Reading Now – 7 Practical Ways to Prepare Your Kids For Scholarships
7 Practical Ways to Prepare your Kids for Scholarships
The pressure of paying tuition fees can sometimes be overwhelming, but it’s better to prepare oneself for the opportunities before they arrive than fail to take action.
In fact, there are lots of ways parents can help younger students set themselves up for success with scholarships. Here’s how you can help your child get started today
Read Also: 5 ways to help you remember what you study:
1. Start University and Scholarship Discussions Early.
Start talking about the universities and the schools your kids want to attend early. Instead of waiting until they are in terminal classes before discussing universities and scholarship goals, start early.
This gives a more definitive approach and shows that you are very interested in their success.
2. Help them with Resources that will foster Good Grades
In secondary schools, lots of people compete for good grades, but this doesn’t stop the best from standing out. Providing your kids with adequate educational and emotional resources can be the difference in the child’s grades because not every scholarship is based on academic performance
3. Pick a Hobby
Many scholarship committees want to see that your child is interested in things outside of school or work. Having a hobby on the side such as scrapbooking, painting, hiking, or whatever else your child can think of can also make them more competitive when it comes to applying for scholarships.
They don’t need to spend tons of time on this but having an answer to “what do you do outside of school?” can be an important one!
4. Expose them to voluntary Work
Volunteering and community service can be valuable experiences for your child on their own; as it teaches your child the value of helping others and contributing to society. Many scholarship committees want to know about volunteer hours and community involvement.
Therefore, the earlier your child starts accruing volunteer hours, the easier it is to hit any minimums that may be stated in the scholarship application requirements
5. Jot Down their Experiences for future Scholarships
Many scholarship essays ask your child to describe an experience they’ve had, so taking notes about their accomplishments as they occur can make writing these common application requirements easier.
After the time has passed, it can be difficult to remember the details about a particular experience, so encourage your student to keep a journal or a computer file (that they back up regularly) that contains quick thoughts and feelings about what they’ve achieved or overcome. That way, they can simply refer back to their notes when it comes time to write a winning scholarship essay.
6. Keeps Awards and Certificates in a Safe Place
Any time your child wins an award or receives a certificate, they need to be placed somewhere safe so they can be easily located in the future. This ensures they are readily available when it comes time to apply for scholarships, as many do have designated spots in the application to discuss their prior accomplishments.
Keep a paper file in a secure location and consider scanning the documents so you can back them up on a computer. This keeps everything in one place and makes it all highly accessible.
7. Build Up Trusted Recommendations
There will come a day, very quickly, when your child needs to ask for a recommendation letter. Building relationships now with teachers, administrators, counselors, coaches and other adults in your child’s life will make it much easier when they need a recommendation letter. Each new school year, have your child choose one adult in their life that they can foster this type of relationship with.
Finally, getting ahead of the crowd can have a lot of benefits, so there’s no reason not to begin exploring the scholarship process today. Plus, by starting early, your child won’t be under the same amount of pressure when their senior year arrives.
