News for May 2024
USA
Best Scholarship Websites of 2024:
Source: Business Insider
Originally published on Business Insider on April 29, 2024
By Ryan Wangman, CEPF | Apr 29, 2024, 2:21 PM EDT
Even the best student loans and other financial aid items don’t always provide enough to cover all the costs of college. Scholarships are a great way to bridge the gap, with no obligation to repay the money. Finding scholarships you qualify for can be difficult. But there are several great scholarship websites that can help you do it.
Keep in mind, however, that many colleges deduct private scholarships from the amount of gift aid they provide, reducing how much “free money” you can get from the school. That would effectively negate the work you did in seeking out and applying for private scholarships. Therefore, you should consider looking at schools that offer merit-based scholarships or provide generous packages to students with financial need.
Best Scholarship Websites of 2024
Compare the Best Scholarship Websites
We’ve rounded up the best scholarship websites for students looking to save on the cost of college, with an emphasis on those that provide a wide breadth of opportunities. Most of the sites are free to use. Some offer basic features at no cost, with an option to pay for additional functionality.
Scholarships.com
What to know: Scholarships.com uses an algorithm to pair you with scholarships you may be eligible for, with millions of opportunities available. To put the algorithm to work for you, you’ll need to create an account, inputting your current grade in school, your birthday, zip code, and email address.
You can also search through its database of scholarships yourself, filtering by criteria such as academic major, GPA, and military affiliation. The website is free to use.
Fastweb
What to know: Similar to Scholarships.com, Fastweb has an algorithm that uses your profile on its website to match you each day with scholarships you may want to apply for. Fastweb has more than 1.5 million scholarship opportunities.
Fastweb’s scholarship opportunities are updated daily, so check back frequently to see if you qualify for the latest batch. Professional scholarship researchers vet every scholarship in its database. The website is free to use.
Peterson’s
What to know: In addition to a scholarship search, Peterson’s allows you to search for grants, prizes, fellowships, and forgivable loans. Peterson’s boasts a database of more than 1.9 million scholarships, grants, and fellowships. Peterson’s has a host of resources for graduate students, including prep for the LSAT and MCAT.
The website also sponsors “Peterson’s World’s Easiest Scholarship,” which works out to two separate $2,500 scholarships, one for undergraduates and another for graduates. To apply, simply fill out a quick form. Peterson’s scholarship tool is free to use.
Bold.org
What to know: Bold.org partners with donors to create scholarships, grants, and fellowships for students who qualify. The interface is sleek, and the website offers exclusive scholarships you won’t find elsewhere.
You can explore scholarships by category. For instance, Bold.org has a tab for nursing students, women, and students from Texas. Bold.org even has a button you can toggle to search for scholarships that don’t require essays. The website is free to use.
CollegeBoard
What to know: CollegeBoard is probably best known for its administration of college entry exams and Advanced Placement programs, but it also has a tool to help you find scholarships. Its website has a database of more than 6,000 scholarship opportunities.
After you make an account, you’ll be able to search its opportunities through various filters. This includes scholarships available for children of divorced parents, non-citizens, and students who are members of some community organizations. The CollegeBoard search tool is free to use.
GoingMerry
What to know: GoingMerry will autofill some scholarship forms once you’ve input the required information, saving you time in the process and allowing you to apply to multiple scholarships at the same time. Additionally, it will help you keep on top of deadlines by sending you reminders about when applications are due.
The website is also a great source for local awards, which may be harder to find on other scholarship websites. GoingMerry even has a mobile app — perfect for students who want to manage scholarship applications on the go. GoingMerry is free to use.
Scholly
What to know: Scholly gained a premier reputation after appearing on the hit show Shark Tank. The scholarship search website with pair you with scholarships and give them a score. The higher the score, the better you fit the scholarship’s requirements.
Sallie Mae acquired Scholly in July 2023 and made it completely free for all students, families, and other users. Previously, some premium features, including personalized scholarship matches, cost money to use, with pricing ranging from $4.99 for one month to $34.99 for a year subscription.
ScholarshipOwl
What to know: ScholarshipOwl is another freemium service. You’re able to use a portion of the website for free, but you’ll have to pay to access some features, including a personal account manager and the automatic submission of applications.
While the premium service can range from $20 to $60 per month, with the highest tier you’ll have access to several hours of college admissions webinars, as well as an expert who will proofread one 500-word essay a month.
ProFellow
What to know: ProFellow is a website that focuses exclusively on funding awards for graduate and professional development. The website has a database of more than 2,400 opportunities that are available.
