Episode 21: The Tea on College Scholarships

In this episode of The Urban Schoolhouse, we uncover the real truth about finding scholarships for college and why many students miss out on free money. We break down common myths, share practical search strategies, and explain how to spot legitimate scholarship opportunities. You’ll hear tips on writing stronger applications, avoiding scams, and staying organized throughout the process.  The episode also explores how persistence, timing, and creativity can open doors to unexpected funding sources. Whether you’re a high school student, parent, or college applicant, this conversation will help you approach scholarships with confidence and clarity.

Our opinions/views are our own and not representative of our employers. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hello and welcome back to the Urban Schoolhouse where school is cool.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

I am Chelsea Weisinger and Ebony Weisinger. And today we are going to be talking about scholarships, um, just everything about scholarships where you can find them, um, how to apply, how to stay organized and diligent, and the different types of scholarships as well, and how to stand out in your applications because I feel like with scholarships, that's the most important thing. The whole premise is like, why do you deserve this? What makes you different from the other applicants? So, and also going along with that, common mistakes that a lot of folks make in their applications that might hinder them from getting it. So, we're gonna be tackling it all today.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yes, yes. Scholarships are generally for high schoolers, so this episode is probably gonna be for a high schooler. So if you know a high schooler who is searching for scholarships at this time or applying for scholarship, then um this episode is probably going to be for them. Yes. Let us start by talking about what scholarships actually are and what types of different scholarships are offered. The definition of scholarships for me is monies that go towards education that do not need to be paid back. So basically free college dollars versus a grant, which is also free college dollars. However, um grants usually come from the federal government, and scholarships can come from various sources. And then versus loans, which are monies that come from likely the federal government, but have to definitely be paid back. That's the big thing is to try to avoid uh financial burdens by getting loans as opposed to scholarships or grants that don't have to be paid back.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Athletic scholarships, talent-based scholarships, and identity, or what we would call community-based scholarships. So um I'm gonna just break down the difference between those. So merit-based scholarships are based on scholarship. Actually, having grades that complement a scholar, usually the grade point average for merit-based scholarships are in the 3.0s or higher. Um, usually around 3.5, maybe um less. But I believe that honors is generally 3.0 and above.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

What do you think about okay? So, like, you know how most universities have honors colleges. So what kind of GPA would you need for that? Because usually those come with some sort of scholarship too, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Yes, and it depends from school to school. Um, I know that I had like a 3.5 in my honors college. So I'm thinking that a 3.5 um would get you into uh honors college at most schools, but again, that might vary from school to school, and some schools might not even have an honors college.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Based on prestige, yes, because you could probably make honors college at one university, so much the other one.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Yeah, exactly. So there you have it, and that's something that you can always talk to your college about um when you're exploring college opportunities. Yeah, there's people that are literally for this. Absolutely at every college, yes, and they'll tell you exactly what the standards are to meet their um qualifications for honors college. So, need-based scholarships are basically scholarships that are granted based upon a lack of resources. So if you have a low-income home, or if you uh have a parent who is maybe unemployed, or something like that, the scholarships are all gonna be different based on need. Um, then that is how you qualify for need-based scholarships. And sometimes you only need the need, you don't need the actual scholarship as you would in a merit-based scholarship. Um, and when I say scholarship, I mean like a high grade point average. Um, a need-based scholarship might um select the candidate with a high grade point average, however, I believe a need-based scholarship would focus more so on the need of the student.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

