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Lesson 5: How to Create Your Family’s Scholarship Advantage
Congratulations! You’ve officially made it to the last lesson!
I would bet money that if you’ve made it here – you’re serious about your family earning enough scholarships to pay for college. You’re probably also serious about understanding and identifying what your family can do as you move forward.
One thing that will guide you is having an understanding of your family’s Scholarship Advantages.
Once you know your advantages…
- Your family CAN earn scholarships.
- Your family HAS thousands millions in scholarships waiting on them.
But the issue is that you may not know:
- How your family can earn scholarships.
- Where to find the money that has your name on it!
I’ve discovered that there are 3 advantages that can give you a leg up on the competition. I waited until today to teach them to you because they’re critical to your success as you move forward.
In fact, they will dictate how you help your student maintain their Scholarship Profile, therefore influencing how your family finds and applies for scholarships in the future.
Scholarship Advantage #1: Legacy Levers
Your student’s Scholarship Profile will be influenced by everything about your family. Your family’s legacy, history, traditions, and values all count for something. As things continue to influence your family (e.g. sending a second child to college, losing your job, moving, etc.), make sure that they’re being added to your student’s profile because these things influence your family’s legacy and create a unique advantage.
Defined by Google, a lever is: “A rigid bar resting on a pivot, used to help move a heavy or firmly fixed load with one end when pressure is applied to the other.”
Right now, you’re the rigid bar and this lesson is the pivot. The “heavy or firmly fixed load” is paying for college. And the work you’re putting in now and into the future is the pressure and force that’s being applied.
By spending time on this part of their profile, you’ll be utilizing your family’s uniqueness to create a system that others cannot copy because your legacy is specific to your family.
Scholarship Advantage #2: Academic Intertwines
Your student will need to understand how their academics are intertwined with their additional activities. Too many scholarship essays ask about education for this to be overlooked.
We’ll work through this so that you understand.
Let’s say that the essay prompt is: How have your academics and activities influence your college goals?
Cynthia may explain how her internship is providing her with experience and also allowing her to understand the course materials better. Therefore, going to college is a progression of her activities and academics.
John, on the other hand, may hate school because of the competitive nature, cliques, and additional stressors involved with high school. However, he loves playing video games online with other gamers because they’re not worried about how someone is dressed, class rank, or who’s dating who. He may discuss how he enjoys the freedom of online gaming and looks forward to a diverse college environment.
If you can help your student grasp this concept, they’ll always be able to position any scholarship essay on a topic that they choose or enjoy. Now there’s so much more to this, but if they can begin to make the link between how what they do influences other areas in their lives, you’ve got an advantage.
Scholarship Advantage #3: Goal-Getter Leverage
Last, we have to look at your student’s long-term goals.
See how their scholarship applications can be used to build their portfolio or resume.
For example, I had a student who wanted to start her own magazine. The scholarships we applied for had a specific focus on her upcoming projects, experience she could use in her future internships, strategy for her future magazine, and more that related to her goal.
I also had a student who wanted to work for a Fortune 500 company after graduation. Since he was a computer science major, we focused not only technology scholarships, but also on business-based scholarships that allowed him to showcase his design skills. Work we believed would impress any future employer given the programming and design experience that could be used in that position.
Creating a Lasting Scholarship System
By now, I know that you have a solid place to start. However, I’m more concerned with where you finish.
It’s easy to quit. It’s easy to become overwhelmed. It’s easy to allow life to take over.
- Who will be there to make sure that you remain committed?
- Who will ensure that you’re utilizing a tested strategy when applying for scholarships?
- Who will review the content of the essays your son or daughter submit to ensure they’ve created a competitive advantage instead of a liability?
I don’t want the last several days (or weeks) we’ve spent together to go down the drain. I want to make sure that you take action and implement what you’ve learned into your scholarship system.
With that you may be wondering, “What’s the best way for us to get this done in as little time as possible?”
If that sounds like you, I want to invite you to work with us to create your student’s Scholarship Profile. We will spend focused time together crafting scholarship tools that could create the same scholarship success I and my students have had.
If it sounds like something you’d be interested in or you know you need help, just click here to learn more.
Today’s Action Items
- Begin to assess and create your Scholarship Advantages.
- Commit to spending the next 7 days, working on your Scholarship Profile.
- Make sure that you’ve joined the Scholarship Talk Group on Facebook so that you can post your progress.
With that my friends, you’ve made it to the end of this course. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, found value in the information, and most importantly believe that scholarships are possible for your family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to me or my team. We’re here to help. I mean that!
To your family’s scholarship success,
