Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
Fishing for Financial Aid
How to Find $Money$ for College
When I served as a program assistant for afterschool college prep programs, we focused on academics. Do students attend the right schools? Have students taken college prep courses? These are the courses that are a baseline for admission into 4-year accredited colleges. Have students taken standardized exam prep classes? Have they scored well enough to be admitted into their dream school? Is there a curated mix of extracurricular activities that align with the college application and essay requirements? Can you say “yes” to all the above and that you checked all the boxes?
What if your child secures acceptance letters, but the financial aid package doesn’t quite meet your expectations? That’s where the Financial Aid Bait Box comes into play!
I know that a Financial Aid Bait Box is a valuable part of being fully prepared for college. During my time as a college admissions counselor, I worked with my colleagues to focus on awarding scholarships to a select group of amazing students. The top students will almost automatically be considered for institutional scholarships. That’s good news for the top performers, especially if they cover all cost. Realistically, financial aid awards often fall short of covering most or the total cost of tuition. I’m expanding the college readiness conversation to include building a bait box. College readiness should include a Financial Aid Bait box, which contains resources for attracting financial aid.
Think of the Financial Aid Bait Box like a well-prepared toolkit for fishing—it’s all about being ready to catch those great opportunities when they come along! This box should hold valuable resources that will help attract the financial aid your student or child deserves. A bait box keeps you ready to go fishing when the opportunity presents itself.
There is an informal, seasonal calendar for scholarships, especially for students graduating from high school. The application due dates are often close. With a complete bait box, you and your student will be ready to apply. If you’ve ever gone fishing you know that catching fish involves having the proper bait and timing. Whether you are working with a sophomore, junior, or senior high school student, you should have a bait box.
I host Fishing for Financial Aid workshops. When students attend, I spend time asking about their current email address and talk with them about updating their email addresses. Expressive emails addresses are great for friends and family, i.e iamcookiemonster@xxx.com. For the bait box, you need a basic, dedicated email address to use for scholarships, fellowships and college applications. Do you have your email address already?
Fishing for Financial Aid
How to Find $Money for College
When I served as a program assistant for afterschool college prep programs, we focused on academics. Do students attend the right schools? Have students taken college prep courses? These are the courses that are a baseline for admission into 4-year accredited colleges. Have students taken standardized exam prep classes? Have they scored well enough to be admitted into their dream school? Is there a curated mix of extracurricular activities that align with the college application and essay requirements? Can you say “yes” to all the above and that you checked all the boxes?
What if your child secures acceptance letters, but the financial aid package doesn’t quite meet your expectations? That’s where the Financial Aid Bait Box comes into play!
I know that a Financial Aid Bait Box is a valuable part of being fully prepared for college. During my time as a college admissions counselor, I worked with my colleagues to focus on awarding scholarships to a select group of amazing students. The top students will almost automatically be considered for institutional scholarships. That’s good news for the top performers, especially if they cover all cost. Realistically, financial aid awards often fall short of covering most or the total cost of tuition. I’m expanding the college readiness conversation to include building a bait box. College readiness should include a Financial Aid Bait box, which contains resources for attracting financial aid.
Think of the Financial Aid Bait Box like a well-prepared toolkit for fishing—it’s all about being ready to catch those great opportunities when they come along! This box should hold valuable resources that will help attract the financial aid your student or child deserves. A bait box keeps you ready to go fishing when the opportunity presents itself.
There is an informal, seasonal calendar for scholarships, especially for students graduating from high school. The application due dates are often close. With a complete bait box, you and your student will be ready to apply. If you’ve ever gone fishing you know that catching fish involves having the proper bait and timing. Whether you are working with a sophomore, junior, or senior high school student, you should have a bait box.
I host Fishing for Financial Aid workshops. When students attend, I spend time asking about their current email address and talk with them about updating their email addresses. Expressive emails addresses are great for friends and family, i.e iamcookiemonster@xxx.com. For the bait box, you need a basic, dedicated email address to use for scholarships, fellowships and college applications. Do you have your email address already?
Introduce Yourself (Example Post)
This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.
You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.
Why do this?
- Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
- Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.
The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.
To help you get started, here are a few questions:
- Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
- What topics do you think you’ll write about?
- Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
- If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?
You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.
Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.
When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.
In the Know: "Need to Know" & "Good to Know" Information 