So if you have a good great need and you're going to an expensive college, I think that those types of um scholarships would be best. Yeah. Um, the other type of scholarship that I like to mention today is uh athletic scholarship. And athletic scholarships usually are very good scholarships. Um, sometimes they are a full ride. Um they do guarantee you the money for you to attend college, however, you're also signing up for the team sport that you are. You're a student athlete. You are a student athlete. Yes, and that's your job. Your job isn't just to go to school, like you have to play whatever sport. So if you have a basketball scholarship, then likely you're obligated to play basketball for the entire time you're receiving the scholarship, which is the trade. So um, I know that student athletes have to go through a process with the NCAA um in order to become student athletes. So you want to definitely talk to your school counselor or maybe the athletic director, even a coach about those requirements because um there are requirements, but again, the main thing is that you have the athletic stature and they want you to be a part of the athletic teams at the college. So usually it takes a lot of practice and a lot of also um time that you sacrifice away from you know friends and family um to make sure that you are meeting the academic prowess necessary in order to gain scholarships uh status. Lastly, I want to uh talk about the identity slash community-based scholarships. Identity-based scholarships are basically uh scholarships that explore your personal attributes. For example, if you're left-handed, there may be a scholarship for students who are left-handed, or if you write with both hands. There's a word for that. Ambidextrious. Thank you. If you're ambidextrous, I'm sure that there is some type of scholarship out there in the world for you, scholarships for people who have done certain things in the community, like um, say for instance, if you were a Girl Scout um or a Boy Scout, or say, for instance, you um were on the debate team at your school and there's a debate team type scholarship out there. Um, there's plenty of scholarships I could sit here and that are like more kind of niche.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yes. Um, and I would also say going back to like identity scholarships, because that's the one that I had experienced. Um when I was going to grad school, there there's a program at the University of Michigan, the School of Social Work, that was called Um New Leaders in African-Centered Social Work. So it was geared towards folks who wanted to uh practice social work uh through an African culture lens, so that meant like African ideals such as community, um, power, like things like that, like taking those really um old and new, I guess, African ideals and implementing that into our work, and how do we do that? Um, so that's what that was for. And also, one thing that we can mention is that some scholarships, like you get them, but usually um they have a little bit of a catch. So even with mine, like not just the um athletic scholarships, but uh with the new African Leaders one, I had to take uh one or two classes during my time there, and then it was also up to everyone or that were specific to that program, and then um everyone who was in the program also had to be involved with the uh student-led organizations, so we had Association of Black Social Workers, and then it was another organization called Black Radical Healing Pathways. So, because we were recipients of this um scholarship, we had to basically run those programs, um, those organizations and put on different events and things like that. I did the Association of Black Social Workers one. Um, so that was an essay. Um, I didn't need letters recommendation for that one, um, but I just did an essay and I basically just talked about why I wanted to be a social worker, what it meant to be a black social worker, especially in this day and age, and how can we kind of blend it all together? Um, you know, specifically for social work. It has a very systemic, it has an oppressive background. So, me being a person of color going into this field that has a problematic history, like what can how can we kind of flip that, even if it's minimal change, like just anything. So that was my that's what my essay was about. But there's a lot, there's a lot, like um most schools they'll have like people of Jewish heritage, um, Asian American, Pacific Islander, they might have indigenous, um, they might have LGBTQ plus, um, yes, black, um, Hispanic, First Gen, women, women, um, a lot. Yeah, so so those are all I need, yeah. Any identity based.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

You can eat glasses sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

I mean, I should have gotten that so many.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Oh, and I forgot about a huge one. Well, let me just talk about community-based first before I go back. Um, community-based is basically if you have community service hours, the more community service hours the better. I know Comcast has a community leaders scholarship and also community leadership, not just um service. So if you have started a community-based program or you serve a community-based organization on a regular basis, like NAACP or um United Way, or uh if you serve by uh doing food at cleaners or anything like that, those are all community-based scholarship type uh service acts. Okay, so um the more service hours you have the better, and you need to also make sure you're documenting your community service hours when you when you get them, get a letter, get a um on the letterhead of the organization that you work for, and um how many hours of service that you've done, and um, so you can always have that, and we'll talk about organization later, but you always want to keep that uh around. The last one, the one I forgot to talk about was the talent-based scholarships. So, talent-based scholarships are based on talents that you may have, uh, so that they might be art scholarships available for you if you are an art student and you're very talented, or if you are a student who like I did say debate, so that could uh fall up under that. If you're talented in some type of area in in school, what other uh areas? Uh dance, dance, scholarships, choir, drama, fan, ban, absolutely, drama, something like that. So if you've developed talents and you've been doing something since you were a small child and you know that you're talented, and you know that you have a competitive edge, there are scholarships that you could look at based off that. So that's good. Chelsea was a dancer, so I was kind of hoping that she would go to college and still dance, but that uh pretty much ended in high school for her, even though she did do some dancing in in college. So those are the type of talents that you could explore. The next section is about where to find scholarships. So, where do you think students could look to find scholarships?

