Young Writers Society

I'm sure I'm not the only one out there....

It's nearly September and I have no guidance! What can past seniors tell me? When should I start working on and submit my applications? Should I be spending a lot of my free time working on scholarships? What if I have no scholarship money right now? What if I don't have my perfect ACT (SAT score to the rest of you non-Middle America dorks) score yet? Is that okay?

I'm panicking early because I don't want to panic later - help?

Past senior to the rescue!

ACT/SAT
You can take it and submit scores all school year - so if you don't get the score you want, you can always take it again. You can actually submit an application for college, get accepted, and THEN resubmit your SAT scores that you take, say, in April, and they will review those for your financial aid. So when it comes to these, think of it like this - you have all year to tackle it. Also, if you don't get the perfect grades on these, then there are many other sources of scholarships.

Scholarships
Apply, apply, apply! Never stop applying! You can even apply while in college. I could apply. I should, actually! You're going to recieve some from your school, but there are many other sources. The best scholarship site I know of is this:

http://www.fastweb.com/

I love it. And as for scholarship essays, don't worry too much about them - people are terrible writers. As a good writer yourself, your essay is sure to stand out. If you need help on college/schol. essay format, feel free to contact me! I wrote them for my friends, and wrote butt loads for myself. And I recieved a lot of scholarships, which without I wouldn't be able to go to the awesome college I'm going to.

Also, collegeboard is your best friend during this period. Scour the site.

http://www.collegeboard.com

College Applications
If you submit an app. between now and December, I believe it's Early Acceptance, or Early Something. They can accept your for the Fall '09 semester now. This is what I did. I applied in November 06 and got accepted that month, but I didn't go to college until Aug 07.

I would say have all your applications in by February. That's safe, and many colleges have cut-offs around this point, THOUGH these are not ironclad and I've known people who still got in.

FAFSA
Go to the website. Understand what this is. Your largest sum of Financial Aid will come from this - so learn now. You can't do it until January 1st 2009, but I think you should at least now be aware that this is a hurdle you'll eventually have to cross.

If you have any more questions, just ask. I'll help ya with anything! This is an exciting topic.

Right now, worry about SAT/ACT. Applications aren't that hard, and you have a lot of time.

No worries, dahling!

~ Clo

Start submitting applications now. Hit the early deadlines for your favorite top-choice schools. Work on scholarship apps but not *too* hard. Most of the big deadlines aren't until Spring, so there's no point in stressing over that yet. And as far as SAT/ACT, they really aren't looking for perfect. They want volunteer hours and community service and extracurriculars. That's what I have to say. Good luck, dear!

~Yoyo

Agh! Yoho reminded me. How can I forget? This is the only reason I can afford college.

VOLUNTEER

The thing colleges are looking for nowadays is volunteer hours and community service. Underline, italics, stress on this. I got many shiny, beautiful scholarships from my college for all my volunteer hours. Colleges love this. They're like, "Ooh, look at this sparky student ready for the real world and ready to help! Just what we need!"

Yoyo: They're not looking for perfect, but I get money from the state for certain scores, and it can give me a greater chance of receiving scholarships if I have a nice score. I'm smart, so why not?

And, urgh. Volunteering. The place where everyone beats me. I've done almost no extracurricular as well. I can only attest to being in Choir, French Club, and having plays I've written produced (which I guess is good). I don't have time to volunteer with anything. I probably never will. But I guess I'm passing up my own opportunity.

I actually need to look into a scholarship for being premature. Can you believe I have yet to find one? And I mean incredebly premature.

Thank you both very much though! You've helped me wash off some odd worries and nervousness.

Suz, don't be stupid. You ARE a volunteer. I totally bragged about being a YWS moderator in my volunteer experience. And you should too. Handling a site that is like... 5000+ people now is not something to dismiss.

Ask for letters of recommendation from people who know you well now. They will love the extra time they get to have of perfecting their essay. If you do it last minute, they'll hate you.

I've already been working on the Common App...where are you applying? Do they use the Common App?

I've started already, but I have a friend who didn't start hers until November (for Regular Decision, usually due January or February) and she's fine, but she was stressed. Why not start early and spread the work out?

Ha, I did all that and still got nothing? I had so many volunteer hours I didn't know what to do with them all. And yeah. I'm not enough of a minority/impoverished/illegal person to get any money. From almost anyone. But I'm the pessimist. So don't listen to me

apply early, apply often. acts are really no big deal.

and as for everything else you'll come upon senior year, take advantage of everything you've always wanted to do. have you ever wanted to try out for a play? do it. have you ever wanted to go out for a sport? do it. because once high school is over, you can't go back and change things.

To sum it all up, none of it is really so scary.

The college here is less organized than I am. "You were in this class? Oh, we cancelled that class and we forgot to send out emails. Gee whiz."

You probably function better than whatever school you choose. True story.