Wednesday, November 4, 2020

How to Help Your Children Get Scholarships in a University

Just the other day, I was talking to my children about college loans, and how so many people start out their adulthood mired in tremendous debt from their college loans, so that even if they have a decently paying job, they might still be struggling financially. If there's any way to reduce the expenses of college or university for your children, it'll help them in life tremendously. Therefore, here's some tips from a reader on how you can help your children get university scholarships.


Paying for your child’s college education can be a daunting task. Fortunately, there are scholarships being offered in universities that students may take advantage of to lessen the financial burden. Because of this, parents must play an active role in helping their kids secure such scholarships as students can be too busy to give time for scholarship hunting.

Whether your child is still contemplating about college vs university options, below are the different ways on how you can help your children secure a scholarship in any institution:

1. Encourage Your Children to Get Started Immediately 

Your child must start their scholarship hunting as early as possible. In fact, it may be done as early as junior or sophomore year of high school. There are lots of scholarships that may become available in a university, but money from scholarships often isn’t distributed until the end of the senior year.

Moreover, if your child is an academic achiever, most of the prestigious scholarships require several months of preparation, which may include in-depth essays or extra projects. This means that your child should start immediately.

If your child is already in college or in senior year, there’s still more time to score a scholarship. All you have to do is to be with your children throughout the process and give them the encouragement they may need. Though once you start doing your research you will find that there are even high school senior scholarships out there.

2. Talk to Key Staff at Your Child’s Preferred University

As a parent, one of the ways to help your children get and look for scholarships in their preferred universities is to make connections at such institutions. Ask any key staff member you know with whether the university offers scholarships. If it doesn’t, guidance counselors and teachers may point you towards the scholarships you never thought existed before.

3. Use Different Resources to Look for Scholarship Information

There are various scholarships available in a university. While the online world can be a helpful resource in tracking down scholarships, it’s not the only resource. If possible, ask your colleagues or the members of any philanthropic organizations, civic groups, and churches.

4. Help Proofread Your Child’s Essay and Application

A good essay and application are important for score the best scholarships, but poor grammar and careless typos may let an essay or an application down. There are times that some students can be too close to their work to see any mistakes. This is when they may need your help for proofreading.

Before your children submit essays and applications, proofread their work and mark any kind of errors or areas where work can be improved. See to it that you also spend time praising your children for their work, so they won’t feel discouraged. Ensure that your children understand that you’re only making sure that their supporting documents and applications are the best they can be.

5. Never Hesitate to Guide Them

From searching for opportunities to preparing the documents for applications, scholarships may require lots of legwork. Aside from that, scholarships are merit-based compared to grants. So, never hesitate to offer your children the guidance they may need.

Unless your children are near their high school graduation, you don’t need to prioritize some scholarships by deadline. You may instead prioritize opportunities through the following:
  • Personal Interests – Your children could apply for scholarships that would give them rewards in the future. For instance, if your child is an aspiring painter, they may prioritize applying for art scholarships.

  • Amount of Money Offered – You and your children might focus on scholarships with bigger dollar amounts. In this way, your child may cover their attendance cost easily.

  • Application Length – You and your children may begin with the scholarships that require long applications such as the ones that call for recommendation letters and personal essays. Then, you may reuse such materials in some applications.
You can make a spreadsheet with your children so you can track progress. They may even treat applying for scholarships as homework assignments every week. If your children consider scholarship applications as routine school assignments, they might spend or make more time for them.

However, make sure that you also take off your children’s training wheels off from time to time and empower them to face the challenges bravely. Just make them aware that you’re happy to help them troubleshoot or brainstorm. If you don’t feel equipped as a good helper for your children, it would be best to ask for assistance from their current guidance counselor.

6. Be a Support System

It can be stressful, time consuming, and a bit disappointing when applying for scholarships. No matter what happens, you should always be a positive force for your children. In order to achieve this, you must be a support system for them throughout the process.

Be there whenever they need you or even when they end up not getting the scholarship they’ve applied for. Then, encourage them to stay positive and learn from that experience as well as teach them how they can use such lessons for scholarship applications in the future.

7. Keep Your Children Motivated

It may seem pointless and exhausting to apply for all scholarships that your children are qualified for. However, there’s no doubt how essential this can be. The hundreds or thousands of dollars from scholarships may mean the difference. So, look for ways on how you can motivate your children to complete every essay.

Motivation may come from anywhere. Giving them an extra TV time, trip to their restaurant, or cooking their all-time favorite meals in a week. Regardless of the case, provided how crucial applying for scholarships are, see to it that you work together to stay excited and motivated about the prospects of more financial aid for your children’s education.

Conclusion

No matter how independent your children are and your confidence that they can always get scholarships in their preferred university on their own, it doesn’t mean that they won’t need your help and support. As parents, you should know the ways on how your children can identify good opportunities to ease their stress while applying for scholarships.

With the above tips, you can be assured that you’ll be able to give a hand to your children whenever they want to get scholarships in universities successfully, which may also be beneficial in reducing the financial burden of their college education.