SPEAKER_00 13:42

The first place I would go was probably just the I was gonna say probably the school's website. Usually have that's my scholarship, it's usually just right there. That's um, but then while you're in high school still, definitely connect with your school counselors, which is what my mom does. Um, and that is where they probably know a bit about where to find them again. Going back to like the niche ones, um, I feel like they usually have a good grasp on those, and then you can also just um contact whatever schools you're looking at, definitely, and talk to someone who works with scholarships, find the person that deals with the money, yeah, and then and then you talk to them. Um, also I feel like if you kind of connect with the people at the scholarship office or whatever it's called, then when your application does roll through, they might they might still recognize you, which um can be a little boost. So definitely do that. You can also probably just Google it.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Maybe those are all good options for for students.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Earlier, just like if me, I could look up like college scholarships for black girls who are seniors. I don't know if you want to do like identity-based or you can do like the uh English major or yeah, oh yeah, for different majors.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

They do especially like girls in STEM. Oh yeah, it's a big one. It's a huge one. Um, if you're going into engineering or math or science, definitely look at STEM um scholarships, especially if you're a black girl. So, some other popular uh ways that students find out about scholarships is um different websites that are out there, and so when we do our resources, we'll post the different websites that we talk about today. But FastWeb is a great website for students to sign up for in order to get scholarship information emailed to them, which is really good because it's not like you're dedicating one day to looking at scholarships, you get to look at them as they actually come out because they email them to you. So if you sign up on FastWeb, then scholarships can come to your email, and then you'll have different ones to look at on a continuum while you are applying. So fastweb is f a stw.com, and then there's also scholarships.com. That's pretty straightforward. You can go on scholarships.com and um there's interest inventory where you can take little quizzes and then they'll help you find scholarships that suit your needs and your abilities and just where you are as a student. There are so many different types of scholarships. I cannot stress that enough. I don't want students to ever believe that they can't find a scholarship. No matter what your situation is, there is a scholarship for you, even if it's a small scholarship, and we'll talk about that more later. And then also College Board, which has an immense amount of information for students. On the College Board website, you can find out about SATs, also advanced placement exams that we've talked about here, and then there's also a place for fine scholarships. And um, the College Board website is is involved, so um, you would want to like to spend a lot of time, a little bit of time, chunk of time on that, reading through it and finding out all of the advantages from it, not just the scholarships, but different information and and tips as far as your testing on the no, I'm saying SAT exam, not ACT exam. With those three platforms out there, those are ones that students can go to immediately and help themselves find scholarships to apply for. Other options would include community-based organizations. Some parents belong to community-based organizations, some students belong to them. Um, many community organizations do afford scholarships for students as they are looking to advance uh students, especially students of color. Um, when it comes down to sororities and fraternities, we are definitely out there trying to make a difference and uh make sure that students have money to attend colleges. Some churches also offer scholarships to students who attend their church and maybe sometimes students who do not. So you can also ask around if you do attend churches, or if you want to ask around at um your aunt, your uncle's church, your godmother, your godfather's church, or just people you may know, not just your church. Um, because scholarships are all around you. You need to just be able to locate them. And also employers. Um, your mom's or dad's employer may actually have scholarships, and some students have employers that also may have scholarships. Like if you work in McDonald's, and um you might want to ask about scholarships because they actually do have some scholarships. Yeah, they do, they don't have a really good connection with college, absolutely, and many other employers too. Um, so if you have a job, you should inquire as to whether or not your job has a scholarship. And um, I think that you could definitely benefit from that because the scholarship committee may know you or your parent because it's a smaller pool of applicants, okay? So I think that those are some of the best types that you could apply for. Now let's talk about tips to avoid scholarship scams. What do you think? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Um, because there are scammers out there. I'll just make sure whatever website you're on is legit. Um, make sure the requirements actually look legitimate. They're not asking for any like super, super personal information. Um, you know, just security network. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, usually I feel like because most scholarships are also usually named after people, so you can look the people up, see if it was real, see if what they see if what um whatever mission they had, see if that was real. And they have scholarship recipients of the past, if you look it up. Yeah, they probably have like videos or pictures or something like that, or they'll say, like, oh, this many people, you know, received this. Um, so yeah, if there's like no background information, it doesn't end in dot com or dot org or um what do colleges usually end with? Edu. Edu, something like that, yeah. So I will look at the ending too of whatever website it is. That's good tips.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Um, another tip is you are never needing to pay to apply for a scholarship. I think that's the biggest one. You're not paying to apply for a scholarship. The scholarship application itself should be free. And there are scholarships that you could come across or scholarship advertisements that say if you pay this, then we'll find you scholarships. That can be a scam. Um I wouldn't waste money trying to find scholarships, and I think that's the biggest thing for me is that um outside of the tips that Chelsea gave just now, do not pay to apply. So that's the biggest tip that I can come up with for you. Other than that, apply, apply, apply.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Yes. And then moving on to ensure that you stand out and how to apply, definitely stay organized. Um for me I could just usually just make like a Google Doc and I would write whatever I needed to do within the deadline and I will organize it by which had the closest deadline because then you know you want to try to do those first. Absolutely. And then also what does each scholarship requ require? Um, some stuff you can repeat, uh, I guess like maybe let's recommendation. You can maybe I mean to be honest, like when I applied to college, I use the same essay. I would just kind of tweak it a little bit based off of the school I was going to. So you kind of gotta like learn how to work smarter, not harder in those situations. Um, so yeah, you might be able to use like the same chunk of the essay, but maybe tweak it based off of what you're trying to go for. Um, and I would save all of them and I would give them all like different names so that I wouldn't mix up, you know, um any of the essays for a different school or different scholarship. Um, writing strong essays, I would definitely start early and then kind of just tweak it over time because you might read something one day and it sounds super good, and you read it a couple days later, you're like, oh, it sounds horrible. And also make sure you get different eyes on it. Because what makes sense to you might might not make sense like an outside reader, so you want to make sure that whoever reads your essay can fully understand what you're trying to get across. Like if you gave your essay to a stranger on the street, can they understand what you're trying to say? Um, so that's I think that's pretty important to um get different eyes on it, tweak it over time. Cool, and you have to be open to constructive criticism because when I was doing my stuff, oh my papers got torn apart, and I thought they were so good, and they were good, but it's just like they could be better. How could it be better? Yeah, um, and it takes time, so you know, give yourself time, yeah. Give yourself time and then recommendation letters. Which we've talked about rec letters before, but again, you want to go with the people that know you the best, and also bonus points if um they relate to whatever you're applying for. Like for me, I was applying for my grad school program. I had my professors from like my family studies classes because that's kind of the closest thing I had to social record. Um, so teach so so people who connect to what you're trying to apply for that already have um a job or experience in that field that also looks good. Um, people that know you as a person and as a student is is best. Um yeah, highlight extracurriculars, highlight leadership. Leadership is huge for like even the one I had new leaders, like you're being a leader, like most scholarships want someone who's going to represent the scholarship and in a good way and make other people want to apply to it because even when you're doing the scholarship or when you're in the middle of receiving it, probably gonna make you do something to advertise for it, you know. Like they want good people who have high standards, high, high achievement to represent scholarships so people can uh people apply for it. Absolutely because some scholarships people aren't applying, and um the money might you know go away for whatever reason, you know, if it's like a federal program, like McNair Scholarship is a federal program. Um, so it's like if kids aren't applying for it, the money's not being used, they're gonna take it. So you want to make sure, you know, that's all good. Um, and apply to multiple, like don't overwhelm yourself and shut yourself out. But what would you say is like a sweet spot number for scholarship applications?

