Seniors Hope For Scholarships to Cut Down Debt
As seniors across the nation near the end of their seventh semester, more and more students are applying for academic and possibly athletic scholarships letting seniors consider committing to more expensive schools than they had originally been thinking about.
Scholarships are one of the most important gateways for seniors planning on entering college whether it is a community college or a Division 1 school. Scholarships are usually labeled either academic or athletic, and can be found ranging from $250 to $50,000 per semester.
Drinan believes that every student planning to attend college should apply for a scholarship.
“They sometimes seem like a lot of work, but putting in the small amount of work for a scholarship now will help you so much in the long run,” Drinan said.
To coincide with Drinan, counselor Kari Erickson thinks most scholarships are not made for a specific type of student unless it has stated certain requirements.
“There are scholarship opportunities for all types of students in all pathways following graduation,” Erickson said.
Erickson strongly suggests that all seniors look at the scholarship page on the HUHS website. The website contains a list of scholarships as well as four vetted databases available to seniors to aid them in their scholarship search.
The website links to a letter of recommendation form and three different scholarship pages. The first link contains state and local scholarships, the second link leads to a list of school specific scholarships and the last link gives information about national scholarships.
HUHS does not only supply information about scholarships. The high school also funds scholarships through the HUHS Scholarship Foundation giving seniors more chances to earn more scholarships.
HUHS awards over 50 scholarships every year and strongly encourages all seniors to apply. Along with these scholarships, HUHS also has a blood drive scholarship where all senior donors get put into a drawing for a scholarship.
Local businesses also oftentimes give out scholarships. Drinan believes that businesses do this as a way to ensure that the future will be in good hands.
“Businesses want to help high schoolers in their community,” Drinan said. “So scholarships are a way to invest in their town's students.”
This is also believed to be the reason why larger businesses such as Google and Coca-Cola sponsor scholarships. However, large corporations also sponsor scholarships to get good press, so helping out the future may not always be their main goal.
“Scholarship sponsors also make such a huge difference even if they don't know it,” Drinan said. “They could be helping students go to school who otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford it.”
According to Scholarships, there are over 600 scholarships worth a minimum of $100 and a maximum of $1,000. These 600 are made up of a majority of academic scholarships along with a few athletic scholarships in the mix.
The website, Scholarships, also shows 711 scholarships worth $1,001 and $2,500, 700 worth $2,500 to $5,000, 337 worth $5,001 to $10,000, 254 worth up to $25,000 and 96 worth up to $50,000. All of these scholarships are due by mid-January at the earliest and throughout the rest of 2021.
Many of the available scholarships require essays in the application process. Some, however, do not require essays at all while others may require multiple essays.
The Foot Locker Scholar Athletes Scholarship requires students to provide a letter of recommendation as well as write two 500 word essays. One essay must be about leadership and teamwork while the other must be about a certain moment that shaped their plans for the future.
Student-athletes are strongly encouraged to apply for this scholarship as it would be a big help to many being worth $20,000.
Although the Foot Locker Scholarship is limited to student-athletes, the vast majority of scholarships are not athletic and senior Katie Drinan is one of HUHS’s students who have received multiple scholarships. Drinan has applied for multiple scholarships including the Herb Kohl Student Excellence Scholarship back in fall, Elks Most Valuable Student Scholarship and plans on applying for the Wisconsin School Counselor Association Scholarship.
