DON’T RELAX YET

Students should consider applying for local scholarships in second semester

GRAY MARTENS COLUMN

College applications are a pain. They’re the final hurdle of high school for most students, and whether you’re filling out two applications or 12, it’s rarely a fun process.

First, you have to fill out the seemingly endless Common App information and activities fields, then somehow sum yourself up in 650 words or fewer in the Common App essay. Then comes the tidal wave of “optional” supplemental essays for each school (Pro tip: they’re never really optional). After all of that, even the thought of additional scholarship applications is enough to make anyone tired. These can seem like just one more extra step to an endless admissions process, but in reality scholarships are just as important as any other step in that process and it’s important for you to apply to as many as you can.

College is ridiculously expensive at the moment. Thirty years ago, you could get a summer job at a fast food restaurant and pay for a significant amount of your college tuition. Now, unless you were able to snag an upper management position at 17, it’s a lot harder to pay for that tuition.

Need-and merit-based scholarships from colleges can be very helpful, but they won’t always be enough to cover the cost, especially with the budgetary strain many schools have felt in the COVID-19 pandemic. In Indiana for example, public universities all over the state received a 7% budget cut. Because of these funding cuts schools will have less money to give out for necessity and merit-based scholarships, making smaller local scholarships all the more essential this year.

Local scholarships are a great option to consider. There are a ton of

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Read a story on college and how students at CHS are mitigating the cost of it via scholarships or financial aid

Scan this to access the hundreds of local scholarships offered by the Carmel Education Foundation

them. They each average about $500 to $1000, and cover a wide variety of demographics and areas of interest.

Applying to these can be an added bit of work, especially after going through the rest of the application process, but it’s absolutely worth it. Individually these scholarships seem small, but they’re easy to apply to and are often relatively easy to earn. One $1000 scholarship may not make much of a difference, but five-10 of those sure will.

In the end, it’s tempting to just sit back and let the senioritis take over. It’s been a long year, but it’s worth it to put in that little extra effort to apply to these scholarships. It might make a big difference for you. H

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Gray Martens at gmartens@hilite.org This column was originally published online on Feb. 15, 2021

SCHOLARSHIPS

See which college scholarships students can apply to due Feb. 21 and later

$30000 Doodle for Google Competition Due Feb. 26

$25000

$20000 Students must create a Google Doodle based on how they are uniquely strong.

Live Más Scholarship Due Feb. 21

$15000

$10000 Students ages 16 to 24 years old must submit a short video about the story of their life passion. Mathworks Math Modeling Scholarship Due Feb. 22.

$5000

$0 Juniors and seniors must work in teams to solve a real world math problem under time and resource restraints.