How to write a college scholarship essay

By Ivy Research

If you're reading this blog post you may have heard all sorts of misconceptions, and probably read some of them through the internet. One common misconception regarding the college scholarship essay is that for some magical reason it is no longer a typical essay. Guess what, this same fallacy occurs with the college application essay as well. 

The truth of the matter is that an essay is an essay. What is an essay? An essay is basically a literary form that is designed to change the mind of the reader or to convince the reader to do a particular action that you want that reader to do. 

It's that basic, so regardless of which essay you truly admire like for example, George Orwell. If you look at their essays they follow the same standard form while the appearance of the essay might be creative and clever some might even look like a recipe' or a short novel. 

But at the end of the day it has the formalistic elements and structural elements of a typical essay. This includes an introduction, body, and conclusion. The body is what really drives the essay. It's the engine of the essay. The typical body of an essay is composed of an assertion and supporting facts of evidence. 

That is really the essence of an essay. Without it, your scholarship application essay is just a list of opinions or a list of bald assertions. Nobody's going to award you money for college, law school, graduate school, medical school, an MBA program, or graduate program based on your opinion. Opinions are like noses, everybody has one. To make your essay successful, you have to really deliver on the promise of the essay in an effective way. So how do you do that?

Grab eyeballs and work it from there

First of all, you need to grab the attention of the reader; you can do this by identifying a great theme that organizes your personal facts. Don't get too caught up in the selection of the theme because its main job is to organize the facts. It's your facts that really carry the essay, and not anything else. 

Next, in order to be awarded with scholarship money, you have to convince the reader of your essay that you have the traits and attributes they are looking for. How do you do this? You do this by making an assertion and then backing up that claim. So you have to back it up with facts; back it up with actual information from your past. 

You cannot just lay out several opinions and several assertions and expect the reader to buy what you're selling it doesn't work that way. Finally, the conclusion raps up the key assertions that you made in the past. You’re not so much repeating the assertions, but pointing them to a call to action. This action is frozen in such a way that it answers the question: Why should we award you the money instead of another applicant?

Your essay reflects your character. Make sure you autograph your scholarship application essay with quality, and without sloppiness and shoddy sentences. Just high quality writing indicates you have taken the application process seriously

This guest post was brought to you by the best provider of scholarship application essays on the Internet, IvyResearch.Com

Tips on decoding the student loan application

Saving enough money to pay your way through college is easier said than done. Thousands of college students apply for scholarships, grants, and student loans to help them tide over the hefty college expenses such as tuition fees.

Before you start applying for student loans, you need to know exactly what you will be getting into. Finding the right loan that will fulfill every need you have is the key to success.

How much do you really need?

Most students make the mistake of borrowing too little or too much through a student loan. You will find many calculators and online cost adjusters that will help you calculate exactly how much you need to borrow to meet all your educational requirements.

While borrowing, ensure that you reach the maximum limit on every available federal student loan before you borrow from any private student loans. It is prudent to borrow just as much as you need to cover your education costs, no more, no less.

 

Types of loans available to students

There are a variety of loans that students can apply for. Most students will be able to qualify for more than one loan. In order to know which loans are the best for you, it is important to spend some time understanding the characteristics of each loan.

For example, PLUS, Perkins, and Stafford loans each have something unique to offer to students. They also have different rules that need to be followed. Give yourself the best tools to apply for loans and streamline your debt by researching on the types of loans available to students.

 

Promissory notes

Often the simplest things become roadblocks because they were not done in time. Collecting and organizing the information that you will need while applying for student loans falls into this category. Organize all the promissory notes that you will need and gather information pertaining to the Department of Education school code, co-signer information, as well as any disbursement dates before you begin the process of applying.

 

Balance your potential earnings with loan payments

Finding a steady job is a concern in these tough economic and recessionary times. Research and find out what successful graduates in your chosen field of study are being paid after graduation and what are the chances of them finding a job in that field?

This will help you understand what your earning potential is like after graduation, will you need a master’s, should you enter this major, and how you will be able to make payments towards paying off your student loan debt?

Attached Images:

•  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=students&ex=2#ai:MP900439511|

Select your student loans after considering all the pros and cons via adequate research.

Guest post: 6 ways students can deal with rising tuition costs

Syndicated courtesy of Hat Toss

According to the Department of Education, if tuition costs continue to escalate, come 2016, the average price of tuition for a public college will have more than doubled in just 15 years. The New York Times recently reported that 94% of students who earn a bachelor’s degree borrowed money to pay for their education costs. And along with tuition costs, loan interest rates are rising as well. So, assuming you want to enroll or already are enrolled in a college and plan to borrow or already have borrowed money for your education, what are some ways you can deal with rising tuition costs and loan interest rates?

1. Realize that colleges are not going to warn you about student debt:

   
   
   When it comes to providing potential students with financial guidance, especially the total cost one can expect to pay in loans and interest after graduation, some schools are more straightforward than others, with for-profit schools being the least transparent. You will rarely see a warning about student debt in a university’s brochure or on its website. Be aware that both public and private universities are trying to sell you something, and that the information they provide regarding costs, financial aid, and even job prospects may be purposefully misleading.
   
