Learn and Work Smarter

123. 5 Steps for Applying for Scholarships – with Expert Dave Peterson

• Katie Azevedo • Episode 123

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It’s a common misunderstanding that scholarships are only for graduating students headed right to college. In fact, students of all ages can and should apply for scholarship money as soon as possible.


In this episode of the Learn and Work Smarter Podcast, I talk with Dave Peterson of Scholarship GPS. Dave is a scholarship expert who shares with us his awesome 5-step process for simplifying the scholarship application process and getting students the money they deserve.


Plus, Dave and I team up to offer students the coolest bundle ever: enroll in his Scholarship Summer Camp (6-week program starting in June) and get my Note-Taking Power System for free! Grab that here.

(https://www.scholarshipgps.com/katie)

What You'll Learn:

  • Why summer is actually the best time to apply for scholarships (and it's not just for seniors)
  • The 5-step process that makes applying for scholarships (and winning them!) easier than you can imagine
  • What happens to scholarship money if your kid wins before they're ready for college
  • The #1 reason most scholarship applications get rejected before anyone even reads the essay
  • Why a strong GPA is not a requirement for winning — and what matters more

🔗 Resources Mentioned:

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Well, hello and welcome to the Learn and Work Smarter podcast. I'm Katie Azevedo and this is episode 123. Today's episode is one of my monthly industry expert episodes where I get to interview an expert in the industry. Today I am talking with Dave Peterson. Dave is the founder of scholarship GPS, an organization that guides students and their families on their scholarship journey to avoid student loan debt. Dave got into the world of scholarships by coaching his son to earn enough in scholarships that his entire college experience, including tuition, room, board, books, and fees, cost only $1,500. That is bananas. Dave takes the lessons that he learned by working with his son, and helps families around the country find and earn scholarships. Today, Dave and I are going to talk about what students of all ages, so if you're thinking this episode doesn't apply to you, yes, it does, because we talk about how students of all ages can use the summer to apply for scholarships and why that is such a good idea. And Dave shares his five step process for doing so. So sit back. Enjoy the conversation. Definitely take notes. Pause when you need to, and let's begin. Hello, you are listening to the Learn and Work Smarter podcast, the podcast for students and professionals who want to learn and work smarter. I'm your host, executive function coach, and founder of School habits.com Katie as of Ito. As a reminder, everything I mentioned in today's episode will be linked in the show notes, including a link to the transcript, which you can also find at Learn and Work smarter.com/podcast. Well, hello, Dave. Welcome back to the Learn and Work Smarter podcast. I'm so happy you are back. For people who have, maybe just started listening to this show, you're a return guest. Back on episode 75, we talked all about how to pay for college with scholarships. So welcome back to the show. Thanks so much, Katie. I've been looking forward to this ever since we scheduled it. And, I just can't be more appreciative that you would have me on. I listen to your podcast every week, and I learned so much, and I encourage my audience to to follow you as well. So thank you. Oh, that's so kind. I think you are the perfect person to come on and have this conversation today, because back, on episode 75, when you talked about the best ways to pay for college, you paid for your own son's college for a total of $1,500, including books and room and board. And that story, I just think, resonates with my audience, who is a mixture of folks who are headed to college, who are in college and are still looking for ways to foot that bill, parents who are funding college or about to. So I think today's conversation is going to hit the audience. On several different layers. We have a good show today. We are back talking about scholarships. I don't think we can get enough of that. Right. Yeah, yeah, especially with the cost of everything today. This is true. Yeah. So I also think it's a timely episode because we are recording this in April 2026. And so we are approaching the summer season. And I know that with my private clients in my, coaching business, summer time for us is spent, you know, writing college essays and perhaps doing AP summer work and applying for jobs and working on the resume and doing summer reading and building some of those foundational skills that they're going to need once the school year starts. But I also know that there is a missing piece there. There is a gap, that many people are not aware of. And that is why we bring you on the show to talk about how we can be filling this gap and what's that missing piece that a lot of students of a lot of different ages should be thinking about over the summer months. So over to you. What should we be? What are we missing? Yeah. Well, that that missing piece is scholarships. summer is a great time for students to apply for scholarships. They don't have the busyness of school, the homework. Unless the, you know, certain parts of summer, they may be doing some, some sporting activities, but, you know, you know, your basketball players, your baseball players, even your football players don't usually start practice till late summer. So, they don't have all these other things taking up time on their calendar. So it's a great time to apply for scholarships. And, and you ask what age? I mean, I'll say what I always say from grammar school, elementary school all the way through college. If you're student is school age, there is a scholarship