What Jim Carrey taught me about scholarship advice
Happy Friday, everyone.
One of my all-time favorite movies is “Dumb and Dumber.” When I got my first job out of college and was so broke that my bed was actually my couch, I used to pop in the VHS tape (remember those?) on my tiny living room TV and listen to it as I went to sleep every night. Consequently, I can pretty much quote every line from the movie.
One of my favorites is when Lloyd (Jim Carrey) has just been royally chewed out by Harry (Jeff Daniels) for accidentally driving 400 miles *away* from their destination of Aspen, Colorado. Harry is so mad that he jumps out of the van and starts walking along the road by himself, even though they’re in the middle of a cornfield in the boonies of Nebraska. Lloyd is crestfallen, and screams after Harry:
“WELL EXCUSE ME, MR. PERFECT! I guess I forgot that you never, ever make a mistake!” And then he starts to blubber and cry a little, and Harry looks like a big meanie.
That’s how I feel sometimes when I’m giving out scholarship advice to students like you. I mean, just from memory, I can rattle off 20 or 30 big mistakes that will completely screw up your essay and get you eliminated from competition. And they’re all legit and you need to know them, but I also know that it’s hard to listen to a guy sometimes when it seems like all he can do is bark “Don’t do this!” and “Don’t do that!”
So in this email, we’re going to dial it back a little. Let’s be honest here — no one’s perfect, and the “perfect essay” has still eluded me after many years of judging and paying out scholarships. But the great thing about a scholarship essay (or a resume, or an audition, or an interview) is that you don’t actually have to *be* perfect — you just have to *look* like you’re perfect at that one critical moment in time when the bigwigs decide who wins the big money and who goes home with pocket lint.
The emails I send you are about getting to that point where your on-paper excellence can deliver the knockout blow to everyone who’s trying to compete with you, but we’re gonna take it slow. Today, we’re going to choose one, and only one thing for you to worry about: Spelling everything right.
Easy, right? Well, judging by a lot of the essays we receive, not really. Most people are not perfect spellers, and that’s not a problem. But on a scholarship application, you do have to look like a perfect speller. Remember, a scholarship application is your polished and rehearsed best effort — you’re putting your Best Foot Forward. Your toughest competitors will be doing exactly the same thing, I promise you, so you have to do it, too. Don’t even crack open the door to defeat, because if you do, a better-prepared student will kick the door down and leave you behind.
Not a great speller? That really doesn’t matter, actually. What matters is that you’re resourceful enough to hunt down those who are and polish up your work before sending it along. Ask a parent. Ask an English teacher — any English teacher, even if it’s not your English teacher. Tell them you’re applying for a scholarship and you want to put your best foot forward, and you’d like their expertise in proofreading your writing. Any teacher worth his/her salt will admire your desire to excel (it’s rarer than you think) and ought to gladly assist. If not, tell ‘em I said they’re a lousy excuse for an educator, then move on to the next English teacher. It won’t take long.
I’ve written a longer blog entry on the spelling issue, and it involves a colorful story of a student berating me, Harry-and-Lloyd style, for correcting her spelling. It’s sad and hilarious at the same time, and I hope you enjoy it. Have a great weekend!
http://www.givemescholarships.com/2008/03/26/spell-everything-right/
All the best,
Josh
NY Times: Basically, you’ll never save enough to pay for college
It’s not a long article — more of a USA Today-style nugget — but it confirms what most of us already know, which is that college tuition rates are rising much faster than our rate of savings (or the interest anyone plans to earn on those savings in the very near future). Long story short: if you didn’t start socking college money away for your kids when they were still in the womb, you’re probably not gonna have enough money to finance the entirety of their college. (WHICH IS FINE AND YOU SHOULD NOT FEEL BAD ABOUT…but that’s another story).
Anyhow, this story and others like it that seem to appear every other day really reinforce the message of this site and my book, and that’s this: you absolutely MUST get out there and bust your hump for scholarship money, and you have to do it RIGHT. The costs for financing college are just spiraling upward, and although you don’t know it yet, you definitely don’t want to be getting out of college with a $40,000 job and $85,000 of student-loan debt. That will cripple you — trust me. And if you don’t take my word for it, fine — just look around. Incurring massive amounts of debt that you can’t afford to service over the long term is EXACTLY why the US entire world economy is paralyzed right now.
The scholarship money is there, I promise you. Go out and get it!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/your-money/22count.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=tuition&st=cse
5 Ways to Win More Scholarship Money
If you’re a student who’s already in college or about to start, you have my deepest condolences. The economy you’re inheriting hasn’t only devastated the job market you’ll soon be trying to claw your way into, but also the financial resources of the universities to which you’re applying.
