Parting Shots
You didn’t think this book was going to end without a conclusion, did you? No way, Jose. There’s far too much information on this site to just stop on a dime, without a little bit of a wrap-up.
There’s a lot of information to digest here, so if your head is swimming, don’t worry. It takes a while for it all to sink in, and it takes practice to master a lot of the items that we’ve covered. You’re not going to wake up tomorrow doing everything perfectly right, so don’t place those expectations on yourself.
However, here’s what you can do: keep improving, little by little, every time you submit a scholarship application. Every time you write an essay, pull out this book and check yourself against the items we’ve presented here. Did you print that essay on high-quality paper, and did you put it in a glossy folder and a full-sized envelope? Those items are easy and quick to master. Did you use a lot of redundant language? Were your transitions good? Were your introductions and closings as creative as you could make them? Those may take a little longer to get down.
But hang in there and keep giving it your best effort, because there’s simply too much money out there for the taking for you to do anything else. College is more expensive than ever, and scholarships you win can change your life. The bigger the scholarship you win, the bigger the change in your life. Don’t believe me? Then check this out:
If you can pull off a $5,000 scholarship, that’s $5,000 in student loans that you don’t have to take out. And that means 10 years – 10 entire years! – of paying $100 or so per month, every single month. Instead of paying that money to the government in the form of student loan repayment, you could sock away $12,000 or so for your retirement. And assuming a modest 8 percent rate of appreciation, that $12,000 can easily grow to over $120,000 in 30 years! In 40 years, it’ll grow to over $260,000! Now do you believe that one scholarship can change your life forever?
That’s exactly why we take this scholarship stuff as seriously as we do: it’s serious, life-changing business. It’s as simple as that. And I hope you’ll put what you’ve learned here to the best possible use and score yourself a big scholarship and a corresponding life change like the one I’ve described above.
If you’ve got any questions, comments, requests, or anything else you might like to see in site updates or simply something you think we should know, drop us a line at info@straightforwardmedia.com. Until then, we wish you the best of luck in your scholarship hunt. Keep putting that Best Foot Forward!
Yours in Success,
Josh Barsch
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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.)