that they could be applying for right now. That's interesting. So I think that's a misunderstanding that a lot of the families that I work with have. Scholarships, it's often thought that it's directly connected to college. You, you know, a lot of folks are in public high school. They're not paying for high school. Or maybe they're in a private high school, but they're thinking, okay, well, college is where the big bill comes. So I'm going to be thinking of college scholarships. And while that is true, you did just make a point that scholarships are available for all ages. So I know we're going to talk about, a particular age, I believe today we're going to be talking about, a scholarship plan for a particular age. But could you actually just talk real quick? What does that look like for somebody who might be in, a sophomore in high school. So 10th grade, if they were to start applying for scholarships and they get that, what happens to the money if they're not going off to college, you know, for two more years? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it really, will depend on the particular scholarship that they win. I have some students who win scholarships as sophomores. And, the organization just simply sends a check in the mail. So the kids obviously love that parents aren't aren't too mad about that either. But then I have other students, when scholarships prior to their senior year and, the organization simply holds those funds in trust until the student goes off to college or, maybe they're going to go to trade school or whatever they're going to do post high school graduation. So, so kind of two different options. It really will depend. But kind of the most critical piece is that there are scholarships for sophomores. There are scholarships for freshmen, they're scholarships for middle school students. So, it's not something that the students and parents want to wait until senior year to start thinking about. They missed tons of opportunities. And maybe even more importantly, they miss the the practice of the process, the practice of applying practice, filling out forms, and most importantly, the practice writing the essays. Okay, so what I'm really hearing from this is that if there's anybody listening right now who's thinking this episode doesn't apply to them, maybe they're like, well, you know, I'm already in college or I'm only a freshman, or if there's a parent listening or my kid's only in eighth grade, like, I'll come back to this episode in a few years. No, I want you to lean in and listen to the conversation today because there is money to be had, regardless of what age your student is. And I'm glad you did clarify that piece about what happens to the money, because that's a question that I get from parents a lot. Sure. What's the point? What is the point of applying now if we're not going to see it later? And I mean, my response is, well, why would why wouldn't you want the money now to use for later? Exactly. Yeah. That explaining the logistics of that I think is helpful. All right. So let's say that we have someone who's in high school, so freshman, sophomore, junior year and they are buying into our argument right now that this is the moment to be applying for these scholarships. You made a good point. That summer for many students is a little bit lighter. We don't have classes. Of course. We might have summer jobs and things like that. But what does a realistic plan look like for someone who is committed to applying for these scholarships over the summer? Sure. Well, I have identified five unique steps that it doesn't matter what grade the students in, whether it's middle school, high school, college, whatever, that is common to the scholarship process. So maybe that's a good framework to use here. The first step would be simply finding scholarships. Finding the scholarships that you're eligible for, not just today, but especially for younger students. What am I going to be eligible for next year? Or, you know, a few years? So building that list of scholarships to that, that align with the students, profile, whether it's their future college major, you know, what their identity, their location, things like that. So step one is finding finding the scholarships. And I do want to mention that piece, is very time consuming. It can be a bit frustrating because you're going to go down a lot of dead ends. And that's one thing I recommend that, parents can really help out with in this process is the finding the scholarship piece. Now there are tons of resources for finding scholarships. You know, from some great scholarship websites. I recommend to, kind of using different search, tools and, keywords, you know, on something like Google. AI has, has helped a little bit. Although I gotta say, the results are really wildly varied. When you're using AI, you don't say, yeah. Yep. Yeah. Some of some of the information is good, but, always no matter what source you're using, go back to the original source, go to the website of the organization that's offering the scholarship. That way you'll verify that it's actually still in operation. Some of the scholarship websites don't clean their data very well. you'll, you know, have a better feeling that this is a legitimate organization. If, if all this organization does is offer the scholarship, that's a red flag. This might might not be, great. I don't want to say that 100%, but, you know, there are some organizations that's their sole mission. So don't necessarily count those out. But, you know, if you work your way back, you find scour, you know, find the Coca-Cola scholarship on, say, scholarships 360, you work your way back to Coca-Cola's website. We all know Coca-Cola is a real business. So, you know, you could probably find some scholarships, you know, from local attorneys in your area, credit unions in your area, things like that. So that's the first step, is finding the scholarships to actually apply for. I