That’s right – those fat financial-aid packages they were all offering two years ago? Gone. Done. Over.
So let’s get down to brass tacks: If you want to make it through college, you need to win scholarships now more than ever. And if you’re like most students, you’re going to fail miserably unless you let me help you.
I’ve read over 10,000 scholarship essays and awarded $100,000 of my own money over the last 6 years, and I’ve come to realize that most students don’t know squat about writing a good scholarship essay.
Listen up:
Tip #1: Don’t talk solely about your participation in common high school activities.
The Internet has opened up scholarship opportunities to thousands of applicants who wouldn’t have been there 10 years ago. The less unique your essay is, the more likely it is that you’ll be passed over for the scholarship.
Four years of science club, soccer team and varsity band isn’t enough for the committee. They see hundreds of essays come in with that same stuff in them every single day. It’s not going to set you apart. Dig for something deeper, better and more unique if you want to win.
Tip # 2: Be careful with sensitive political issues.
Unless the scholarship you’re applying for is sponsored by an explicitly liberal or conservative organization, you have almost no chance of winning if you write about controversial issues like abortion, affirmative action, the Iraq war or any other polarizing issues.
Here’s the ugly truth: the more contentious the issue you choose to write about, the more likely it is that one or more committee members will completely disagree with you. Although judges try to keep their emotions and personal beliefs out of their decisions, it doesn’t always work. Offend them with the content of your essay and you probably won’t win the scholarship.
Tip #3: Be careful talking about religion.
See above. Same reason, times 10. It’s fine to have religious convictions and no one can ever take them away from you, but it’s also one of the quickest possible ways to offend a judge who doesn’t agree with you. Once again – it may not be right, but it’s true. Take the safe route and don’t make them the crux of your entire essay.
Tip #4: Don’t dwell on your GPA – it’s not a point of distinction.
Are you sitting down? OK, here goes:
Your GPA doesn’t really matter that much at all. A grade-inflation epidemic has killed the significance of a high GPA.
At some point in the recent past, someone decided the horror of seeing the letter “D” or “F” on a report card was more damaging to a kid than, say, not knowing how to read, write or spell. Lots of parents agreed, and convinced schools that even though Johnny still doesn’t know what a comma is, he still deserves a B in English.
So now, just about everyone has a GPA of 3.0 or above. And if everyone’s GPA is basically the same, what’s the point of even looking? Don’t expect it to carry you to a scholarship victory. It won’t.
Tip #5: Omit vanity awards from your list of accomplishments.
Remember the first time you got a letter from Who’s Who Among American High School Students? Felt great, right? Someone thinks you’re among America’s best! Happened to me in high school, too. And my folks dutifully shelled it out the $40 for the book.
The truth is, Who’s Who is in the business of selling books, not finding excellent students. Scholarship committees know this all too well. I recommend omitting Who’s Who and similar vanity awards from scholarship applications.
10 Tips on Getting the Best College Financial Aid Package
I write about scholarships because it’s what I know, but let’s be honest — not everyone can bring ‘em home. On the other hand, however, everyone has access to the federal financial aid system, and everyone’s school has a financial aid office, so everyone should pay close attention to how they can best extract the most money from those two institutions.
This article in the Seattle Times, transplanted from BankRate, gives you 10 tips on how to get the best financial aid package. Some of it’s obvious (”On-campus jobs are an option.” Oh really, Einstein? I can get money from a job?), and some isn’t so obvious (don’t try any flea-market bartering with financial aid officers). Worth a read if you’re still deciding how to pay for school.
Should You Take a Year Off Before Starting College?
Jonathan Glater of the New York Times floats the idea, and although I don’t agree with his primary reasoning (there may be more federal financial aid available due to new Obama proposals…or maybe not), I think it’s an idea worth considering.
Glater cites proposed new policies that would increase some grants by a few hundred bucks and available loans by a few thousand. If you’re right on the bubble of being able to pay for college or not, then these proposed differences may make the difference for you.
(Side note: I keep emphasizing the “proposed” part, because we’re talking about politicians here, the most reliably unreliable people in our society. Politicians are professional panderers whose job involves consistently lying to large numbers of their employers, the voters. Never assume they’ll keep their promises.)
