75. How to Pay for College with Scholarships — With Expert Dave Peterson
Episode 75
College scholarships aren’t just for valedictorians and athletes, and they’re not just for high school seniors. In this episode of the Learn and Work Smarter podcast, I talk with Dave Peterson, founder of Scholarship GPS, to talk about how families can strategically find and earn scholarships to avoid student loan debt.
Dave helped his own son attend college for just $1,500 (total!) and now he teaches other families how to do the same.
What You’ll Learn:
✅ When to start the scholarship process (hint: it’s earlier than you think)
✅ Where students really find the scholarships worth applying to
✅ How to build a winning application, even without perfect grades or test scores
✅ The surprising mistakes high-achieving students often make in the college scholarship game
✅ How parents can help their teen with the college scholarship process
Whether you’re a student, a parent, or someone already in college, this episode will change how you think about paying for school. And yes, there’s still time
🎙️Other Episodes + Resources Mentioned
Scholarship GPS Course: Your Directions to a Debt-Free College Degree
Your Personalized Scholarship List: Stop Guessing What Scholarships to Apply For, And Let Dave Do the Work For You
✏️Get my FREE parent training: How to Help Your Student Handle School Like a Pro — Without Study Frustration, Assignment Overwhelm, or All the Drama (If you’re the parent of a high school or college student, this training is for you.)
About Dave Peterson
Dave is the Founder of Scholarship GPS, an organization that guides students and their families on their scholarship journey to avoid student loan debt. Dave got into the world of scholarships by coaching his son to earn enough in scholarships that his entire college experience, including tuition, room, board, books, and fees, cost only $1500! Dave takes the lessons he learned by working with his son and helps families around the country find and earn scholarships.
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The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I am choosing not to spend my time fixing them 😉
75 How to Pay for College With Scholarships - with Dave Peterson===
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Learn and Work Smarter podcast. I'm Katie and I am so excited for today's conversation. This is one of our monthly industry expert episodes where I interview an industry expert on some of the topics that we talk about here on the show. Dave Peterson is the founder of scholarship, GPS, an organization that guides students and their families on their scholarship journey to avoid student loan debt.
Yes, please. Dave got into the world of scholarships by coaching his own son [00:00:30] to earn enough in scholarships that his entire college experience, including tuition, room board, books and fees, cost only $1,500. Dave takes the lessons he learned by working with his son and he helps families around the country find and earn scholarships.
And today, Dave joins me on the show to share his expert insights about that scholarship process, including common mistakes and misconceptions, how to get started, where to find them, how parents can help. All the [00:01:00] things. If you are a high school student listening to this show today, stop what you're doing and give all of your attention to this conversation.
If you are a college student listening to this show today and you think it's too late to apply to scholarships, think again, my friend, because this conversation is for you too. And hint, it's definitely not too late. And if you are the parent of a high school or a college student, get out your notebook.
Take your notes and when you're done listening, I suggest you share this episode with your kid. [00:01:30] With that being said, we have a lot to cover, so let's talk to Dave.
GMT20250411-170627_Recording_gallery_1280x720: [00:02:00] Well, hello Dave. Welcome to the show. I am so glad to have you here. Thank you so much. I've been looking forward to this. I've been listening to your podcast nonstop and have found it so helpful and I have recommended it to students that I work with as well.
So, very excited to be here. Oh, I love that. I have to, I have a confession to make, having you on the show today. Is a little bit, um, personally motivated, of course. It's okay. Professionally motivated as well because what you do and what you have to share and your insights are so [00:02:30] relevant to my audience.
Yeah. Yeah. But also, I am a mother of two young teenagers and one is headed off to high school, so I am here eagerly awaiting the advice so that I can personally use it in my own household. So I just felt like I had to confess that right out of the gate that you're gonna share and, and the things that you have to offer today are gonna help the audience.
But I'm over here taking notes as well. Fantastic. Well, I love that you're thinking about this, uh, before the, the fall of, [00:03:00] or spring of senior year, so Absolutely. Absolutely. That's right. So why don't you start by sharing it with the audience, what it is that you do. Yeah, so I work with, uh, families, students specifically, um, helping them find and earn scholarships to primarily pay for college, but also could be for trade or tech school.