know I do want to offer a reference for people listening, some reference that I have found highly, highly valuable and that I have shared with many people. And it's actually your newsletter. Oh well thank you. So you're a newsletter comes with so many links to scholarships organized by grade level and year and interest. And it has been such a I mean, I have forwarded your newsletter I to families probably more than I have forwarded any newsletter to anybody. I personally find it so helpful, so I will, I don't know, off the top of my head what the link is and how people can find that, but I will leave it in the description box. If you're watching this on YouTube or if you're listening, I will leave the link. Dave, I'm sure I could just leave a link to your website, or if you have a particular link for your newsletter. I do want people to sign up for that. Yeah, unfortunately the link is is not super memorable. It's no debt College.substack.com. okay, but I also think am I wrong on your actual website? Do you have a, I newsletter registration box as well? I do, yes. So scholarship gx.com. Yeah. Yep. And I let me just throw it out there. I mentioned scholarship websites. I do have a free list of websites that I recommend. And I also give a little, kind of pros and cons of each of those. And people can get that for free at scholarshipgps.com/scholarship-websites. Oh that's great. I'll leave that as well too. So get your newsletter and get that. And guys, I don't recommend to people listening. I don't recommend anything without going through the process myself and really vetting it, vetting it. And I have gotten extreme value from Dave's newsletter, so there's nothing spammy. It's pure value. I'm just sharing that with the audience. All right. So that was step one. Find the scholarships. I love the recommendation that parents can be involved. Yeah, I do know that there's a rabbit hole. Often times you spend all this time create an account and then it's expired. You meet a dead end. The scholarships are no longer being offered. It's closed. Probably want to read the fine print of when the scholarship or deadline is before you go through and create all the the profiles. What's the next step from there? So, if you spend any reasonable amount of time looking for scholarships, you're going to build a list of more scholarships than you could apply for. So step two is filtering that list. I use kind of a bull's eye approach where the outer ring is, is the student eligible? Okay. That's we know they're there at least on target somewhat. And then, there's kind of 5 or 6 additional criteria to where the student is kind of really in that bull's eye area. So, does it align with their profile again, something like future college major or their identity or, is it a local scholarship just for students in that state or county or city or maybe even just the high school they attend? Does the scholarship award multiple prizes? If if, you know, we talked about Coca-Cola, that one is, to the best of my knowledge, gets more applications every year than any other scholarship. At the last last year I looked it was over 200,000, but they do award, I think it's 200 prizes. So still very low odds. But there's another scholarship I recommend for, high school seniors that, awards over 4000, awards. And I had students win that scholarship every year. So if a scholarship is awarding multiple prizes, that should definitely get a bump up on on the list. Okay. So is there a ballpark figure realistically in the summer hours if someone's not dedicating eight hours a day to this? But a reasonable chunk of time? I mean, what's, what's a ballpark number of scholarships that somebody might shoot for? Well, it's really going to depend on, probably the student's age. They're, you know, kind of maturity and abilities. But, I think, let's say for any, any high school student from freshman to to senior, I think if they spend 30 minutes, even just 30 minutes on weekdays, working on scholarships, I think that's a pretty reasonable amount of time. So it's not it doesn't have to become a full time job. The the bigger question is consistency. You know, it's not 30 minutes a day for one week and then you're done. It's 30 minutes a day every week. You know, with with as few breaks as possible. Because the student, if you just make it part of your routine, like you do homework or your do your chores or whatever, those are the students who, who have scholarship success. Okay. I'm going to throw in a little executive function tip, as well. So if this is something that we're planning to do for 30 minutes Monday through Friday, it can be helpful if you're trying to establish a habit to try to do it at the same time each day. So maybe this is something that families commit to doing. In the morning, maybe in the evening when people are home, if there's going to be parental involvement. I think organization is probably going to be pretty key here. So keeping track of, you know, your list of scholarships, as you said, the visualization of a bull's eyes. Start with that. And I'm kind of thinking of funnel as well. The big list and narrowing it down. What where are you keeping those links? Where are you keeping the deadlines? Where are you keeping your status? Because maybe you've collected the links and the deadlines and you're passed partway through writing the essay for that scholarship. Where are you going to keep the status of that? I would, I would assume a, a spreadsheet, a Google sheet, something like that. I think that you have resources for that, that type of thing in and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, inside your scholarship program. But if someone is going to attempt this, you know, to try to follow the advice that you're saying here and try to attempt it on their own, like keep in mind, organization is going to be the key to success here because we keep saying this, but you can hit dead ends and that can be frustrating. Yeah. And with low frustration tolerance, sometimes you just throw your hands in the air and say, I can't do this anymore. When in reality all you needed was a spreadsheet. