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by Emily

Photography is a fun hobby, but can be a difficult profession to break into. Whether you're going for studio photography or professional photojournalism, much of your success depends on building a portfolio and gaining exposure for your work.

Amateur photographers who are interested in receiving not only a college scholarship, but also industry recognition and professional internship experience, should be sure to check out this week's Scholarship of the Week, the College Photographer of the Year contest.

In addition to scholarship money, the student with the best portfolio will also receive the opportunity to intern with National Geographic, a potentially career-launching award. Winners in individual categories are also awarded equipment and educational opportunities from Nikon, the Poynter Institute, and the Missouri Photo Workshop. With sponsors including National Geographic, Nikon, and the National Press Photographers Foundation, entering the College Photographer of the Year competition will help you gain exposure in the photography and photojournalism industries, and you may get some cash out of the deal, as well.

Prize: First prize: $1,000; Second prize: $500

Eligibility: Undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in any college or university worldwide are eligible. Entrants may not have worked as professional photographers or paid interns for longer than two years prior to entering the contest.

Deadline: September 27, 2009

Required Material: A scholarship application, available on the College Photographer of the Year website, and a portfolio of photos taken between September 1, 2009 and August 30, 2009. Complete application instructions will be available Sunday, August 30.

Further details about the application process can be found by conducting a free college scholarship search on Scholarships.com. Once the search is completed, students eligible for this scholarship award will find it in their search results.

by Emily

The rise of the online auction service eBay has prompted people to attempt to sell just about anything they can affix a price to. So while it's not surprising to find some pretty out there listings from time to time, it's still not every day you see a student auctioning off a stake in his future.

A college student in Georgia attempted this week to fund the last 18 credits of his Master of Business Administration degree through an unusual source: selling a share of his potential earnings on eBay. The student, Terrance Wyatt of Clark Atlanta University, has been paying for college with financial aid for the last six years, but according to his eBay listing, he found himself $10,000 short of his funding needs this year.

So, being a business graduate student, he began looking for a way out of this financial quandary by marketing himself and seeking investors in his future. While his listing has been removed (eBay frowns on the selling of intangibles or the use of the site for fundraising), Maureen Downey's Get Schooled blog for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the partial text of the ad, as well as more information about the student.

While eBay may not have been the best venue for Wyatt's ad, his idea of seeking investors in his future is not so far-fetched. Recently, a number of peer-to-peer lending sites have launched, allowing students and individuals to arrange for anything from straightforward student loans to buying shares in a student's future success. These alternatives to alternative loans are still operating on a small scale and relatively unknown, but students like Wyatt may find the funding they need through such programs.

There are also scholarship opportunities for MBA students, and really anyone who has come up a bit short on financial aid.  Business school scholarships and scholarships for graduate students could easily bridge the gap for students who need more money and want to avoid student loan debt. Depending on your school and your program, you could even land a fellowship or assistantship that could fund your graduate education.

Yesterday, President Obama announced a new focus on community colleges in a speech delivered at Macomb Community College in Michigan. Obama pledged $12 billion to improve facilities, increase enrollment, and boost graduation rates at the nation's community colleges, a shift in education policy from the traditional focus on K-12 education and public universities. In addition to the proposed federal funding increase, Obama's speech also called for community colleges to graduate five million more students by the year 2020.

Community colleges have already seen increased enrollments and publicity in recent years.  According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, community colleges saw the greatest enrollment boom since the 1960s during the first half of this decade. The current economic downturn has prompted even more first-time college students and unemployed adults to enroll at community colleges this academic year. Community college officials and the Obama administration hope that the increased attention paid to community colleges will prompt more students to consider enrolling, either as a path to a career training degree or certificate, or in order to transfer to four-year colleges.

Beyond Presidential endorsement, there are many other incentives to pursue a degree at a community college. Tuition is typically much lower at two-year schools than at private colleges or state colleges, and courses are often offered with the scheduling needs of working adult students in mind. Additionally, numerous scholarship opportunities exist specifically for students pursuing two-year degree programs. Community college students can do a free college scholarship search to learn more about funding opportunities available.

by Emily

 
1. Applicant must be a registered Scholarships.com user. Creating an account is simple and free of charge.  After you have created an account, conduct a free scholarship search to view and apply for this award.
 
2. Applicant must be a US citizen.
 
3. Applicant must be a current undergraduate student or a high school senior who plans to enroll in a college or university by fall 2009.
 
