The Key to a Scholarship: Be Fearless

Dare to win!

"Applying for college scholarships requires you to risk putting yourself out there," says author Kristina Ellis in Confessions of a Scholarship Winner . Here are some of her favorite tips for winning the funding you need to go to school. The first: Be Fearless! "I've found a certain amount of fearlessness evident in people who succeed, and especially in major scholarship winners. That passion and burning desire to ﬁnd success motivated me in my scholarship quest, and it can surpass all the fears or doubts that try to hold any student back." Does being fearless mean that you’re never afraid? Absolutely not. It just means reaching deeper within—past the doubts—to ﬁnd the courage to overcome whatever might be getting in your way. You may get rejected sometimes, but if you don’t put yourself out there, you won’t win anything. So give yourself a chance! Fearlessly put yourself in a position to succeed . . . and see what happens!"

Dare to win!

FOLLOW DIRECTIONS For most every adventure in life, a roadmap exists to guide you to your destination, developed by people who have successfully traveled the path before you. They’ve already learned how to navigate the twists and turns of the journey; they’ve discovered the best route to arriving at your intended location on time—all you have to do is follow their directions. Yet especially in the area of college scholarships, students and their parents often don’t even know that a map exists! Rather than wandering in circles, hoping to find a little cash for college, why not get informed? Getting directions from a fellow traveler can keep you from wasting time and running out of gas. And in the case of the college scholarship adventure, it can also mean graduating from college debt-free!

Dare to win!

SELL YOURSELF! "When I was ﬁlling out my college scholarship applications," says Kristina Ellis, "my mom always said, 'Sell yourself!' I didn’t really understand until I got knee-deep in the process. What she meant was, act like a salesperson in this one important area." Whether you are seeking free money for college, a new job, or a work promotion, this advice works. However, if you are humble or shy by nature, you are probably inclined to downplay your accomplishments. But if ever there is a time for students to put their best foot forward, says Ellis, their scholarship application is it! Why don’t you try it? Think of yourself as a new product and scholarship committees as potential investors. Your goal is to convince those investors to invest their money in you! You and your education are worth their investment! So sell them on it!

Dare to win!

CREATE YOUR OWN OPPORTUNITIES If you want to stand out from the crowd, don't wait for someone else to open the door to possibility. Create your own opportunities! This is especially important for students who want to stand out in their scholarship applications. For example, during Kristina Ellis's sophomore year of high school, she put together a shoe drive for Haiti and Tanzania—two countries where many people die each year because parasites enter their bodies through their feet. Ellis spent a few hours making ﬂyers and phone calls to get the word out, and then a few hours each week to manage the project. That minimal time commitment not only potentially saved several lives but it enriched hers as well. In the end, Ellis won more than $500,000 in free money for college, enough to pay for her schooling all the way through her PhD. "Because nobody else had that activity on their application," she says, "it helped make mine unique and memorable in the eyes of scholarship committees." You too should brainstorm creative things you can do to make yourself a more desirable scholarship candidate. If you are struggling to come up with ideas, sit down with your family and friends. They may be able to help.

Dare to win!

WORRY ABOUT YOURSELF She was ranked number 32 out of 182 students in her senior class based on grade point average. Twelve of her fellow graduates had ﬂawless 4.0s. With competition like this just within her own small school, how could she ever hope to win against thousands of college scholarship applicants from across the country? Was applying for scholarships a waste of time? These are the questions that Kristina Ellis asked herself as her senior year of high school drew near. As it turned out, not one of the students in her graduating class won more scholarship money than she did, even though she always felt like the underdog. "If I had allowed myself to worry about the 31 classmates ahead of me, I would never have won any scholarships," she tells students in her book, Confessions of a Scholarship Winner. "So don’t allow yourself to be intimidated by your peers or your circumstances. They have no part in determining your capabilities or your scholarship potential. Only you can do that." Her advice? Rather than worrying about the competition, why not put that extra effort into learning how to best prepare yourself for success? If you focus on what you can do, the results will take care of themselves.

Dare to win!

EXPRESS YOUR QUALITIES "I've had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing several major scholarship recipients from all types of backgrounds," says author Kristina Ellis. "While most of them seemed to have nothing in common at first glance, as I spoke with them, I discovered what tied them all together: each one possessed certain 'scholar qualities' that positively inﬂuenced how they approached life, their passions, and their futures." These qualities—character, leadership, teamwork, volunteerism, work ethic, purpose, and initiative—are what almost every scholarship program seeks in its winners. In fact, they are keys to success in any endeavor! For students in particular, be sure to keep these scholar qualities in mind as you’re ﬁlling out your application—and ﬁnd ways to express them if they are true of you. Otherwise, scholarship judges may not realize that you are exactly what they are looking for.

Dare to win!

SHARE YOUR STORY! One great thing about telling your story is that it has the power to evoke emotions in others and inspire them to action. That is as true for scholarship judges as anyone else. We all have a story -- the journey that has made us who we are. As we navigate life’s twists and turns on the way to our destiny, some roads are very winding and full of curves. Occasionally we run into dead ends, get ﬂat tires, become lost, or find ourselves in the ditch. But smart travelers never stay stuck; they do what it takes to get moving again -- and that adventure becomes another chapter in their story. For students who are wanting to make a lasting and positive impression on scholarship judges -- an impression that can yield thousands of dollars in free money for college -- learning to transparently and effectively tell their story is important. So as you share your story with others, remember: what matters most is not that you never get lost or stuck . . . it’s that you got back on the road and kept driving toward your destination. That is a story others will want to hear!

Dare to win!

THINK "PACKAGING “Have you ever been in an argument with someone and completely ﬂubbed your words, only to later think of all the great comebacks you could have said? In moments like that, everyone wishes they could go back and 'repackage' their words," writes Ellis. It was just such an experience that sparked an idea for her as she filled out her college scholarship paperwork. She learned to "package" her words in a way that was speciﬁc, appealing, and easy to understand—and it helped her win big with scholarship committees. She encourages students: "Think of packaging as gift wrap. It’s always nice to get a present on Christmas, but when the gift is wrapped nicely with a bow on it—and it’s intended just for you—it’s more exciting than if someone just tossed some generic, unwrapped gift at you and said, 'Here. Merry Christmas.'” While you’re putting your scholarship application together, you have plenty of time to “package” and “repackage” your responses so you come across just the way you want. Taking the extra time to put on those finishing touches can make all the difference.

Dare to win!

RECYCLE There’s a bonus to carefully working through the scholarship process on the front end: it gets easier! Not only do you achieve a ﬂow and start to understand how it all works—you have the opportunity to recycle, which is a huge timesaver. And "going green" in this case may mean lots of green cash for college! As Kristina Ellis suggests to students in her new book, Confessions of a Scholarship Winner, recycling application elements works much like traditional recycling, only instead of passing plastic or metal through a series of processes that make those materials usable again, you reuse portions of your scholarship essays, letters, and other materials. Once you've completed a couple of applications, you'll have a blueprint that you can adjust for future applications. There's no need to think through all your activities again—you’ve already done that! Writing out your story? Finished! From this point on, you can copy and paste your responses and information into the next application and modify, customize, or improve each segment as needed.