Jodi Okun is a financial aid expert who regularly helps families and students navigate the college funding process. She is an author and she host #CollegeCash every Thursday on Twitter. In this episode, she discusses some important strategies she has learned through her years as an advisor, and other important topics related to financial aid.

Episode 17: #CollegeCash with Jodi Okun

Learn how to find and apply for scholarships efficiently, and learn how to strategically handle a higher education investment without significant amounts of student loan debt.

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In this episode, Nicole Duvall communications director at the American Fire Sprinker Association discusses their annual quiz scholarships. The application should take less than 20 minutes and winners are chosen randomly. The high school scholarship has about 50,000 competitors and the college scholarship has about 25,000. High School seniors that graduate can apply to both.

Episode 54: American Fire Sprinkler Association Scholarship, an interview with Nicole Duvall

Tackling a lot of scholarships can be very difficult, especially if you have classes and a job. However, I found that batch processing scholarships helps complete the process faster. This means completing several scholarships around a particular theme in an effort to reuse sources. This episode discusses two very similar scholarships and how batch processing can help complete them or scholarships like them.

Episode 53: Batch Processing Scholarships

DoSomething.org is on a mission to inspire young people to participate in their communities, give back and ultimately make a difference. In addition to helping students, the organization hosts about 25 scholarships a year. Marissa, who does marketing for the organization offers advice to students working to be great applicants. “It really comes down to the right intentions,” she said. “We want … to get young people excited to be agents of change. I would say that … the best way to not just win the scholarship but to be a leader in your community and a great volunteer is to just have the right intentions… We want people who want to make a change.” DoSomething.org hosts three to five different campaigns with scholarships every month, and participating generally consists of four steps:   Sign Up on the website for a campaign at DoSomething.org/scholarships. The organization will send information related to the mission and how the experience should work. Next, the issue is explained so applicants can understand the issue the campaign addresses. org will provide supplies necessary to be successful. Finally, applicants must take a photo of their action to prove they participated.  After completing all the steps, applicants are entered to win the scholarship. “We look at all the people who have made it to that next level – the final round – and then we randomly select within that group of people one scholarship recipient,” Marissa said. The goal of randomizing the selection is to even the playing field allowing students who have communities and families with less resources to fairly compete with individuals that come from areas that have more volunteering opportunities and participation. “We didn’t want to pick the person who always just had the highest impact,” she said. “We do weight the finalists. It is true the more action you do … The greater likelihood you will be selected, but at the end of the day we are still selecting from the top tier of performers. Nothing is guaranteed, but that is how we decided to work our scholarship process.” It is important to first sign up, and then complete all the steps in order to be eligible. Marissa urges students to volunteer for more than just access to funding for higher education, because the work helps “Paying for college or paying for education is the biggest pain point for young people, and we do want to address that … but it is not the end all be all,” she said. “Here at DoSomething, we really believe that volunteering helps in learning empathy, and being more aware of other people and other situations that you might not be interacting with on a day to day basis.” Marissa said volunteering opens up doors even more so than a $5,000 scholarships. Resources to get started:  VIP (Very Impactful Person) Email Patrice at patrice@takingitglobal.org. https://www.DoSomething.org/us https://www.DoSomething.org/us/about/easy-scholarships 

Calling all students, to DoSomething.org: Scholarship opportunities, supplies and motivation

This episode explores four common grammatical errors. 1. Passive Voice 2. Split Infinitive 3. Comma after an introductory phrase 4. Avoid prepositions at the end of a sentence. Regardless of rules, clarity is the overall goal.

Episode 51: Common grammatical errors in a scholarship essay

D.J. Nunez, president of IAPMO, discusses strategies for the IWISH scholarship, which is hosted annually. He said he hopes to see quality research and creativity in this year's applicants.

Episode 17: #CollegeCash with Jodi Okun

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