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah. Exactly. Yep. I that a spreadsheet is exactly what I used for, tracking things with with my son and, you know, you talked about the success. He had 23 outside scholarships and 15, 1500 bucks is all we paid for college. So, a simple spreadsheet is really all you need. That never fails to blow my mind, for sure about your son. All right, so we have the searching for scholarships, you know, dedicating some time, and then we have, narrowing that list down to something that's reasonable. And what comes from there. Step three is apply. You know, you've you've found the scholarships, you know, which ones to prioritize, and now you've picked the one you're going to work on. So now you have to apply. And it's probably there definitely is too much for me to say here on a, on a podcast about that. But just, a couple high level tips would be, first of all, follow the directions. I talked to the scholarship providers almost weekly. And they all tell me that they reject more applications than they accept because the student just failed to follow directions. One even told me it was 90% of the applications they got didn't qualify because the student failed to, you know, do one piece of it or whatnot. So simply following directions is just the most important thing to start. Beyond that, though, having a really good, what I call personal narrative, this is usually what the student plans on majoring in in college doesn't necessarily have to be, but that's where I've seen the most success. And then tying back to their past activities, achievements and experiences to tell that story. Because one of the common misconceptions is that scholarships are an award for past achievements, it's really not the case. You might make that argument for scholarships that come from colleges. It's kind of an award. But, even that's, I think, a little a little iffy. And definitely for outside scholarships. It's not about an award for past achievements. It is an aid to help the student achieve their next goal, their next goal being doing something out in the world after graduating from college. And so that's why I say that personal narrative usually, usually relates to their college major and career. Because that's, you know, why 99% of students are going to college is to to do something career wise after school. So having that strong personal narrative is really critical for scholarship success. Interesting. So if someone's listening to this right now and saying, well, I didn't achieve all these things, I haven't done all of this stuff, maybe I'm not a good applicant. What I'm hearing you say is, no, you're you're a great applicant. As long as you can prove that you have the skills to be able to achieve your goals, and then you have goals, and then you have an intention of moving forward and and you have the drive. Some people don't have the opportunity to have built all of that. Right. They're a solid, you know, resume in high schools for whatever reason. You know, opportunities are expensive. And and, you know, it depends on, you know, family situation and, and all of that access. Right? So if you're someone who is motivated and driven and you have a goal for yourself and you can articulate that in your personal statement, even if your resume doesn't, has evidence of you having achieved all of the things yet, don't not apply for scholarships. You know, who they're looking for is what I'm hearing. Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, so there are, you know, lots of scholarships that do have a minimum GPA requirement, but there are lots of scholarships that don't. You know, they might be looking for somebody who's more interested in volunteering or maybe has some leadership experience. There, I've said it before, there are scholarships for every student. It's just a matter of finding them and applying in the right way. Awesome. That gives everybody hope. Yeah, there's money out there for everybody. All right, so what that was what what separate we on was that steps. That was step three. Yep. Step three okay. Yeah. All right let's let's keep going. Well and we actually talked already about step four. And that is keeping track of everything. Tracking is is critically important. Having a scholarship tracking tool. I love what you said about making it a habit at a specific time of day. The consistency. That's very important. The one piece, that I've never really figured, which is the best place to put in which step here is, because you it's part of tracking, especially if you're going to be applying later. But it could also be part of the application process. And that is looking at the past scholarships winners. If that information is available. And it often is. So they may just post the students bio who won the last round of the scholarship. They may post their winning essay. All of that is gold. Now, you don't want to copy that, but you can see what did the student emphasize in their essay or what did the organization emphasize in the bio that they shared. And if you can align with that, you know that you at least are setting yourself up in a way that they liked before. So they're probably going to like it again, right. Yeah, that's a good point. I think I'm thinking of the students that I work with who would often I think that they many of them would get overwhelmed with doing that depth of research for all of the applications, all of the scholarships at one time, I would picture the students that I tend to work with would say, okay, I've done all my research for all of the scholarships. Just say follow all the steps that you just said to a tee. I've got my spreadsheet, and now when I go in to apply or write my essay for this particular scholarship, that would be when my students