Um, even some students who maybe aren't sure if they're going to college, but they're just looking for a way to earn a little bit of extra money, we can maybe talk about how scholarships fit into that. But, um, [00:03:30] yeah, that's in a nutshell what I do. I got into this because, um, like you, I found myself with a son who was going off to college. And when he started high school, I thought, I better figure out how we're gonna pay for this. And when I saw what it was going to cost, I realized we had not saved enough and there was not enough time to save enough. And I, we, my wife and I knew we didn't want my son to be burdened with student loans.
So I learned everything I could about scholarships. Um, long story short, we got him through college and spent 1500 bucks for his degree. [00:04:00] Everything else was covered by scholarships. That is a remarkable story and I'm hoping that it's a story that other people will be able to have as well. Yeah, myself included.
My goodness. So you had mentioned sort of just under your breath, um, you know, jokingly that hopefully these kids start a little bit before senior year and I know that there's some truth to that mm-hmm um, joke because, you know, I work with kids on, on college applications and oftentimes scholarships come up even [00:04:30] after, you know, after they've been accepted to college and the school is winding down senior year, and they're like, oh, are there scholarships?
And what does this look like? Yeah. And so my question to you is, when is the ideal time to start looking at scholarships, thinking about them, creating a plan for them? Today. Yeah. And I don't, the only caveat to that would be is if you've already paid for college. That's, that's the only time it's too late.
Believe it or not, there are scholarships for [00:05:00] all ages of high school, um, freshmen through senior. Uh, there are scholarships for middle school students. There are scholarships even for grade school students. Just yesterday I sent a scholarship, um, to one of my clients for, um. Her student's a little older, but if, if she had a student in fourth grade, they, they would've been eligible for.
Um, so yeah, I mean, even if you just had a kid yesterday, I mean, you can't start applying yet, but you could start building a list of scholarships. Um, that said, I [00:05:30] think let's be maybe a little more realistic. Um. Understanding that most people are not going to have their students applying for scholarships in grade school or middle school.
By the time the student starts junior year, they really need to get a few scholarship applications under their belt for two reasons. One, um, is that it's great practice because senior year is the big year. Um, if you look at this on a chart, senior year is the peak of the bell curve. Um, but the other reason is that during [00:06:00] junior year, There is a full tuition scholarship that they'll miss if, if, if they wait until senior year. Even worse, there is a full ride scholarship that they'll miss if they wait until senior year. So not only is it important just from a practice and learning how to do this, but you miss some really big opportunities by waiting until senior year.
So if someone is in the college application process, let's say the summer between their junior mm-hmm and their senior year. Right. The common app opens on August 1st. Yeah. And [00:06:30] they're starting to do their supplemental essays and their college essays, and they, you know, haven't applied yet, but they're in the process and they clearly haven't been accepted yet, is that the time to start looking at these scholarships? There was a lot of scholarships gonna be asking where are you going? Have you been accepted to an institution? And what is the name of the institution? What if they haven't been accepted yet? Yeah. So, um, pretty much everything I'm gonna be talking about will be private, outside scholarships.
These don't, don't come from the colleges. They come from businesses and philanthropic organizations. [00:07:00] And so to use your, your hypothetical, um, rising senior in the middle of, of the college application process, the answer is no. They don't know, have to know where they're going to school. They don't have to have been accepted anywhere.
if a scholarship, if a outside scholarship is asking for that, especially early in the cycle, um, like we're talking about here, they understand the student has not maybe even been accepted anywhere yet. So, um, if they do ask for, you know, where are you applying or where do you think you're going to go?
One of the things that. [00:07:30] Um, I've encountered with students is they're afraid that if they put down College X and then six months later they decide they're going to college y they think they're gonna lose that scholarship. That's absolutely not the case. Of course, always read the fine print, but I, I have yet to come across a private scholarship, especially something that's early in a senior year cycle like that where, um, they say, if you don't know your college, you're gonna lose it.
