War of the Worlds
Remember that wonderful equalizer, the Internet? Well, it doesn’t just open doors for American students; it opens doors for students across the globe. There are over 100 million college students worldwide, and many of them can’t get their hands on a Peterson’s Guide to Scholarships. But every single one of them has Internet access. Don’t get me wrong, it’s undeniably great that today’s college student has access to thousands more scholarships than his/her parents had, but every other student in the world has access to those scholarships, too.
Let’s take this international angle one step further before I let you dive into this book, because it’s probably the greatest threat facing the American student. There’s an uncomfortable truth about ourselves that we have to face if we’re ever going to overcome it, and it’s that American students, as a whole, don’t seem to be as motivated to excel academically as those in other countries. We’ve been freefalling in the international education rankings for over 20 years. In some categories, namely the critical math and science disciplines, our students rank near dead last among the industrialized nations.
Until now, we’ve been able to brush aside those alarming numbers, remaining calm in the assumption that while students from China and India and Singapore and South Korea may be getting smarter than American students, our American students won’t be affected because they’ll likely never cross paths. Chinese students will stay in Chinese schools, Indian students will take only Indian jobs, and Korean students will stick to Korean scholarships.
Uh-oh. We now know all of that to be false. American colleges are packed with foreign students, American jobs are routinely outsourced to India, and now, American-funded scholarships regularly go to foreign students, whose achievements and dedication routinely run circles around their American counterparts.
It’s a heck of a lot more competitive now than ever before, and it’s difficult to stand out with anything other than an incredible application. And the first step to an incredible application is to eliminate mistakes! And there is no better guide in the world to eliminating those mistakes than the book you’re reading right now.
Congratulations on buying the Superpack – it was a smart decision, and we wish you the best of luck in your scholarship hunt! Now, let’s get started.
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