SPEAKER_01 25:47

It's a numbers game. So since it's a numbers game, the more you get out there, the more the chances are that you will say this doom. And honestly, there's no cap on the scholarship dollars. I mean, if you have the time, if you have the time and you need the money, I would say however many scholarships you can apply for. I wouldn't necessarily just apply willy-nilly. I would have a plan. I would apply to the ones I actually thought I could get. Um the ones that I actually meet the requirements for and maybe exceed the requirements for. Um, and I would definitely lead with all the things that you spoke about in terms of trying to stand out by staying organized, never missing a deadline, writing strong essays. One thing that I would like to say about that is make sure that your essays are grammatically correct. You know, we talk about you know making sure that you get your application in on time and making sure that your letters of recommendations stand out and they're good for you. But if you write an essay that's full of grammatical errors, it just is it makes you stand out in all the wrong ways. Um, so apply to as many as you can. Like Chelsea said, you can reuse your essay, you don't have to um reuse it word for word, you change it up. Every application is going to be different, every application is gonna ask you different questions. So um, just as long as the essay itself, the core of it, is representative of who you are and what you've been doing since you got into high school, um, you can tweak what else you want to add. And that is goes the same for people applying for jobs. So if you could do this for essay, you can do the essay writing for applying for scholarships, and you can do it uh to apply for jobs. Don't you agree? It's pretty much the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah. Perfect. You wanna, I mean, you know, yeah, you're basically just like selling yourself. Like, yes, why am I the one for this?

