Full Scholarship List – Praise from a Parent
I received an awesome email a couple days ago from a parent who downloaded the Full Scholarship List. Her daughter was a National Merit Semi-Finalist. She hadn’t found any schools that would offer full-ride scholarships for national merit semi-finalists. She was so proud of her daughter for achieving such an honor, but wasn’t sure how they were going to pay for college. Then she did a web search that brought up an article I wrote on full-ride scholarships and referred to the Full Scholarship List. She took a chance on it. On the list, she found Florida A&M University (FAMU) and they offered her daughter a full-ride scholarship.
FAMU offers full-ride scholarships for in-state freshmen who have achieved at least a 27 ACT score or 1800 SAT score and have a 3.5 unweighted high school GPA. FAMU also offers full-rides plus a $500 book stipend for in-state freshmen who are National Merit Finalists, National Achievement Finalists, National Merit Semi-Finalists, or National Achievement Semi-Finalists. Out-of-state students with the same credentials earn full tuition plus fees unless they are National Achievement Semi-Finalists, Finalists or Scholars. These students will receive a full-ride plus extras.
Receiving the email from this mom validated that the hard work I put into creating the Full Scholarship List was all worth it. I felt that parents needed a resource to be able to find full-ride scholarships and full-tuition scholarships for top students. I wasn’t finding any complete list online that included all three types: national merit scholarship opportunities, automatic merit-based scholarships and competitive merit-based scholarships. Over a six-month period, I spent nights and weekends working on the list. My husband and kids thought I was nuts! I found a few partial lists online to get me started, but I had to look up every school and every scholarship online to make sure they were still valid. Then I spent time looking for additional schools that offer full-ride and full-tuition scholarships. I know there are more out there and I plan to keep looking and keep adding to my list.
I knew that charging for my list, even though it is only $2.99, would scare away a lot of interested parties, but I have a larger purpose in mind. As I explain on the Full Scholarship List page, I wanted a way for the My Kid’s College Choice website to support itself and I wanted to be able to offer a scholarship to students who didn’t have a full-ride opportunity. In the two months the list has been available, I have earned enough for the yearly maintenance of the site and I am starting to reserve funds for a scholarship. My plan is to announce the scholarship opportunity around the end of the year. I am not sure yet how big I will be able to make it, but as a parent, I know that every scholarship helps. To earn the scholarship, I will be looking for high school seniors to write an article, that I can publish on My Kid’s College Choice, about their college search experience. I will put more definition around exactly what I am looking for when the time comes.
In the meantime, I know I need to work on getting the Full Scholarship List out to a wider audience. So far, people have only found it through web searches that brought up my articles on full-ride scholarships and personal referrals. If you have any great ideas around how I can reach more parents and students, please leave me a comment.
Whether you have purchased the Full Scholarship List or whether you are just interested in my articles, thank you for your support and if I can help you further in your kid’s college choice process, leave me a comment or use the Contact Me form.