   

2. Plan ahead:

   
   
   
   
   You have options for paying back a loan, and planning ahead how much you’ll need to pay monthly until your loans are zeroed out can help you determine which option is best for you. For federal student loan debt, the default standard repayment plan requires you to make 120 equal payments over 10 years. A guaranteed plan allows you to make lower payments in the first few years and higher ones later, with interest rising over the term of the loan. Extended, income-based, and income-contingent plans are other options available to those who take out a federal student loan. Before taking out a private loan, which will have a variable interest rate and can end up costing you more than you can afford, be sure you’ve investigated your options for scholarships, grants, and federal student loans.
   
   

3. Apply for aid every year:

   
   
   
   
   It’s in your best interest to apply every year for financial aid, even if you think you don’t qualify. Changes in your and your family’s financial circumstances, including a sibling enrolling in college as well, can impact your eligibility for financial aid. Be aware of and calendar out application deadlines so you can submit all the necessary paperwork in as timely a fashion as possible.
   
   

4. Create a post-graduation emergency savings fund:

   
   
   It’s never too early to begin an emergency fund, especially one for the first three, six, or 12 months after you graduate. Having savings in place that you can draw upon for rent, utilities, food, and other life expenses will allow you to use the money you’re earning at your first post-graduation job to begin paying back your student loans. If you don’t immediately find employment like so many college graduates, your emergency fund can help sustain you while you hunt for work.
   
   

5. Apply for Federal Student Aid:

   
   
   There are inexpensive federal funding options available to you through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) website. Some federal funding options are not dependent upon financial need. Interest rates range from low to high, but there’s no charge to apply.
   
   

6. Federal loan forgiveness programs:

   
   
   
   
   Under certain conditions, the federal government will cancel part or all of a loan. To qualify for loan forgiveness, you must perform volunteer work, military service, teach or practice medicine in certain types of communities, or meet other criteria outlined by the program. The Federal Student Loan Repayment Program also allows federal agencies to establish loan repayment programs for their employees. Talk to your employer to see if they have such a program in place.

Why the cost of education should be marked to market

Image attribution: Lumaxart; CC BY SA-2.0

At the undergraduate level, a degree in accounting costs the same as a degree in journalism. Yet, according to the Daily Beast, a degree in Journalism is the most useless degree to have (wiping my forehead, good thing I have two degrees in philosophy!) Having said that, there is a real societal and economic issue underlying education costs. Basically, undergraduates are not getting an education marked to market, which basically means the value is not measured in terms of actual worth.

Skeptics would argue, if degree costs were measured in terms of worth, professors in low-valued fields would not work because the pay is so low. Really. Has that been proven or is that just speculation? From one perspective, life is more than just money, actually, much more than just money and some might just be passionate to share some things in life regardless of compensation. How do I know this? Quite simple, I've been writing for over five years and have a very low income.

What if education were marked to market, what then? For starters, the debt to income ratio of creative types who choose to learn about their fields would be more manageable. That isn't so bad is it? Oh, actually it is for those who only care about money. For those people, who I relate to at a substantial level, follow the smart money. Makes sense, following the arts is not typically being in the path of smart money, unless it's coming from George Lucas, Jean-Louis Gauthier, or William Shakespeare. So if you want to teach art and make a living, have a lot of faith in life. Otherwise, focus on the money ball.

There is another real economic problem to marking education to market however. Specifically, if all education costs were marked to market, only a handful of degrees would really be worth a great deal. In such case, and assuming many degrees would be valued at far less than their actual present costs, the economy would be affected significantly. For example, professors could be on food stamps, perceptions of education could lower enrollment causing the revenue of educational institutions, and the quality of educational programs to decline. If economics is the focal point, then yes, that is a big deal; but what if it isn't?

Economic models are not fool proof, and the field of economics is one of many that applies mathematical formulas to sociological constructs.  This is why economics is not considered a science, and what is not scientific is not absolute, therefore economics is not accurate. Also, measuring worth is not quite that simple as a survey of the career paths of thousands of former students would need to be tracked to create any sort of statistical significance to the valuations. It would also be challenging to isolate the exact influence education has on wealth apart from other variables such as luck, personality, motivation etc.

Even if economics were a science, which at basic levels it is, the scenario does not bode well materially. For example, Jeremy Grantham, a well known fund manager, thinks "grandchildren have no value" because of the unsustainable course of current economic practices according to John Elkington of the U.K. Guardian. Indeed, Grantham has clearly illustrated that constant growth is impossible with finite resources and demonstrates this using simple mathematics. This is reiterated by Henry Blodget of Business Insider who summarizes Grantham's reasoning as essentially this: "One cubic meter of possessions at a growth rate of 4.5 percent per year for 3000 years is equal to 10 to the 57th power."

The economy is a fragile mechanism that millions of people depend on to live and thrive. That's no small potato in an existential world where 'actual living' is a legitimate concern. In such case, humanity and common sense draw lines where economics might not. Specifically, minimum values of educational worth similar to minimum wage of labor. Makes sense doesn't it? No degree is worth nothing, and everybody is on Earth for a reason, so why stand in the way of life when it such a good thing? In other words, undervaluing education is just as bad as overvaluing it because it slows progress, and decreases the quality of education.