And if you lie to us and tell us the wrong school, you're not gonna get it. That's, that's just not. What they're trying to do. These scholarships want you to win. Of course, they're [00:08:00] looking for certain things and it depends on the scholarship, but they all understand that you're, you are very unlikely to know exactly where you're going to end up.
Six, nine months down the road. Mm-hmm. Okay. So one of my favorite questions to ask guest is, you know, what are some misconceptions that people think about this topic and what are some common mistakes that people make? And I'm gonna ask you that in just a moment, but from what you have said so far, I'm gonna try to glean some common mistakes.
Stakes and hopefully I don't, hopefully I don't take them from you. [00:08:30] One is just not app apply, not not even knowing about this. Yes. Um, that these are available and you can talk a little bit more about that. Um, it's also applying too late. It's thinking that you can't apply because you. Don't know where you're applying yet.
Mm-hmm. Um, or you're, you think maybe it's not the time, maybe it's too early, maybe it's too late. So not understanding the time, the timeframe. What are some other misconceptions that students are making around the college? The scholarship process. I. So I think there is one common one that [00:09:00] are, it's actually two, but they're, they're two sides of the same coin.
So one would be underestimating their student's ability to earn scholarships. They think, oh, my student doesn't have a high enough GPA or, they're just not, they're just, they're just normal. They're just a normal student. They're not exceptional. Um, I worked with a student class of 24, had to think about it.
I always lose track of time. Um, he fit that profile. He was not, you know, not the kid that you would expect to have a ton of of successful [00:09:30] scholarships. Um, worked with him his senior year and by the time he graduated high school, he had earned, at that time it was a hun over a hundred thousand dollars. He is still earning scholarships.
Um, finishing up his first year of school, he's up over 114. The last I heard, and not only did he get that money, but he was offered an internship from one of the, um, organizations that offered him a scholarship. So, I mean, you know, I'm not, I'm, when I say that this, this kid is a great kid, very [00:10:00] nice kid, but and I don't wanna put him down. He's not, he just wasn't class valedictorian. He was kind of middle of the road. Um, had I worked with him earlier, I would've loved to have seen more things on his resume. Um, so, you know, it's not like he, you know, was like a, you know, middle of the road student, but it had all these other extracurriculars to make up for it.
He really was. And his mom is the one who, who used this, He's a typical kid. Right. So that's one side of, of the coin. Um, parents thinking their kids may not qualify. The other [00:10:30] is almost the opposite. They think, oh, my kid has this great GPA and they have these great test scores. We don't need to apply for scholarships because the college is going to give us all this merit aid.
I mean, I, I could fill a a, a one terabyte hard drive with Facebook posts of parents right now who are saying, my high stats kid didn't get a dime. I, I'll tell you, give you another quick story. I'm working this year, class of 2025 student. She will be [00:11:00] class valedictorian. I mean, assuming nothing unforeseen happens between now and graduation date, she, she will be class valedictorian.
Great resume. She had a dream school in mind and she got accepted. Do you have a guess of what merit aid she was offered? Oh, probably nothing. Oh, a little better than that. Oh, a little better. Nothing like a, like a thousand dollars, something like that. A thousand bucks? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yep. Now, thankfully, we had worked together for long enough that, um, not only is she, has she still applied to some outside scholarships to, [00:11:30] you know, backstop that, but we pivoted and, um, she applied to another college that did offer her a full tuition scholarship.
So, um, I mean. Just the opposite of the first student I was talking about. She's, she's high stats, she's class valedictorian. Um, so don't, don't go into this thinking that, you know, your high stats kid is, is a shoe in for, for merit aid. I think when I went into this, I, I saw more parents who underestimated their students' ability and now I'm seeing far [00:12:00] more parents overestimating, um, especially when they think it's, it comes to married aid.
