximum Pell Grant was $5,350. The max will be upped to $5,550 for 2010 to 2011 and will gradually increase based on inflation costs beginning in 2013.

Students interested in applying for aid should complete a Free Application for Federal Student Aid at Fafsa.ed.gov or call 1-800-4-FED-AID. Keep in mind that this is not a one-time thing — students who want to be considered need to apply for aid for every school year, so it’s important to stay on top of application procedures.

A recent report released by the College Board found that millions in financial aid are left untouched by community college students. In the 2007 to 2008 academic year, 58 percent of Pell Grant-eligible students who attended community colleges applied for federal financial aid, compared with 77 percent of eligible students at four-year public institutions.

No. 6: Community colleges and minority schools will get big bucks for improvements.

Says College Board President Gaston Caperton: “Community colleges are a critical part of the education system, serving nearly half of all undergraduates in the United States.” The terms of SAFRA reflect this sentiment, as $2 billion is being committed to improving educational programs and updating facilities at community colleges. In addition, SAFRA has earmarked $2.55 billion to be invested in historically black and minority institutions.

Talk It up!

What do you think about SAFRA and its impact on the college student aid system?

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This article is by the editors at The Real College Guide. This article is made available to Parents Countdown to College Coach through a partnership with The Real College Guide.

college planning, parenting, Uncategorized

An important score for your college-bound teen

 

money

Your credit score can be a lot like an SAT score.  That is, you really don’t care about it until it isn’t high enough.  Like SATs, cramming doesn’t really work.  When it comes to your credit, there are no shortcuts.

That doesn’t mean that you are stuck and unable to impact your credit score. You actually have all the control. Here are six simple things to keep in mind:

  • Pay Your Bills On Time. Mom and Dad were right; on-time payments demonstrate responsibility and show creditors that you manage your accounts.  If you have to, even paying just the minimum amount – but on time – will help.
  • Check Your Credit. Be sure that you are checking your credit at least every 12 months to ensure that you know where your credit stands. This also helps you to make sure that no fraudulent activity has been going on in your account.  There is no need for a costly service – you can do this for free by requesting your free credit report each year.
  • Take Care of the Past. If you have any negative entries on your credit report that you haven’t resolved yet, do it.  Take any extra cash you have and pay off any judgments or liens. While these items may stay on your credit report for some time, resolving these matters demonstrates your efforts to get your credit score under control, which will then raise your score.
  • Close with Caution. It may seem ironic, but closing credit accounts can actually hurt you. It may be better not to use a credit card than to actually close it.  It has to do with your available credit and the amount of your available credit that you’ve expended.  Keep in mind, though, that some credit cards charge annual fees, so weigh the cost and the benefit.  You can always call the credit card company and ask them to waive your fee.
  • Get Credit for Rent and Other Payments.  Those with little to no credit histories can bolster credit files by having rent and other recurring payments reported. Traditionally, these payments do not get reported to the credit bureaus and therefore, these positive payment histories are often missed.  Online rent payment services will pay and report your ongoing rent payments and provide you with flexible rent payment options.
  • Open and Manage Accounts. Establish yourself as a serious borrower by opening a checking and savings accounts to begin tracking your money more closely and saving what you can each month. The longer your positive credit and banking relationships, the better your credit score will be.

While your SATs can determine what school you get into, your credit score can determine everything from the type of loan you can receive to what kind of apartment you can rent to whether or not you will get your dream job, so take care of it and it will take care of you.

Helping parents navigate the college maze