4. Applicant must have indicated an interest in one of the following majors:  
    
   • Allopathic
    
   • Ambulatory Health Care
    
   • Audiology
    
   • Biology
    
   • Biomedicine
    
   • Chemistry
    
   • Chiropractic
    
   • Dental Assistant
    
   • Dentistry
    
   • Family Practice
    
   • Forensics(Medical)
    
   • Genetics
    
   • Health Care Administration
    
   • Health Education
    
   • Internal Medicine
    
   • Maxillofacial Radiology
    
   • Medical Assistant
    
   • Medical Lab Technician
    
   • Medical Office Specialist
    
   • Medical Technologist
    
   • Medicine
    
   • Microbiology
    
   • Neural and Behavioral Science
    
   • Neurosciences
    
   • Nursing/Nurse Practitioner
    
   • Nutrition Studies
    
   • Obstetrics/Gynecology
    
   • Occupational Therapy
    
   • Oncology
    
   • Ophthalmology
    
   • Optics
    
   • Optometry
    
   • Oral Radiology
    
   • Orthopedics
    
   • Orthotics/Prosthetics
    
   • Osteopathic
    
   • Pediatrics
    
   • Pharmacology
    
   • Pharmacy Technician
    
   • Physical Fitness
    
   • Physical Therapy/Rehabilitation
    
   • Physician’s Assistant
    
   • Podiatry
    
   • Psychiatry
    
   • Psychology/Counseling
    
   • Public Health
    
   • Radiology
    
   • Respiratory Care
    
   • Science (Health)
    
   • Speech/Language Pathology
    
   • Sports Medicine
    
   • Therapeutic Health Technician
    
   • Veterinary
    
   • Vision Rehabilitation
    
     
   
   
 

Both for students starting college for the first time in the fall and for undergraduate students returning for another year, textbooks are too often an unwelcome and unexpectedly large expense. With your scholarship awards and hard-earned money already going towards tuition and room and board, it's difficult and unpleasant to have to shell out well over $100 for a book you're unlikely to even enjoy reading. There are ways to ease the pain of college textbook purchases, though.

Start Early and Get It in Writing: With classes starting up in August or September at most schools, your professors and the bookstore staff probably already know what books will be needed for fall, even if the textbook section of the campus bookstore isn't open for business yet. If you have your fall schedule figured out, now is a good time to start tracking down textbooks. First off, get a book list for each course as early as possible. This could take some doing, as not all professors in all departments have the courtesy to make book lists and syllabi available on a course website. Typically, professors have to get lists to the bookstore, though, and the bookstore is generally supposed to make this information available to students. If you can't find this information anywhere, don't be afraid to ask your professor through a polite e-mail.

Comparison Shop and Buy Used: With book list in hand, make note of prices at the campus bookstore, any off-campus textbook stores in the community, and popular websites that sell new and used books. Try to find the best deal, and be sure to factor in shipping costs and how long it will take the books to arrive. While the used book stacks are always the first to go at the bookstore, this isn't the only place used books are available. Check local used bookstores, as well as online retailers. I've found books for literature classes at library sales, yard sales, and thrift stores too, so be on the lookout if you happen across any of these. There's nothing like picking up a $15 text for 15 cents.

Find It for Free: Got friends or older siblings who may have taken similar classes? See if they hung onto their books and could lend you one or two. You may want to try posting flyers in your dorm and common areas on campus, or utilizing free online classifieds for your campus and community. The end of the semester is often the best time for this, but it could still pay off now. Don't forget the campus and public libraries, either, especially if you have the option of checking out a book for an entire semester, or if you will only need a book for part of the term. Most colleges participate in pretty generous inter-library loan programs, and some let students keep books or renew books for fairly substantial lengths of time. If you can't borrow, you may also want to look into renting. While not free, textbook rental services are less expensive than purchasing new books, and you don't have to worry about trying to sell the books back at the end of the semester.

Apply for Textbook Scholarships: Many scholarship opportunities allow winners to apply costs towards any school-related expenses, including textbooks. Additionally, several scholarship providers offer students money specifically for buying books. Some are local scholarships and others are major-specific, but they are out there! Do a free college scholarship search today to find some textbook funds.

As our annual Resolve to Evolve scholarship essay contest draws to a close and we move closer to the time of year when a number of other scholarship competitions begin accepting applications, we thought it would be a good time to review an often overlooked aspect of applying for scholarships: the actual act of submitting your scholarship application.

By applying for a scholarship, you are making contact with someone who could potentially award you money, so you want to make sure that your application makes a good first impression before the reviewer even gets to the content.  At the very least, you certainly do not want your application to wind up in the discard pile due to a failure to follow the contest's official rules. While official rules for scholarship opportunities can often come across as dense and full of legal language, you should still take time to review them and ensure your application complies before you spend the time, money, and effort involved in creating and submitting a scholarship application.