Mm. And, and you know, I'm not gonna get too particular about numbers here, but if we were to take something, even like a $10,000 cumulative right, of, of scholarships that somebody might earn, and that would be money that otherwise a student would have taken on loan, whether through, you know, Sally Mae, or whatever it is, even if they got a, a moderate interest rate being a student and they deferred it for their six months [00:12:30] after graduation, a $10,000 loan. And let's be honest, most people who are getting student loans are taking much larger loans than $10,000. It might be upwards of 50 K year that they're getting loans for. And if you enter in, I did this with a student a while ago, um, and we were looking at Bentley and Bentley's mm-hmm currently, you know, mid eighties a year, and it was like, well, I'll just get student loans. It's like, okay, well if you get... If this is X amount that you're taking in student loans, let's plug it into [00:13:00] this very free online student interest rate, relo payment, loan repayment calculator. Yeah. And the reality that just boom on his face of what he would be responsible for, it was, it was prohibitive.
Y Yeah. Right. Yeah. It, it really was. Exactly. And so even if it's like a $10,000 and you're thinking, well, the scope of, you know, $85,000 a year times four, what is $10,000 dollars gonna do? Well when you times it by the interest rate that you're gonna be responsible for mm-hmm that 10 K [00:13:30] is a lot more than 10 K, especially if it's a scholarship that you can renew or, um, apply for again. So I just want these numbers to, to land for folks listening who are, have some background knowledge of what college actually costs these days. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Outrageous, right? And so every single dollar counts and who knows what's happening with fafsa, right?
Yeah. That's can be unpredictable. Yep. Um, so. You know, I, I will often, I focus on, you know, executive [00:14:00] function coaching and study skills and, you know, we do the college essays and mm-hmm. And supplemental essays. But when folks come to me and they say, okay, well maybe let's start some scholarships. Let's look at them and just to get the ball rolling.
At this point, it's typically too late. They haven't worked with you and say, yeah, it's too late, and we start looking for the scholarships. We, that's for most students the point where they just give up the journey because looking for the scholarship, we hit dead end [00:14:30] after dead end, they're expired, the links are broken, they're spam.
Every scholarship we find, I mean, I'm, I'm generalizing, not every but many of the scholarships we find, it says, okay, create an account. First you create an account and you go through all of the, you know, the demographics that you enter, and then you hit a dead end. Yeah. And it's just this, there's so little ROI for the effort it takes to look for these scholarships apparently.
Right? So how do kids start? Well, where, where are they finding these? Just [00:15:00] tell it to us straight. Dave. Where do you find the scholarships? Yeah, so I mean, there are a number of different sources. Um, I would say particularly for a high school senior, um. Starting around the first part of, um, the spring semester for a senior, go to your guidance office or look at your school website and see if they have some scholarships listed.
Those local scholarships, frankly, are your easiest ones to win because, um, you just face less competition. So that would be [00:15:30] for a, a senior is probably the first place to look now. My advice differs from other people that I see, um, speaking about scholarships sometimes in that they, they will say, it's not worth applying for national scholarships, or It's not worth the time to find them looking in these scholarship databases.
And I just don't think that's the case. You did hit on something. Yes, it is time consuming and it can be frustrating, but, um. There are about a dozen sites that I recommend when I'm working with a student that they [00:16:00] put profiles on, and then I kind of help them manage that. But getting that profile set up and set up accurately and completely where you have all of your information in there, most of these sites do a pretty good job of matching you with.
Legit scholarships. Are they perfect? No. But if you put the time in upfront to build the profiles, then you're not having to go through the site blindly just looking at every single one. They're gonna say, here's 20 that we think are a good fit for you. So now instead of looking at a [00:16:30] thousand, you're, you click through 20 and let's say even half of those were ones you wanted to apply for, it was worth, worth the effort, the, the front loaded effort to get your profile set up and get matched.
Mm. So the types of scholarships that students, um, will find when they log in, they're going to the right places and they don't hit the dead, dead links. I have found that, that the scholarships that just fill out these logistics and hit apply. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then it says, congratulations, you have applied.
Yep. And those are the ones that many people, [00:17:00] right? There's no, um, wall to get over there. There's no resistance. The scholarships that require the essays. Okay. Yeah. So what makes a good applicant or a good candidate rather? Mm-hmm. For these scholarship essays, for these scholarships that require the essays, what type of information should a student be providing?