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah, not the two. Exactly. So, common mistakes to avoid missing deadlines. Never ever miss the deadline. Most scholarships will not consider you if you miss the deadline, they won't consider your application because it's simply not fair to the other applicants who did meet the deadline. So you definitely don't want to send and submit an application that's probably perfect and worthy of a scholarship late because you won't be able to get it in most instances. So make sure you did what we talked about before, which is to say organize and keep the deadlines. I like to keep a file folder and do the applications in chronological order, just like what Chelsea said. Another common mistake to avoid is not following directions. Basically, read the directions before you begin your scholarship application.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

And make sure you're hitting all the it's like kind of like a rubric. Make sure you're hitting every you're answering every single thing that they're asking you. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

And if it's something that does not apply to you, don't just leave it blank. Actually indicate that this doesn't apply and why. Because skipping it, it may come across like you didn't complete the application or that you didn't know what to say. You don't want to appear like that. So if you have a question that is something that does not apply to you, make sure you indicate that on the application itself. Again, read the directions. Some applications will say black ink only. If it boils down to something that's small, you would want to know that it you wouldn't want that to keep you from getting in uh scholarship money. So follow the directions. Another common mistake to avoid is reusing a generic essay. Now we talked about reusing essays, but not generic essays. What's a generic essay? I don't know, because mine were not right. I don't know. Like what a generic essay you've probably seen more essays than me. A generic essay is something that you send to every unless you meant like the topic. Like that's why I was like, I don't know, like the topic is a general topic, and you send that general topic to every application, no matter what they're calling for. Talking about something very generically, like not giving details, not exploring further. Diving deep. Yeah, honestly, a generic essay is going to not talk about who you are as a person, and it's not gonna allow the reader to get to know you. So use an essay that's specific, not generic, that is going to allow the reader to actually get to know you and why you should be the one who walks away with that scholarship money. Does that make sense? Awesome. Never ignore small scholarships because they add up. So sometimes you might have someone who's off or an organization or a person even who is offering a $250 scholarship. And that's books right there.

unknown 31:01

That part.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

I mean, honestly, a lot of those are textbooks. Yes. A lot of stuff or help with textbooks at least. And a lot of students may say, Well, my fees are so expensive and my tuition is so high, my books cost so much. What can $250 do for me? It's not just that $250, it's the $250 plus whatever else you can muster up from other organizations and scholarships.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

So they add up. Would you say that most people ignore smaller ones because they have that mindset? So it might be easier for you to even get the smaller ones because people only aim for the big ones.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Exactly. And a lot of the smaller ones go unclaimed, like what you were saying earlier. And a lot of scholarships I've I've personally heard about that go unclaimed every year because there are no applicants. Yes, because students are trying to get $5,000 scholarships and ten thousand dollar scholarships. When if you could get several $250 scholarships, it might equal up, then it adds up. So never uh ignore those. And like Chelsea said, it might make it even easier for you to get it. And if you are applying and you're in the mode of applying, applying is very easy because you already have your letters of recommendation, you already have your essay written, you've applied to so many scholarships. After a while, you've answered every question imaginable. If you're taking um copies of everything that you're sending out, you can go back to the answers that you've already formulated, and then you can apply for even more scholarships without it having to take too much of your time. Lastly, I just want to point out a few things about scholarships. That one, scholarships are competitive, but they are doable. As long as you stick with it, you should be able to submit a sizable amount of scholarships, at least somewhere between 15 and 20. Um, the more you put out, the more you get. So you can just think about that so it's doable. And the next thing is to sh um to be encouraged and to share your experiences with the parents, your uh teachers, your friends that have gone to college or are in the same position as you. That way you can encourage each other, stay persistent, and give each other the confidence that you need to make it through the scholarship application process. So, hey, that was pretty much it. I mean, I think we covered everything.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

A lot of good information here. So we are going to wrap it up here. Um, please make sure to follow our social media. We are on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Urban Schoolhouse Podcast. Um, I will be posting the different scholarship resources on our Instagram, it'll be in their resources highlight so you don't want to miss that. And yes, we will see you guys next time on the Urban Schoolhouse where school is cool.