That aside, I like the idea of high school grads taking a year off before heading off to college. I wish I’d done it, but I was one of those many millions of students who were in a desperate hurry to plunge headlong into the workforce by age 22. I’m now 35 and realize what a foolish hurry that was; believe me, there’s plenty of time for you to wage-slave in the real world, and if you’re able to take a year off while you’re young, strong, attractive and healthy, then by all means, knock it out of the park. Have fun. Send me a postcard.
Ask anyone over 30 if they wish they could have one free year to casually work, learn, explore, dabble, sample life’s pleasures at his/her own pace. Look closely into their eyes, and you may actually see them begin to weep internally at the pure joy of such a notion. The older the person you ask, the more intense the weeping. Don’t stand too close to these people, lest they grab your leg and beg you to take them along.
If you’re not interested, don’t sweat it. Besides, you can always take a year off later during college, or after college, if you so choose. Maybe you’ll have a bit more cash in your pocket then anyway, so you can enjoy your travels on an airplane instead of a Greyhound bus.
But my best advice on the subject is this: Slow down. Don’t be in such a huge hurry. Enjoy yourself while you can. The world will still be here when you get back.
Josh
Don’t be afraid to admit your past shortcomings and explain how you turned things around.
Sometimes, the best story you have to tell a scholarship committee will involve explaining some of the worst or most embarrassing moments from your past. Maybe you hurt or insulted someone close to you. Maybe you had an addiction or even went to jail (actually, If you’re still hurting your loved ones, addicted to drugs or making frequent trips to jail, then you may want to choose a different topic).
Why? Well, some of the experiences that give the clearest insight into a person’s constitution are those times in which he was beaten down like a dog in some way and forced to drag himself up off the ground and get back in the game (Yes, that was three tired, trite expressions in one sentence. Don’t emulate that poor writing in your scholarship essays, ok?). I’m not just blowing smoke at you here. Sometimes, the things that Oprah repeats over and over again are actually true — it really isn’t how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get up. I plan to teach my own children that the most critical factor in their success in the world is their ability and willingness to rebound and recover from life’s pits.
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Do not, under any circumstances, have your parents write essays, letters, or anything else, on your behalf.
Over the last few years, the media has been telling us that America is a society where, to be blunt, kids are a lot slower to become independent than they used to be. Apparently it’s no big deal to graduate from college and move right back in with your parents for a few more years, often paying no rent. Just like when you were in high school, Mommy has a hot breakfast for you on the table when you roll out of bed at 10 a.m. Except back then, you were actually in school at 10 a.m. Now at 10 a.m., you’re halfheartedly cracking open the Classifieds looking for a company who thinks a degree in art history and comparative literature may qualify you for a job. Fortune magazine recently ran a story about parents attending job interviews with their children. And I don’t mean waiting outside in the lobby; I mean actually sitting next to their sons and daughters at the job interviews themselves. I’m not kidding.
ANYWAY… you can see where we’re going with this. Moms and Dads are doing quite a few things for their adult children these days that, not so long ago, were considered to be the jobs of the children themselves. I had always assumed that, despite this disturbing societal shift, all students and parents still knew that scholarship applications were still 100% the responsibility of the student, not the parents. But on a couple of occasions, I have been proven wrong.
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Do not send your essay with postage due.
There are many ways to make a bad first impression, but I can’t think of a worse one than making the committee pay money for the privilege of reading your essay. When in doubt, add an extra stamp or two. I hate wasting stamps as much as the next guy, but trust me, you’ll never miss that 40 cents.
Do not print your essay in all boldfaced type.
Yes, this actually happens, and more than you’d expect. We suspect the writer begins bolding certain passages here and there, and then before long, decides to shoot the moon and bold the whole thing. Don’t do it. Bolding text here and there adds emphasis to certain words, setting them apart from the rest, but that’s a trick you have to use sparingly or it’ll lose its effect. Needless to say, then, when you bold everything, there is no effect at all. Not only that, but the words appear to be screaming at the judges from the paper, and that’s not good, either.
Spell everything correctly.
Seriously. No excuses and no exceptions – everything. Here’s a little yarn about why it’s important to spell things correctly.
My company once managed a very large online events calendar for a major news website in one of the largest cities in the U.S. It was a very important job, but it didn’t require a great deal of experience. It was grunt work. So we placed an ad at a local university, looking for an intern to handle the job of editing the calendar. We got dozens of responses, but my favorite one went something like this:
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Bad News: 98% of applications get tossed in the trash. Yours is probably one of them.
More Bad News: Financial aid is drying up, even at big colleges. Without scholarships, you're probably screwed.
Good News: I'm a real judge who writes scholarship checks every month & I just released a guide to winning scholarship money. (Your teachers and counselors have it all wrong.)