What angle should they be taking? How should they be selling themselves? Yeah, so let's clarify just one thing real quick. So for these outside private scholarships, they're [00:17:30] either gonna fall into one of two categories. One would be. Write an essay about a particular topic, like one that's open right now is called the A BMF Fastest Prologue.
That's an organization that manages overseas, um, cemeteries for, for fallen soldiers. So their essay is about this year. You could pick one of two topics about World War ii. So if it's a topical scholarship like that, pick one of those that matches your interest and abilities. Like my son was, he calls himself a history nerd.
That [00:18:00] would've been a perfect one for him. So if he was still in high school, I'd be on him. Right now you're writing this, this essay, so let's set, set those aside though. Um, the bulk of scholarships are asking about the student in some way. Something like, why do you deserve to win this scholarship? Or, you know, what are your plans in the future?
Or how are you gonna make a difference? Those are the ones that really any student can apply for as long as they meet whatever other eligibility requirements. What makes a good, good applicant for those types of scholarships, and particularly [00:18:30] in their essay, is that they have or at least appear to have a plan.
So if you think about what's in it for the scholarship, they're just giving away free money. Like why does Coca-Cola give, you know, so many students $20,000 a year. Coca-Cola doesn't need to do that. They're looking for good pr. Well, how do they get good PR from that? It looks good. It, it's a nice little marketing thing for them.
But what they really get out of it is 5, 10, [00:19:00] 15 years down the road when they gave money to, to Billy, and now Billy is doing this amazing thing. They're gonna write a press release and say, Coca-Cola scholar Billy, who we gave $20,000 to 15 years ago, just did this amazing thing. So you have to know what you're going to do in the future.
Now, I don't want to overstate that and make it seem like if you don't have a plan to cure cancer, that you can't win a scholarship. That's not at all what I'm saying, but you do really need a plan. Um, I call that the student's personal [00:19:30] narrative. So one more caveat to that is a good, a student who's a good writer could say they want to do anything. I'm a pretty good writer. I could write an essay saying I want to be an astronaut. That's not quite enough. You do have to have that plan, but then you need to have some things on your resume that back it up. And that's where, um, I use a, a lens or a methodology called the five pillars, academics, extracurriculars, volunteering, leadership, and worker employment.
And it's not that you have to have something in all five of those. It's not a checklist per se, [00:20:00] but those are different ways that you can express and show that your interest and ability that align with whatever it is you'd like to do in the future. That sounds very similar to the general college application process.
If someone is applying to a particular program or a particular major, somebody might say, Hey, I'm really interested in, you know, Babson and business. But they have absolutely nothing on their resume that indicates they're not in deca, they're not in, you know, the entrepreneur club. They're not in anything that suggests, right.
So you're saying that these [00:20:30] students who are listening to this right now, if we're a parent and you're like, oh no, I need to start listening to this right now. Start now. Start, yeah. Reverse engineering saying, okay, what, what generally, what general direction do we wanna go in with my kid? Or if you're, you know, student listening to this and then reverse engineer and say, what do I need to have on my resume now that provides the evidence for that plan? I say that I'm gonna have, and, and as you made, you made a great point. No one needs to know what they need to do for the rest of their lives. Yeah. Right now, right. Plans [00:21:00] change, you can pivot, but for the plan that to the best of your ability that you envision yourself having, even if it's a general industry, a general field, there's gotta be some evidence from I would think freshman, sophomore year, that industry. Yeah, certainly. Certainly by, certainly by senior year. Mm-hmm. You have to have some evidence there. And, um, you know, I, every student is different, so let's, let's, you know, set that aside for a second. But in general, like, I think most [00:21:30] students would do well to do as much as they can their freshman year of high school.
And that's a great way to kind of determine which direction you want to go. Sophomore, narrow some things down and get a little more deeply involved in the things you love freshman year. By junior year, maybe cut a few more things and get really deeply involved, and then by senior year, maybe you can get some leadership roles in some of those, whatever it is, a club or your job or volunteer organization or whatnot.