ProFellow also offers expert workshops, courses, and other events on how to create an application that stands out. It is free to use, and is a great place for people who have already completed their undergraduate degrees to begin their search. ProFellow is free to use.
Colleges Have a New Source of Protest on Their Hands: Irate Parents
Frustrated parents are pushing back against university responses to the Gaza protests
By Clare Ansberry, Oyin Adedoyin and Katherine Hamilton | May 3, 2024 12:03 am ET
Colleges already have a student revolt on their hands. Now their parents are rebelling, too.
Parents paying as much as $90,000 for their sons and daughters to attend elite universities are angry and frustrated with colleges’ responses to the Gaza protests—on both sides of the political divide. Whether their kids are protesting, counterprotesting or trying to stay out of it, parents are demanding that schools do more to keep them safe and learning.
“They are not getting the education they expected and paid for,” says Zev Gewurz, a Boston real-estate lawyer whose daughter is a senior at Barnard College in New York City.
Parents are preparing to push back financially. They are requesting tuition refunds where classes have been canceled and contacting college counselors to ask how to get their money back. Parents are also threatening not to donate in the future.
College officials say they are trying to keep students safe, adding security measures while also trying to respect students’ rights to demonstrate. But tensions have exploded in the past few days.
The tensions are further fraying the relationship between colleges and parents. They add to a drumbeat from more families questioning the value—and hefty price tag—of a college education. The re-evaluation is especially significant for college seniors, whose four years were disrupted by Covid.
Rising criticism
Gewurz says his daughter at Barnard was scheduled to deliver her final thesis this week, followed by a luncheon. The public presentation and guest lunch were canceled, along with in-person classes.
Gewurz says he is writing a letter to the school’s president, criticizing what he views as the school’s inadequate response to what he describes as hate speech. In the meantime, Gewurz texts his daughter several times a day.
“I try to tell her that this is not her fault, and that she is living in a moment in history and needs to keep her head high,” he says.
Barnard, where the estimated cost to attend this academic year is about $90,000, said that “many of us are disappointed” by the restrictions and cancellations as the semester ends.
Other parents say the schools haven’t done enough to protect the protesters.
Sarah Fanning’s daughter was taking a final when some of her peers who were participating in an encampment were arrested at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va.
“To charge them with trespassing when they pay to live there is ridiculous,” Fanning said. The university, which said 12 arrests were made, including nine students, said it doesn’t seek punitive action toward its students.
Fanning, who lives in Alexandria, Va., has written emails to school administrators asking them to apologize to the students and allow them to peacefully protest. While she hasn’t received any responses, Fanning is reconsidering donating to the school in the future. If the administration publicly supports the students, she would donate more, but escalation against the students would make her less inclined to give, she says.
“Events that do not follow instructions, attempt to disrupt classes or activities, or endanger the health, safety, and security of our campus community will not be allowed,” UMW President Troy Paino said.
Part of families’ ire stems from the years of work that many put in even before college, with well-off parents hiring tutors and counselors to try to boost their children’s chances of landing a spot at a coveted university.
Christopher Rim, founder and CEO of Command Education, a company that helps students complete competitive-college applications, says that in the past week he has received calls from about 25 parents with students at Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles—both sites of demonstrations in recent days— some wanting full or partial refunds from the colleges their kids attend.
“Physically blocking their child from attending class or a lecture hall is 100% not what they signed up for,” Rim said. “They are beyond upset at what’s going on.”
Navigating campus tensions
Parents are also trying to figure out how much guidance to give their kids about navigating what’s happening on campus.
Kim Digilio, whose son is a sophomore at UCLA, is in a Facebook group with other parents of students there. They are sending in screenshots of conversations with their children, updating each other about what’s happening on campus and making calls to the chancellor as they grow frustrated with the university’s response, she says.
For her part, though, she is trying not to get overly involved. She hasn’t reached out to campus administrators and is trying not to say too much to her son.
“I’m trying to act as a safe place to have him share information without piling back in,” she said.
Debra Lynn Eden says she receives several texts a day from her daughter, a junior at Princeton, describing protests that were largely peaceful until this week when students were arrested. Though her daughter isn’t involved in protests, Eden fears that the tensions on campus are causing stress. And Eden is encouraging her to stay away from the action and avoid any media on campus.
“It’s all a giant distraction to the students who are trying to complete their studies in a high-stress environment,” Eden said.
Lana Shami’s daughter is graduating from the University of Southern California, which has canceled its large main stage commencement ceremony. Shami is flying anyway to Los Angeles with other family members for the graduation, which they will mark by going out to dinner and inviting some of her daughter’s friends to go along.
