National Scholarship Month
Student Success Agency — November 2019
Did you know that 9 out of 10 of our agents have received scholarships for college!? Our agents are Gates scholars, Burger King scholarship winners, and have even received athletic scholarships! Even further, our current group of agents has been awarded over $2.8 million dollars in scholarships! With so many of our agents receiving scholarships, our team is equipped and excited to help students and your program find and apply for all types of scholarships- big or small, academic or talent-related, local or nationwide!
Keep reading to learn about how you can support students at your program level, hear from some of our incredible students about their scholarship success with their agents, and see how we can collaborate to provide opportunities for our students!
Help Students Score Scholarships!
November is National Scholarship Month! With college application deadlines approaching and scholarship applications live, it’s important for us to collaborate and help our students take advantage of all of the opportunities they have to receive scholarships!
While you’re sourcing local scholarship and financial aid opportunities for your students at your school or program level, here are some additional ways and resources to engage your school community in the search and application of scholarships:
- Remind students to “Talk to Their Agent” about scholarships! We focus on scholarships and financial aid with students at every grade level- it’s never too early to start applying!
- SSA also has on-demand tutoring Specialists who will help your students write and edit their scholarship essays— tell your students to ask their agent for additional support if needed!
- Share any scholarship or grant opportunities your program has with SSA so we can have our agents promote these with your students (see more below in SSA Collaboration).
- Host a scholarship application night or luncheon at your school and provide incentives for those who attend! Ask local businesses for donations for the incentives!
- Ask local businesses and employers if they provide scholarships for students in your community, or if they’d be willing to start one for your program or school!
- Source local scholarship opportunities for your students and remind them that even if they’re smaller amounts, the pool of applicants is also much smaller, increasing their chances of being awarded!
- Post local scholarship opportunities on your school or programs social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) — shout out to our partners at Nevada GEAR UP for this idea! Even more…share those accounts with us so we can share the announcements with our agents and have them promote these scholarships!
- Encourage your school’s counseling office to keep a website or profile of these local scholarships for easy access for students!
- Check out College Board’s education professional website for more ideas on how educators can support in the search of local scholarships.
- Encourage your students to research the scholarship application deadlines for the colleges and universities they are applying to. The majority of all scholarship money is disbursed by colleges. Scholarships can be awarded college-wide or by department, and eligibility can be based on factors including academic merit, financial need, intended major, and ethnicity.
- Have students create a profile for online scholarship search engines such as Fastweb or Scholarship.com that will narrow down scholarship choices for students based on their interests and achievements!
- Encourage students to use College Board’s Scholarship Search to look for scholarships geared specifically for them based on personal attributes.
- Encourage students to ask teachers, coaches, and other personnel in your schools and program to provide letters of recommendation to your students to have ready for the scholarship applications that require them.
- Remind students to apply for scholarships big and small, and ones that have essays and ones that do not require essays like some of the ones on Unigo’s website. The more they apply to the better!
- Encourage families to use a net price calculator to determine approximately how much they will need in financial aid and scholarships to afford college (Try out College Board’s NPC HERE!).
- Celebrate your students’ success with scholarships by inviting sharing their stories via social media, inviting SSA to feature a student, or contacting local media sources to highlight their success!
SSA Student Scholarship Highlights: Daniela Gutierrez + Makade Talbot
Daniela Gutierrez, a New Mexico native and first-generation college student, is on a journey to become a nurse practitioner in the emergency department — and she is doing it at no cost. Click the link below to read our interview with Daniela and see how her SSA Agent helped attend college tuition-free!
Tuition-Free College: Meet Daniela Gutierrez
Makade Talbot is a former GEAR UP student from Utah who had a dream to become a magician. His agent, Brett, helped him turn those dreams into reality through networking and leadership opportunities, and now Makade attends Southern Utah University as a Presidential Ambassador with full-tuition scholarships and other scholarships stacked on top. Even further, Makade is also now an Agent with Student Success Agency and is able to share his expertise and knowledge with his students! How cool!? Click the link below to watch a video of Makade’s story.
SSA Collaboration — Send us your scholarships and our agents can help!
With so many of our agents receiving scholarships, our team is more than equipped to help students find and apply for all types of scholarships! If you have a local scholarship opportunity or scholarship or grant list for your school or program, please share it with us so our agents can encourage their students to apply and support them through the application process! We will get the opportunity out to your SSA students on the same business day!
CLICK HERE to submit a scholarship! *This form can be submitted at any time of the year.
CONNECT WITH US- SSA Educator Facebook Page
We would love for you to join our SSA Educators Facebook Group HERE.
You can join from your personal, school, or program account, and the page is a space for our incredible educators of SSA to collaborate, innovate, share, and celebrate!
Let us celebrate and share the scholarships your students are receiving! Send us a link to your social media account or a short write up about your students so we can post them on our social media page!
