Thanksgiving Scholarship Challenge for High School Students

Although many students want to go to college, few have the financial resources to do so without scholarships, grants or loans. I’m completely against loans, since they have a tendency to destroy a graduate’s future. That leaves grants and scholarships, but they don’t magically appear. Someone has to apply for them.

When writing my book, Free College Awareness, I realized I didn’t complete many chapters without having a specific goal, with a time limit. Once I set this up, the chapters almost seemed to write themselves. This could be true for scholarship and grant applications too. I suggest setting up a routine for finding, filling out, and submitting college scholarship and grant forms.

To this end, I propose a challenge over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. For most students, this means four days. For others, it may be five days. Whichever is the case for you, pick the number of applications you wish to submit during this time. They will all be completed online, of course, so you don’t have to worry about offices being closed. My suggestion is a minimum of one per day, better yet, set your goal at two or three.

You’ll still have time for visiting with family and friends, watching football or the Twilight Zone Marathon, and eating lots of turkey or ham. Discuss your family’s travel plans with your parents in advance. Block this time out on a calendar (you can print templates online for free). Then block out your sleep schedule. You’ll do a terrible job if you’re sleep deprived.

You now know when you have free time for meeting this scholarship/grant application challenge. Use a red pen to outline the times you are allotting to find, complete and submit your applications. If you have already filed at least one, you know how much time you’ll need for each. The average student takes about an hour, after the first one.

Sure, vacations should be fun, but wouldn’t you dedicate ten hours of the 120 over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday if doing so might result in being awarded thousands of dollars for college? Go ahead and do it. I dare you.

For more information, you’ll want my new book, Free College Awareness, coming soon from Griffin Publishing. How to avoid needing college loans; available soon to families of Pre-K through High School students.

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