White Picket College

The Best Buy @ 15 Scholarship Program offers $1000 scholarships to students in grades nine through twelve who plan to pursue undergraduate studies in the fall after they graduate high school.

Though the amount is small, we decided to include this opportunity for free money for college because every little bit counts.  $1000 can go a long way in paying for books and other expenses.  Therefore, we don’t think you should count it out.

This is a merit scholarship, non-need-based.  Winners are selected based upon academic excellence, community service and work experience.

WPC suggests the upper middle class (UMC) student should tack this scholarship application onto the list of the other ones s/he will apply for.  The application seems simple and will take considerably less time than the Intel Scholarship, for example.  Employing this strategy will help a top-notch student earn small amounts of award money while plugging away on large amounts of college grant money at the same time.

It is best to keep a checklist of all the application deadlines, especially with a smaller scholarship like this, in case the deadline is forgotten.  WPC suggests:

• Break down the deadlines month by month for small awards.
• Then week by week.  Focus on one or two applications a week.
• To be efficient, reuse the same info for all applications, if applicable.
• Have one strong, focused essay for all applications.
• Tweak essay toward each individual award.
• If unsure about writing one strong essay, hire a writing tutor.
• A writing tutor will be worth the money for a perfect essay to use as a model.
• Hire a writing tutor from a local university.
• Make sure the tutor has experience in writing scholarship essays.
• Always leave a 24-hour window to proofread all documents and then send out.

At WPC we refuse to ignore any free money, large or small.  So if you’re a student that is higher caliber, you should have the same mentality.  Apply to everything you can!

Deadline: February 15

© White Picket College, 2010 – College Funding for the Upper Middle Class