Use your community service to win scholarship money

Turn your community service into scholarship money

Whether you collect canned goods for the homeless or sing for lonely senior citizens, volunteer work makes you feel good. This is a noble use of your time which can lead to scholarships that recognize your commitment to your community.

Many students mistake community service as being measured by hours spent per week or doing traditional service club activities. But serving the community can take many forms including being a coach of a little league team or helping to tutor at a community center. What's more important than the number of hours you serve is the contribution that you make. Don't assume that you cannot complete for a service-based scholarship just because you haven't committed thousands of hours.

For example, Kohl's department stores offers the Kohl's Kids Who Care Scholarship Program. This program rewards 2,000 students who serve the community with awards of up to US Dollars 5,000. I recommend that all students with community service apply for this award.

AmeriCorps sponsors the Presidential Freedom Scholarships to promote and recognize leadership in service and citizenship. Applicants must be high school juniors or seniors who have contributed at least 100 hours of service within the past year, demonstrate outstanding citizenship through their service and participation in other community activities and plan to attend an eligible institute of higher learning.

You don't have to be a great athlete to win a scholarship

You might think you need to be the next Michael Jordan or Mia Hamm to win an athletic scholarship. While superior athletic skills certainly wouldn't hurt, the truth is that you don't have to be an athletic superstar to win a scholarship. Naturally you need to be gifted to get an athletic scholarship to play football for the University of Southern California or Ohio State since they are top ranked teams, but you do not necessarily have to be the best for many other college teams.

Even at schools with strong athletic programs, the sport that you play may not be as competitive. This means that the caliber of athlete they are looking for will be much different than for the nationally ranked programs. Many students have won partial or even full athletic scholarships even though they were not even the best athletes at their high school.

The key to getting an athletic scholarship is to be proactive about contacting the coaches at the colleges you are interested in before you apply. Send an email or letter to coaches and tell them that you are a prospective applicant and are also interested in playing on their team. Be ready to send a portfolio of your athletic accomplishments and also make sure to get a letter from your current coach that will attest not only to your abilities but also to your character as an athlete.