would be more inclined, probably to say, okay, well, let's look at the past ones. I agree, I if I was doing it, that's probably how I would approach it as well, because you're not going to remember that in a month or whatever it is when you get to that, that scholarship later. So it really is more of the application process. But just kind of that overall tracking organization piece is, is what I lump under step four. And it's critical. Okay. Yep. Is there another step? Dave. There is step five. And it's the most fun one. It is. What do you do when you win a scholarship. So you know, this this might seem a little silly, but first of all, definitely celebrate. I mean, it is an accomplishment, something you should be proud of and excited about. But there are still some, some steps in that, that fifth step of what do you do when you win? If you want to make sure you get get your funds? One of them is getting back to the scholarship to claim your prize. One of the things I recommend students do as part of their overall process is check their scholarship email every day. Scholarships often have a very small window. I had a student a couple years ago win one and she had to reply within 72 hours or she would have lost the prize. So staying on top of things, checking your email every day, that's part of, you know, getting that reward that you've earned and not missing it. When students start to win lots of scholarships, they need to understand how to stack them both with any merit aid they're getting from the college, maybe any financial aid they're getting from the college as well as, you know, multiple outside scholarships, last year, class of what are we. So she would have been class of 2025. I had a student who got a full tuition scholarship from the college she's at today, but she won multiple, multiple outside scholarships and so we had to work together to reach out to these organizations to say, thank you so much. We're so excited that we won this. I don't need this money next year, but I will need it for my second year for housing, and I will need it for my third year for my meal plan and whatnot. And so knowing how to do that, to get squeeze every, every penny out of the scholarships you've won is critically important. And thankfully, every organization that the student I'm talking about, worked with her and she, she got that full tuition scholarship from the college, but she has a full ride now, thanks to these outside scholarships, she won't have to pay for anything for her undergrad. What a success story. So it sounds to me like this is not at all like, set it and forget it. Find a scholarship, apply and cross your fingers. There is swallow through there's diligence with the email, which a lot of high school students I know are not checking email as much as our generation does. But that has to change. Like if you want money, you have to do the things that are required to get that. And a student who is saying, I have the work ethic and the motivation and the discipline to end and I deserve the money, you got to step up and, check your email. Yeah, claim the money, follow through. Good advice. Yeah, I we don't know this for certain, but we very much suspect that one of the scholarships my son earned that he was not their first choice. We found out so late. In fact, he he was days away from going off to college that he got got this email saying congratulations. And we know it was well past the date that they were going to announce. So we have reason to suspect that whoever did get that didn't get back to them in time, and my son was the beneficiary of it. So we're thankful for for this other student’s, you know, poor executive function skills as well. Right. Lapse of judgment. Yeah. All right. So so we just listed basically the five critical steps to have a, successful and productive summer applying for scholarships. Now, I don't know if I want to test myself going through these five. I mean, I could, but let's have a more efficient approach to this. Could you recap the five steps to a pure scholarship application over the summer? Yep, absolutely. So step one finding scholarships. Go out and find as many scholarships as you can. As I said before, that's a great, piece that the parents can really have active involvement in. Step two is filtering that list to, prioritize and apply for the right scholarships based on the student's profile. Step three is applying again, too much to say there, but follow directions. Submit solid essays that have a, an outstanding personal narrative step for tracking and keeping track of everything from a spreadsheet to checking your email every day. And then step five winning the scholarship. How do you make sure that you get everything that you've you've actually been awarded? That's awesome. So that sounds simple enough. Just follow these five steps and you will make bank basically. However, you know, like a lot of things are easier said than done. So if there are families listening to this and they're like, great, sounds good, we can't do that on our own. Or I know my child and we need a little more structure. Or maybe the family is working over the summer. The parents and they're like, my kid isn't going to do this completely on their own. what are some options that you have for families? Yeah. So I am opening up, it is my most popular program. I've done it every summer for the past several years, and I'm opening it again. It is my scholarship summer camp. It is a virtual online program. It runs six weeks. The first one starts June 1st, and there's a second option six weeks later. I'm sorry, I don't have that dates. Probably July, late July. And we run six weeks. The first three weeks are very, preparatory. So it is setting up your scholarship email. It's setting up your tracking tool. Second week is gathering all the information that you might need. Then the latter half the last three weeks of the camp, is is the more fun part, at least from my