I think that's at a high level, a pretty good [00:22:00] path for college admission success and scholarship success. Yeah. So the funnels, the classic funnels, the funnel start wide and each year get more and more narrow. Yep. So when you have students who are, you know, let's say junior, senior year mm-hmm. And they are applying for scholarships, they're also managing college and they're managing all of these activities that we're talking about, do you find that students get overwhelmed with the college, the scholarship search an application process. I do. And yeah. Yeah. And that was why I was so happy [00:22:30] that we connected, because I think that what you do in helping students gain executive function skills is incredibly important for the scholarship process. Um, I. You know, like you said, they are juggling a lot. They have, they have to do well in school.
They have to continue to do well in school. They probably have some extracurriculars that, that they have committed to. They may have a job and now on top of that, they're applying for college, which is a stressful process. Now you're also asking them to start applying for scholarships, and that's a lot of balls [00:23:00] in the air.
So those executive function skills are incredibly important. I think also, um, parental involvement is, is important. And there are, you know, I understand parents have a lot on their plate too, but one big thing a parent could take off the plate for the student is that finding scholarships piece, um, you know, I.
A student would be much better to leverage whatever time they allot for scholarships to writing the essays, um, and potentially filling out the applications. [00:23:30] Especially if I'm, if I start with a student early on, I like them to fill out some applications so they know how to do it. But I'm also okay after we're confident, okay, the student knows you pushed this button or you put this word in this blank.
Um, I'm okay with the parent even filling out the application. Um, I think that's perfectly fine. Where the student really has to do the work is the essay, or today, some scholarships will ask the student to create a video or they might have to do a project. It doesn't have to be an essay, although they still [00:24:00] mostly are, but that's really where the student needs to leverage their time.
And then a parent, or if they're working with somebody like me who can, you know, help, help offset some of that as well. I think that's, um, a great way for, for the student to have success. One other thing I'll say though is that a little, ironically, some of the super high achievers have, I've noticed a trend, um, that they might have a little more difficulty with the scholarship process.
It's not that they can't manage it. They, they have [00:24:30] the executive function skills and they certainly have the academic ability to, to do it. It's that they're not used to losing. And you're gonna lose more scholarships than you win. And so I'm just thinking of one student I worked with, that's probably been two or three years ago now.
This was a very, very high achieving student. Um, I think his SAT might, it was either 1600 or 1590, um, had the GPA to go along with it. Had, um, all the extracurriculars you would want aligned in a very [00:25:00] fantastic personal narrative, even had overcome a, a really big tragedy. So he had literally everything you could expect a success for a student.
And he applied for three scholarships and he was done. Um, that he did it very early on in senior year. And no matter how often I would I poke and prod and ask and beg. No matter how much I got the parent involved, there was just no moving him. He felt like if I can't win at one of these first three, what's the point?
And and I can tell [00:25:30] you if you win 20% of the scholarships you apply for, you're a superstar. I. Right. Right. I wonder why that is. So you, you had alluded to the fact that, you know, they're not used to winning. So I think it's probably protective and defensive in some way. Like the more I apply, the more I might lose.
And then that indicates that, you know, maybe going forward I won't win all of the trophies. Right, right. Yeah. But that's its reality that our kids have to accept. Certainly. But do you think, I mean, are there any other factors? Is it that they're overwhelmed? Is it that they have so much going on? Is it [00:26:00] they don't buy into the, to the idea?
I. Yeah. Um, I really do the best I can, could tell, uh, especially thinking about this one student, I think it was just that they were not used to, to rejection. Um, I mean, was the student overwhelmed? Probably. But I, I would say that of every student I'm working with, like it is a lot. Um, so I, I, you know, every student's different.
Every student has different challenges, so maybe there were some other things going on that I wasn't aware of as mm-hmm. You know, third party. Mm-hmm. Um, but I [00:26:30] really do think it is. Just that resilience piece that, um. You know, and it's not just gonna be high achieving students. I'm sure there are students at all levels who, who struggle with that.
But, um, I have noticed that, you know, students who do well but maybe are not the class valedictorian, um, are willing to put in a little more effort. Although I will say that that class valedictorian this year, she really has put in the effort. So that's awesome. Yeah. Break my own theory there, I guess.
