Oregon GEAR UP Scholarship Information
SCHOLARSHIP TIPS
- Download the Letter of Recommendation form and Activities Chart from Naviance (left hand side, under pages). Using the electronic version, it is easy to copy and paste information into scholarship forms. You will find that many scholarships are asking for the same information. Fill out and make copies of it to give to teachers, school counselor, employers, supervisors, or coaches you may want to write letters of recommendation for you.
- Check Naviance once a week or more to check on any new scholarship postings. If you’re scouting out the year before …note the application due dates in a google calendar, and put a reminder in to check for a new application. The applications usually don’t change TOO much, so it would be a good idea to work ahead from an old application. Put a note in your google calendar to CHECK for a new application and update accordingly.
- Keep a shared (with guardian) google doc or sheet of all scholarship deadlines to keep organized and manage deadlines. Naviance has a planning organizer as well.
- Photocopy/scan or take a picture of all of the scholarship applications you submit for backup. Also, one application may help you fill out the next application.
- Keep all of your essays on your computer and/or google drive. You will notice that many of the essay questions become repetitive. You can change each essay for the different essay questions you will be asked. It is super important that you change school/program names….don’t send in a Stanford scholarship with the Yale name on it.
- Find out if your bank or your guardian’s bank offers scholarships. Also, if you have contacts at local businesses, check to see if they have a scholarship program for high school students. If they don’t, but they are interested, they can call OSAC (541-687-7395) to set up a scholarship program.
- Do volunteer work or community service. Many of the local scholarships are awarded to students who have given their time and commitment to their community.
- Use the Career Center volunteers as a valuable resource. They are there to help you with your scholarship search and scholarship questions.
- Remember that scholarships usually do not fall into your lap. It is hard work to receive scholarships. You will have to commit a certain amount of time each week to work on your scholarship search. Treat it like a class …apply the same amount of time toward applying for college and scholarships that you would for your toughest class. You may get quite a few rejections along the way, but do not give up. You definitely will not get a scholarship that you don’t try for, so go for it! Keep in mind that some scholarships have NO applicants at all…..or very few!
- Even when a scholarship amount looks small when looking at the cost of tuition – still apply. If it takes you an hour to complete the application and it is “only” for $100, think “what job out there pays $100 an hour?” And you can use the money to pay for a couple of books. It will all add up and help you out! Keep contact name and addresses of all of the scholarships you apply for so you can write thank you notes.
SCHOLARSHIP SEARCH
- COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES
Check at the colleges you are interested in. All schools have a Financial Aid page on their website. Click to Scholarship and there will be a list of scholarships that are available at that specific school. Often these scholarships are organized by department, merit, need, diversity, and/or skill/talent. You can get a lot of college information on www.collegeboard.org
2) SHELDON CAREER CENTER & NAVIANCE
National, state and local scholarship opportunities are posted in Naviance. This list is updated throughout the year so check it often. Some paper applications are located in a file drawer in the career center.
3) OREGON STUDENT ASSISTANCE COMMISSION
OSAC puts out a scholarship application each December. Within the OSAC scholarship site is the Oregon Promise (two free years of community college at ANY 2 year public community college in Oregon). BOTH of these scholarship applications are online. The application is due March 1st 5PM PST and you must also submit the FAFSA. The “Early Bird Scholarship” deadline is February 15th 5PM. For more detailed information and the application, go to www.getcollegefunds.org or www.osac.state.or.us.
4) WEBSITES
You can go to a search engine, like www.google.com or www.yahoo.com, type in the word scholarship and you will get many scholarship sites. Here are a few of them:
5) BOOKS
There are scholarship books that are published annually that list many scholarships. Most books organize the scholarships by college, major/interest, need, merit, diversity and skill/talent. The SHS Career Center has books for you to use in the Career Center and of course you can buy them at a bookstore or Amazon. Libraries also have scholarship books you can check out. (Petersons puts out some of the most detailed books: www.petersons.com.) When you use a book for scholarship search – you usually can go to the website they provide you and submit an application online or download an application to mail in. Sometimes you have to write or call the scholarship contact information for an application.