A good idea is to make a note for yourself of the requirements for each scholarship for which you intend to apply. Print off sheets or make a spreadsheet on your computer. Get organized. We suggest including the following items in your list of rules to note:

Eligibility Requirements: This may seem like a no-brainer, but before you apply for a scholarship, make sure you're actually eligible to win. Pay attention to details like age, grade level, and enrollment status, since your answer for these could be different from what you think, depending on the scholarship provider's cutoff dates. For example, a scholarship could ask for "currently enrolled" students as of summer 2009, but if your first class starts during the fall term, you may not be eligible to apply. If you are not sure whether you are eligible based on the official rules, it doesn't hurt to contact the provider and ask.

Length and Format of Submission: Once you've made sure that you are eligible to apply, make sure what you plan to submit is eligible to win. Your 20-page scholarship essay may provide a brilliant analysis of the subject matter, but if the upper limit for the contest is 800 words, you are not going to win a scholarship with it. Your scholarship application also can't win if you forget to provide appropriate contact info or include required items, so make a list of what you need and check off each item as it goes into your application packet. Similarly, you'll want to pay attention to any rules about file format, typeface, and other details that may disqualify you, or at least generate the impression that you didn't carefully read the rules.

Submission Method: Does this scholarship contest ask for applications to be submitted via e-mail, via a form on their website, or via postal mail? Do they request that you use a specific mail carrier, or avoid using others (some scholarship providers will include stipulations such as sending your application only through the United States Postal Service)? Do they want you to label your submission in a particular way or address it to a particular person or office? All of these questions are important not only to make sure your application gets to where it needs to go, but also to demonstrate your interest in the award and your ability to follow instructions.

Deadline: If your essay is to be submitted online, make note of the exact time of day at which the contest ends. Is there a time zone indicated in the official rules? You don't want to find yourself searching for a scholarship submission form on a website at 11:50 PM PST when the contest closed at 11:59 PM EST. If your esay needs to be submitted through the mail, check whether the application deadline is a postmarked by date or a received by date.  For example, our Resolve to Evolve Essay Contest requires that applications be postmarked by July 31, so students who are sending them overnight on July 30 are unnecessarily paying more for postage. Meanwhile, students who attempt to submit an application for a scholarship with a received by date of July 31 would not want to simply stick a stamp on it today and hope it's still accepted.

In the end, your application will still be judged primarily on its merit, provided it meets basic requirements.  However, closely following rules for each contest and showing that you have a legitimate interest in the scholarship as more than just a potential source of easy cash will improve your chances of winning scholarships.

The fall semester is just around the corner, and in addition to the start of classes, students are also beginning to gear up for scholarship application season, the time from late fall to late spring when the majority of scholarship applications are due. If you are just starting your scholarship search, there are a number of things to keep in mind when deciding which awards to apply for. The size of the award, the application deadline, the amount of work required, and your likelihood of winning are all criteria you likely use in evaluating awards. One other thing to think about before putting together an application, though, is whether there will be any costs associated with the scholarship contest.

Every scholarship application will have some degree of cost associated with it, whether it's postage, time, or the costs involved in creating your application materials (for example, printing an essay or filming and editing a video). However, some scholarship applications are going to be more costly than others, and when a scholarship charges an application fee on top of the time, energy, and money you're already putting into it, it should be cause for some careful thought.

Scholarship opportunities are generally seen as altruistic offers made by organizations that want to help students succeed in college. Sure, many scholarships have a promotional nature, as there are few better ways to attract interest in a company than by giving something away for free. However, some companies actually charge students to apply for scholarships. For example, we came across one scholarship essay contest that offered a $500 award and charged a $15 application fee. The scholarship provider boasted of receiving 10,000 applications in a year, meaning they hauled in $15,000 and only gave away $500. Unless they're spending over $14,000 promoting the contest and paying people to judge the essays, it's reasonable to believe they're profiting off the scholarship in more ways than just boosting traffic to their site. Not necessarily the most altruistic endeavor, huh?

This isn't the only example of a scholarship contest charging a seemingly unnecessary application fee. Offers like this aren't necessarily scholarship scams, as legitimate awards are offered to people who apply. However, why would you pay money for something when there are so many other ways to get it for free?

by Agnes Jasinski

If you haven't heard already, today may be the day you find out whether you've been accepted to your first-choice college or university, as April 1 is the notification deadline for many of the most selective schools across the country. If the news you've gotten so far hasn't been the best, though, or if you come home to see a slimmer envelope than you'd hoped for, know that you're not alone. Many of the most famous and familiar faces out there were rejected from their top picks. (And no, this isn't an April Fool's joke.)