Right. Right. So it sounds like, I mean, just to sort [00:27:00] of distill some of the things that we're talking about, that the, uh, scholarship, search and application process is a behemoth, but it's doable. And these kids who are at the busiest point of their high school. Of their, of their adolescents, right. Are they don't have to do it alone, that there are supports available.
Yeah. And you, you mentioned that one way that parents can help is by actually searching for these scholarships. Maybe. Um, maybe the parents can go to the school website and to the [00:27:30] guidance, um, you know, website. Or maybe they can call the school. Maybe they can call some, you know, the local. Um, I don't know anything in municipal sort of programs or the town hall or, or things like that.
Yeah. Yep. Right. To search for these to maybe fill in some of the demographic info, the repetitive sort of things. But then where does someone like you come in? So you're another level of support that these kids can have. Even, let's say the parents are, you're, you're working and the parent's like, I can't, I don't even have time to do this.
Right, right. Where do you come in? [00:28:00] Yeah. So, um, it, it is kind of any level of support that, that a student, a family needs with the scholarship process. So I do have a lot of parents who will, will say, I don't have the time to find these scholarships and neither does my students. So, um, you know, I can build a list of scholarships based on the student's profile saying, here are the scholarships from today until whatever date we're kind of looking at that would be a good fit and. Sometimes that's the, the end of things. Most people don't want support beyond that. Um, particularly with [00:28:30] the applications and essays, and that's really where I'm spending most of my time when I'm working with, uh, a student, is, um, depending on what, what type of service, you know, they're working with me on.
Um, I might say, okay. Here's the scholarship that I highly suggest you start working on today. This is, I think, your best bet of everything that we know exists. Now, of course, the student and family is always free to say, no, we're gonna work on this one instead. And they might have a reason for that. But let's say they take my advice and they, they wanna work on X [00:29:00] scholarship.
I'm gonna set goals and and milestones for how to break this process up into manageable pieces so that we hit. An application at least three days before the published deadline. Now, we, ideally we will, we will submit well before that if possible, but we wanna make sure we stay on track to, to get submitted three days before.
The reason for that is that the, the day of the deadline, the scholarship website is gonna be slammed, high probability it's gonna go down, and [00:29:30] almost every scholarship has in the fine print. We're not responsible for technical issues. We not, we're not extending the deadline, even if our website crashes.
So if you get it in three days before, you usually don't worry about that. And as you know, an executive function coach that getting things done before the actual deadline is a way to not miss the deadline. So mm-hmm. And to track the deadlines, and track the URLs and to track what the essay prompt is, I'm sure that you, you facilitate, facilitate all that.
So I, I one point [00:30:00] that, and we may have mentioned it in the be in the beginning, um, but if someone's listening to this right now and they are in college. Mm-hmm. And they're thinking, or a parent and their student is in college and they're like, I wish, I wish I had known this. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about the, these sort of the difference between recurring scholarships and the scholarship and this concept of well.
You can apply. This isn't a one and done thing. You can apply every single [00:30:30] year that you're in college. Let's just focus on college students for a second. 'cause I think that there might be some misunderstanding around that. Can you talk about that? Sure. So, um, just, I'll give a personal anecdote. I mean, you know, my son, we said he, we spent $1,500 for his degree.
Well, about one third of the scholarships he earned, again, only talking about private outside scholarships, not merit aid from the college, came from scholarships he applied for as a college student, and it wasn't just first year, second year- it was every year of college he was applying for these [00:31:00] scholarships.
Um, I. That brings up the point that these most scholarships are offered regularly, typically annually. If you apply for one this year and you don't win, well, you've already done most of the work for next year. The essay prompt, if it's different, it's still probably gonna be similar because the organization has a a mission and so they're not gonna ask you today to write about car engines and next week how to write about brain surgery. They're gonna, it's gonna be whatever the mission of the [00:31:30] organization is. So you've done 75 to 90% of the work already. What, however you're tracking it, put it on your, your tracking tool to apply again next year. You might also want to just keep checking that website every quarter while they're usually pretty good about staying consistent this year, especially, I noticed scholarships shifted their timelines earlier or later, which was unfortunate.