“There will be no celebration at the university where we paid an exorbitant amount of tuition for the past four years,” she says. “It’s a huge letdown.”
Originally published on WSJ. on May 3, 2024
GPA Evaluation: Source: Forbes
Here’s How Ivy League Schools Evaluate Student GPAs
May 13, 2024
A stellar GPA is one of the building blocks of a successful Ivy League application, and as the school year winds down, many students are anxiously seeking to give theirs a final boost. While most students and families understand the importance of a 4.0, few are aware of how top colleges evaluate student GPAs or what they look for when reviewing student transcripts. Though your GPA may seem to be a simple metric, nothing could be further from the case—colleges consider more than just the number, accounting for complexities such as diverse grading systems across schools, trends in grade inflation, and level of course rigor.
Here are three important facts to keep in mind about your GPA as you choose your courses:
1. Your GPA doesn’t directly compare to that of students at other schools.
One common misconception among college applicants is that they can compare their GPAs with those of students attending different schools. However, the GPA is not a universal metric but rather a reflection of an individual’s academic performance within their specific educational environment. As a result, comparing GPAs from different schools is like comparing apples and oranges. For instance, some schools offer a plethora of AP, IB, and honors courses, while others may have limited options or offer none at all. Additionally, the weight assigned to AP versus honors versus regular classes varies from school to school. So, your GPA may not hold the same weight as those of your peers at different schools, even if you all have 4.0s.
Admissions officers understand that schools vary in their rigor, curriculum, and grading policies. Therefore, they evaluate your GPA in the context of your high school, considering the courses offered and the academic challenges presented. Instead of fixating on how your GPA compares to your friends’ from other schools, focus on challenging yourself and taking advantage of all the opportunities available to you at your school.
2. GPAs across the country are inflated—and colleges know it.
The last few years have seen surges in high school student GPAs nationwide. While GPA inflation has been on the rise over the last decade, average ACT composite scores are steadily declining. “For the 1.4 million ACT test-takers in the high school class of 2023, the average composite score on the exam was 19.5 out of 36, the lowest score since 1991,” according to The New York Times. The parallel differences, coupled with academic differences across schools, suggest that GPA must be considered in tandem with multiple other factors. Simply put, an A no longer means what it used to on a transcript.
Ivy League and other top colleges are well aware of this trend and evaluate student GPAs alongside other metrics such as standardized test scores and AP exam scores in order to better understand a student’s academic skill sets. While some Ivy League and other top schools remain test-optional, they still place emphasis on course rigor and the context offered by your high school profile in order to understand the grades on your transcript.
3. Colleges will recalculate your GPA.
Given the abundance of variables in GPA calculations, colleges often recalculate the metric to create a standardized baseline for comparison between students across different schools. The recalibration may involve adjusting for variations in grading scales or the weighting of honors, International Baccalaureate (IB) or Advanced Placement (AP) courses. The University of California system, for example, calculates students’ UC GPAs by converting grades to grade points (an A is equivalent to 4 points, a B to three points, etc.) for classes taken between summer after 9th and summer after 11th grade, and adding one point for each honors class, and dividing by total classes taken to yield final GPA.*
Other colleges also take additional factors that impact academic performance into consideration, and envelop GPA into a broader, holistic consideration. For instance, the Harvard University lawsuit over affirmative action revealed that Harvard rates students on a scale of 1–6 (with one being the most desirable) in academic, extracurricular, athletic and personal categories. A student’s GPA and test scores are folded together into an academic score which “summarizes the applicant’s academic achievement and potential based on grades, testing results, letters of recommendation, academic prizes, and any submitted academic work.”
This process aims to provide a fair and equitable evaluation of students from different educational backgrounds. Keep in mind that Harvard considers not only your grades, test scores, and academic rigor in this score, but also “evidence of substantial scholarship” and “academic creativity,” which can make the difference between a 1 and a 2 in the scoring system. These systems underscore the importance of taking advantage of every opportunity, showcasing your unique personality and creativity, and seeking to maximize opportunities to improve your performance within the academic landscape of your institution.
By understanding the complex way by which colleges evaluate students’ GPAs, you are better equipped to present a comprehensive and competitive picture of your academic achievements on your transcript and stand out in the competitive Ivy League admissions landscape.
*Variations exist for in-state versus out-of-state students and by high school. Be sure to calculate your GPA following the UC issued guidelines.
Originally posted on Forbes.