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal took a look at the company students with rejection letters will be keeping, and the examples they found should make any dejected high school senior feel just a little bit more hopeful. Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate in medicine, was rejected twice from Harvard Medical School, at one time counseled to join the military instead. There's a decent-sized list of famous faces who have been rejected from Harvard. "Today Show" host Meredith Vieira and broadcaster Tom Brokaw were both rejected from the Ivy; Vieira instead met a mentor at Tufts University who got her into journalism. Warren Buffet, currently one of the richest people in the world, now describes his rejection from Harvard as a mere "temporary defeat," according to the Journal. Ted Turned received dual rejection letters from both Harvard and Princeton University, eventually attending Brown University, where he left on his own terms to join his father's billboard company - a company he has since turned into a media empire.

If you didn't get in everywhere you wanted to, don't be too discouraged. It's rare that an incoming freshmen hasn't had to deal with at least one rejection letter. Check out the New York Times' blog for their ongoing feature of students' experiences this admissions season. Those students are not only dealing with good news, but making tough decisions on whether those number-one choices were really the best fit, or only the top picks in their college searches because of their ranks and reputations.

This is also one of the most competitive years in terms of admissions rates, as more students are applying to the most selective schools than in years prior. Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania, for example, have seen percentage increases of applicants in the double digits over the previous year. Both of those schools have admission rates hovering around 14 percent, which seem like tough odds. So expand that net when you're choosing a college, because there could be a diamond in the rough out there that you haven't yet considered.

by Emily

While most scholarship application deadlines occur between January and March, a number of large scholarship awards for high school seniors have deadlines that fall much earlier in the academic year. To make sure you're not missing out on major sources of college funding, be sure to start your scholarship search when you start your college applications, if not sooner. If you haven't gotten around to applying for scholarships yet, check out these awards with approaching deadlines for motivation. You may want to mark them on your calendar and clear some space in your schedule to apply.

Horatio Alger National Scholarship Program

Deadline: October 30

Dollar amount: $20,000

Who qualifies: High school seniors who plan to enter college next fall and to pursue a bachelor's degree. Students must be U.S. citizens with grade point averages of 2.0 or higher and critical financial need (typically, a family adjusted gross income under $50,000).

Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation

Deadline: October 31

Dollar amount: $20,000

Who qualifies: Current high school seniors planning to enter college in the fall. Must have a minimum high school GPA of 3.0.

VFW Voice of Democracy

Deadline: November 1

Dollar amount: $30,000

Who qualifies: Any high school student in grades 9-12 who composes a taped response of 3-5 minutes to the question, "Does America Still Have Heroes?" Entries should be submitted through your high school or the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

Intel Science Talent Search

Deadline: November 18

Dollar amount: $100,000

Who qualifies: High school seniors who have individually completed a research project in science, math, medicine, or engineering. More information on qualifying projects is available on the contest website.

AXA Achievement Scholarship

Deadline: December 15

Dollar amount: $25,000

Who qualifies: High school seniors who plan to enroll as undergraduate students at a two-year or four-year university. Winners will be chosen based on outstanding achievements in school, work, or their community.

These are only a few of the scholarships for high school students in our database, and only a few of the awards with upcoming deadlines. For more information about these and other scholarship opportunities, conduct a free college scholarship search. If you qualify based on the information you provided, you will see a link to the award in your search results.

by Emily

The idea of the broke college student is a well-worn cliché, conjuring up images of extreme money-saving measures.

Thrift store clothing, Dumpster-dived furniture, and dinner from the manager's special aisle or the 99 cent store are all stereotypical trappings of the budget-conscious college student. One student in New York recently managed to come up with a creative and envelope-pushing way to save money, however. Brian Borncamp, a senior at the University at Buffalo's North Campus in Amherst, New York, recently decided to save money on housing by building himself a cabin in the woods near campus.

After months of sleeping in stairwells, Borncamp was 80 percent finished with his cabin when university officials persuaded him to give up the effort and make alternate housing arrangements, according to The Buffalo News. The student had compared himself to a modern-day Thoreau with his decision to live in the woods, but claimed his decision was initially motivated by financial concerns. He realized in May that he was unable to pay for school and pay rent, and thus decided to live outdoors.

Once he began construction on an 8' by 10' cabin, the university intervened, offering him temporary housing, a campus job, counseling, and other assistance, according to a statement issued by UB's Vice President for Student Affairs. Borncamp initially refused, prefering to go it alone, but announced this week that he'd made other arrangements and would be vacating his campsite.

While this is an inventive solution to college budget concerns, cash-strapped students don't need to resort to camping in the woods or residing in homemade structures.  Additional assistance is available for those in need of additional financial aid, and a free college scholarship search can help you find it. For example, if building your own cabin or emulating a reclusive author appeals to you, you might find yourself well-suited to win a design scholarship or an English scholarship.