perspective. Maybe the students don't think so, but it's actually taking what we've learned those first three weeks and applying it by applying for real scholarships. So, students will will apply for actual scholarships, using this methodology, writing personal narrative essays, writing topical essays. And, the best one is in week six. They apply for a $35,000 scholarship. So, very, very exciting. Like I said, it's my most popular program. It's video based Monday through Thursdays. A new video will pop up that the student will watch. I try to keep them very short and actionable, you know, usually 5 to 10 minutes. There's you there's a little quiz afterwards to make sure the student grasp the concepts. And then Thursday evenings there will be a live session which will also be recorded. If people can't make it live. But that way people can ask questions. We can have a little bit more discussion around the previous weeks of lessons. And then for those three scholarships the students are applying for, they will be able to send me their essays, first drafts, second drafts, third drafts. Until we say this is as good as we can get, it, let's submit. So they'll actually apply for for three actual scholarships, over the course of the, the six weeks. Oh, wow. So we're not even we're not just learning how this process works, but the students are actually able to do it. They're doing this in real time, and they're applying for scholarships in that time. So they're being productive and applying the skills that they are learning. And then they also get real life feedback. Weekly on Thursdays. Weekly. Right on on Thursdays. Yeah. So Thursdays, it's it's a zoom session where we'll kind of recap what we learned during the week. There'll be time for Q&A. But then the synapse is, it's asynchronous. They will you know, in a Google doc or doc or whatever, write their first draft, send it over to me, I'll mark it up, say everything from, you know, spelling and grammar to, more importantly, the content, trying to pull out, you know, the right stories, the right, the right things to, to talk about in their essays because that the, the, the essay really is the most critical piece in the scholarship process. That's incredible. And it sounds to when the program's over that the students have the skills and they know how this five step process really works. And they. Yeah, because they've done it. And so they can use what they learned in the summer camp to proceed and to continue with applying for scholarships. Others. That is awesome. Where can people find more about this and how can they get it? Yeah. Well, I did want to say, Katie, I love so much what you do that I'm going to make a special offer for your audience. I love your, your note taking, system. And so when people sign up for the scholarship summer camp, I want to give them the note taking system for free. I love that Dave and I. Guys, in case someone's wondering where where did Dave just come up with that? Dave and I had talked and we thought this was a fantastic collaboration. We work with a lot of the same families, and I know that my students, who could use some note taking skills, are also of the age where they're applying for scholarships. So it is a it is a perfect bundle. So I'll let you carry on with me. Sure. Yeah. So very simple. Just go to scholarship gps.com/katie. You can sign up for the summer camp. Behind the scenes I say, Katie, you know, little Billy signed up for the scholarship summer camp. Open up access to the your note taking program for him. So, yeah, very, very happy to do that because I am such a fan of what you do. And I think it's it's just such a great mesh for the students to have overall academic success, not just with scholarships, but, you know, in school as well. I should mention, though, the scholarship summer camp is only for high school students. So classes as as people are listening to this class of 27, 28, 29 and class of 30, so current eighth graders rising into ninth grade can also join. Unfortunately, class of 2026 current graduates. This is not the right program for you, but I do work with, you know, recent graduates and college students. So, if they're listening and they'd like to find out more, they can reach out via the website. Perfect. All of those links that Dave just mentioned will be listed where I put all of the links, for sure. And thank you for saying when you said as well, Dave, you are always so gracious. I love having you on this show. I've been on your podcast as well and it's just these conversations. I just, I feel like I learned so much and I know the audience learns so much as well. Any fine, any final notes? Just leverage your summer. Like I said at the beginning, this is, Yes, the the students should have some time to relax and enjoy themselves. But, you know, eight to 10 to 12 weeks of doing absolutely nothing is not productive. And it's going to set the student back. So use the summer productively. Learn how to apply for scholarships, learn how to take effective notes and, next school year will will be off to a better start for you. Perfect wise words from Dave Peterson Scholarship GG, thank you for coming on to the show and having this conversation. Thank you Dave. Thanks, Katie. Well, that wraps up my conversation with Dave. I hope you found the conversation as valuable as I did. I have had Dave on the show before I said that he had come on for episode 75, and I got so many notes and tips from that episode while I was interviewing him. And the same thing happened today. all of the links that we mentioned today, including that two course bundle, Dave's Scholarship Summer camp in my note taking power system will be linked in the description box and in the show notes. Keep showing up. Keep doing the hard work. Keep asking the hard questions and never stop learning.

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Katie Azevedo

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