College scholarship ideas/advice?

[crrcboatz]

I have not read all the comments so this might have been already stated by someone else. I apologize in advance if that is the case.

I went through this about a decade ago and back then, if you were a "normal" white male kid with above average grades and you make a decent salary, you are screwed. Now if you have diabetes, a prosthetic leg, have a lower income family or part of a protected minority group, you are golden.

We looked and looked and had minimal success. My son had a 27 ACT which is decent and he received a scholarship at the school he attended and then one from the old ladies group at church. Outside of those, there were not any that we could find that he qualified for at that time.

Your plain semi-smart kid did not have any luck for us.

27 is a good strong act. It will get you in many engineering schools. Math and science are the key scores though. If those are the strongest consider engineeringWhy? Because it is one area where this country will always be short on. Give it some consideration

 

[Parks 788]

Thanks all so far! Daughter is a junior this year, son is a sophomore. They both pretty well carry 4.0 gpa, she took the ACT last year (10th grade) and made a 24 IIRC. And the bad news, their school is so small they don't have a counselor (great school otherwise).

What college/s is your kid looking at? Most colleges will have specific opportunities for scholarships. If your daughter took the ACT and got a 24 then she should also take the SAT to compare scores. Not in the literal sense but depending on her strengths and weaknesses some kids will perform better on the SAT vs ACT. I believe the ACT is better for kids that are stronger with math and science. A score of 24 on the ACT is darn good but if her first time taking it then make sure she takes it again as well as the SAT.

There are ACT/SAT prep classes that can be hugely beneficial to increase your kids scores. Typically ot cheap but can more than pay for their costs with higher scores thus getting more scholarship money.

Also, most colleges have websites that show you what types and how much they offer. OSU has a pretty good site for this in the link below. My son was an out of state student with an ACT of 21 and HS GPA of 3.75 and got $11K per year / $44K over four years at OSU.

OSU scholarship page

Freshman Scholarships - Oklahoma State University

Overview of freshman scholarships at Oklahoma State University.

go.okstate.edu

 

[wawazat]

What college/s is your kid looking at? Most colleges will have specific opportunities for scholarships. If your daughter took the ACT and got a 24 then she should also take the SAT to compare scores. Not in the literal sense but depending on her strengths and weaknesses some kids will perform better on the SAT vs ACT. I believe the ACT is better for kids that are stronger with math and science. A score of 24 on the ACT is darn good but if her first time taking it then make sure she takes it again as well as the SAT.

There are ACT/SAT prep classes that can be hugely beneficial to increase your kids scores. Typically ot cheap but can more than pay for their costs with higher scores thus getting more scholarship money.

Also, most colleges have websites that show you what types and how much they offer. OSU has a pretty good site for this in the link below. My son was an out of state student with an ACT of 21 and HS GPA of 3.75 and got $11K per year / $44K over four years at OSU.

OSU scholarship page

Freshman Scholarships - Oklahoma State University

Overview of freshman scholarships at Oklahoma State University.

go.okstate.edu

Definitely take it more than once. I ended up taking the ACT 3 times and finally had a good relaxed experience the third time with no real stress. My scores increased each time as I found a routine, 25, 26, 32.

 

[Dorkus]

Definitely take it more than once. I ended up taking the ACT 3 times and finally had a good relaxed experience the third time with no real stress. My scores increased each time as I found a routine, 25, 26, 32.

I also took it three times, back in the 80s.

I think we needed a 17 to get into college back then and I made the minimum threshold the last time. Kids must be way smarter now a days or the test is easier. Either that or I am just not too smart which is the likely truth.

 

[wawazat]

I also took it three times, back in the 80s.

I think we needed a 17 to get into college back then and I made the minimum threshold the last time. Kids must be way smarter now a days or the test is easier. Either that or I am just not too smart which is the likely truth.

Haha, I doubt that is the case. I took it in the early 2000's and my high school put a lot of energy into prepping us for it. I think practice tests are worth their weight in gold and having someone teach some time management skills for taking the test are crucial as well. That truly puts it down to actually showing what someone's aptitude is at that moment and not how nervous they get on tests, how they have a tendency to get stumped on one question but can't leave it unanswered to move onto possibly 10 other questions they do know, etc.

It has been quite a while, but 3 passes for each section is what sticks out to me. Blowing through and answering everything I knew off the cuff or with minimal side work on the first pass and then go back to the beginning. Go through a second time with the ones I paused on even a little to see what jumps out at me now. Go through a third time to really put in the time to figure out ways to make at least an educated guess on the answer.

 

[Chuckie]

Well. You could do like I did and work 2 or 3 jobs to pay for my college

I think the problem with doing something like that, these days, is that college has gotten so expensive that a young college age person with little employment experience can no longer get jobs that pay high enough to be able to finance their college education. For many, the cost of college is simply too high to be affordable without having to go into debt.

 

[clintbailey]

I took the ACT 3x (9,10,11 grades) in the mid-90's, made a 25, 25 and 28...not sure I ever broke 20 in the math section though...and I don't suck at math until they put LETTERS in it

 

[wawazat]

I took the ACT 3x (9,10,11 grades) in the mid-90's, made a 25, 25 and 28...not sure I ever broke 20 in the math section though...and I don't suck at math until they put LETTERS in it

Hahaha, math was my lowest score as well by a large margin. The hilarity of life is that I enjoy doing some fairly complicated math now for various reasons at work.

The difference is that I can build them out in Excel so I only have to do the math once and the worksheet will do it for me after that.