What I learned from the experts

Whew.  I’m tired.  I was in Indianapolis last week at the National Scholarship Providers Association where I gave two presentations:  “Scholarships 101 for Counselors” and “More Than Money:  Creating Value-Added Scholarship Programs.”  While I was on the agenda to share information from my book and from my consulting work I LEARNED so much from all of the other professionals there.   I had personal conversations with Mark Kantrowitz from www.Finaid.org, Kevin and Dan from www.scholarships.com, Mick and Dave fromwww.zinch.com, and dozens of other professionals.

Here is what you should know:

• The student loan market is volatile right now and several lenders have pulled out or created more stringent lending guidelines.  This will affect people with lower credit scores more than people with high credit scores.  Read a good explanation at www.finaid.org/creditcrisis and go to the bottom of the article for a real-world summary.
• The best scholarship search sites have strong relationships with funders and they actively recruit scholarship sponsors to post on their site, instead of relying on a generic database.  This is a lot of extra work for them but it provides better information for you the student.  Scholarships.com has done this.
• Getting colleges to understand the full background of a student is very difficult through a typical paper or online application.   Using photos, pdfs, audio or videos can provide colleges with a glimpse of the real you.  Through the online profile functions at www.zinch.com you can upload all of your details and then colleges (more than 600 of them) can check you out.  The bonus?  It’s free to you, with little-to-no ads, except ads for scholarships!

I learned much more that I will share in another post.  Good luck!