Monday, October 24, 2011

Improve Your Financial Aid Application

By Jonas Hanks


Need-based and merit-based scholarships are the two major forms of scholarships in a university setting. Need-based or income-based awards are given based on the financial profile of the student and the student's family. Merit-based scholarships are given based on grades and other performance, including SAT tests, ACT tests, GPA, and other accomplishments. Regardless of the type of financial aid, GPA is typically a key part of the application.

Improve Your Essays

Scholarship committees often use essays to judge the abilities of the applicants. Essays can also shed light on the creativity and uniqueness of each candidate. Consider the following steps to boost your essay-writing skills.

1. Go through all your essays and proofread them. Look for errors in spelling or grammar. Re-read the essays to make sure that the flow and tone make sense.

2. Double-check your logic in your essays. After re-reading them, ask yourself if the essay accurately portrays what you are trying to get across. Remember that the scholarship committee will have very little besides your essays to use to justify giving you a scholarship.

3. Get feedback. Ask friends, associates, and family members to read your essays and go through steps 1 and 2 above. Ask for candid feedback. Make sure that your reviewers give you their honest opinions. Take their feedback with a small grain of salt and make the updates to your essays that you see fit.

Determine Your GPA

Look over the application materials. See if the scholarship committee requires weighted or unweighted GPA. There are many different GPA schemes and calculations, so each school may have a slightly different opinion. If weighted grade point average is necessary, make sure you use the correct GPA weighting scale to calculate the right number.

Strengthen Your Scholarship Application

It is possible to boost your chances of getting a scholarship by improving your GPA. If your scholarship only looks at unweighted GPA, it may be a good idea to sign up for classes where you can get good grades. Make sure that your classes are still relevant toward your degree and that they don't all look like "Easy A" classes. If your scholarship uses weighted GPA as a factor, you may consider adding AP and honors classes to your future class rosters to boost your overall GPA.

Other items are taken into consideration for scholarship applications. For instance, you can retake standardized tests, such as the SAT or ACT, to improve your score. Also, you can get better letters of recommendation by carefully selecting your recommenders.




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