Um, you know, so you do want to kind of always be looking at the scholarships you're thinking about applying for, even if you think it's a year [00:32:00] away. Um. So I think that's, that's a big piece. Um. If we could talk a little bit about, um, institutional scholarships for college students. So yeah, please do. Most of the merit aid students will get is awarded at the time that they're admitted to the college, but this is all college dependent.
I. There are many schools that will have additional scholarships that could be applied for through a separate application. Um, a great place to start is if you're already in your, your major, so [00:32:30] probably upper level students. Go to your major advisor and ask about departmental specific scholarships.
There's, there's a lot of opportunity there. Again, of course, it depends on the department and the college. Also go to your financial aid office or check their website, however you wanna do it, and see are there other scholarships offered through the college that I can apply for that I'm not just automatically being considered for?
I see a lot of money left on the table that because students or parents just don't know to, to go look and see what's out there. Mm, [00:33:00] great advice. Great advice. So speaking of advice, if a student had, let's say, one hour a week to devote to the scholarship process, mm-hmm, what should they be doing? And maybe, maybe you have a different answer for a high school student versus a, a college student.
I'll let you answer as you see fit, but one hour a week, what are they doing? So I'm gonna assume that they have already taken the time up front to find the scholarships and they've built a great base personal narrative [00:33:30] essay. So I'm gonna answer assuming those things. Now, if not, then they should spend their time doing those things first.
But let's say you have, you know what scholarships you're gonna apply for, and you have this great base personal narrative essay, take that hour and tweak that essay in whatever way makes the most sense for that scholarship. How can I word this so it aligns with this organization's mission and values?
Am I, am I answering the prompt in all pieces of the prompt? Sometimes, you know, it'll just be one [00:34:00] one little phrase, but there's three or four question marks in that, that particular prompt. So you need to make sure you have answered all of those things. Um, I think just refining your work, um, if you only had an hour a week to do it would be probably your best bet.
Let's say you run out of scholarships, you've done all the ones, um, you've tweaked everyone, you've submitted it, but then go back and let's start to find some new scholarships. That's awesome. That's great advice. And if, if anyone listening zoned out while Dave was sharing that advice, right, I want [00:34:30] you to rewind this, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening because that, that is gold right there.
Now, if, if someone's listening is like, okay, I buy into this scholarship idea, but I just, I can't right now. I can't do this on my own, or I'm a parent, how can they reach you and where can they find you? Yeah, so the best thing would be go to www.scholarshipgps.com. Um, you can contact me through there. You can see the different ways that I work with students and families.
I do, I have everything from [00:35:00] a, an online self-paced, uh, course where 90% of what somebody needs to know, um, about scholarships, they'll learn if they'll go through the course. The other 10% is, is personal, you know, it's very, um, student specific and it's not something that I could teach, you know, in a group setting like that.
So if they feel like they want more personalized help, um, you know, you can see services that I offer from helping you find scholarships to helping with the essays and the applications and, and all, everything in between. That's excellent. [00:35:30] And I will leave the links to all of Dave's resources and his podcast as well, where if you're like, wait, I need, I need more of this, I need more of, Dave, I need more help in this, um, college application process for my kid than Dave is your go-to guy.
Thank you so much for, for joining me on the show. All the links and everything will be in the show notes and um, this is a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much, Dave. .
Oh my goodness. I hope that you got as much outta that conversation as I did. You know, I have [00:36:00] two teens myself and I provide college application services for clients, and even still, I learned a ton today about this very important piece of the college application process that so many people overlook or just don't even understand.
I will leave all of Dave's resources in the show notes of this podcast, which you can find at learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/75. If you're watching this on YouTube, check the description box. I encourage you to listen to Dave's podcast scholarship GPS, if [00:36:30] either you or your child is in high school or college, because it would be silly to leave money on the table, don't you think?
I'm sure you agree. All right. Thank you for tuning into our conversation today. I love bringing you industry experts to round out the kinds of conversations that we have here. I appreciate you, and I appreciate you sharing your time with me. And never stop learning.
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