About the Fulbright Program - the Fulbright Program helps students study abroad

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Be a Fulbright Scholar!

The Fulbright scholarship is an exchange program that allows students from the U.S. and other countries to study abroad. It is a famous program that started in the 1940's. Students travel to another country, and share their experiences at home when they return.

Both U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens can apply. It is a very prestigious award that students from all over compete for. Some Fulbright scholars come here to the U.S. to study.

I had a Fulbright teacher when I was in high school. She was truely gifted. Fulbright scholars come back to their home country with new ideas, insights, and a feeling that they have really accomplished something important.

Here are the names of some famous people that were once Fulbright Scholars:
1. Joseph Heller
2. Melissa Block
3. John Lithgow
4. Sylvia Plath
5. Renee Fleming
6. Thomas Pickering

Here are some links from the official Fulbright site:
Fulbright Journals (find out about life for Fulbright scholars in other countries)

Videos and podcasts written by Fulbrighters
Explore the entire Fulbright site
Which Fulbright grant is right for me?

Other scholarship resources can be found at the Nontrads site Scholarship page.

Later!

Other sources and info. for this article:
Mental Floss: 10 Fulbright Scholars
The Dept. of State Fulbright Pages
The University of California at Irvine Fulbright page 
VOA News Special English Fulbright info. page

The Scholarship Essay - some tips on how to write it successfully

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The dreaded Scholarship Essay... some tips to help.

Are you scared of applying for scholarships because you are dreading the essay section? Here is a short guide with some pointers by experts that will help as you tackle your scholarship essay.

#1. Be neat - make sure you make your essay match the guidelines given by each organization.

#2. Take your time. You don't have to finish your essay in one night. Take as long as you need to do it right.

#2. Be correct - check and double-check your essay after you write it, and get another pair of eyes to do that for you, too. Your mentor, your family, your friends - pick somebody who is good at writing to proofread your essay. He or she might find something you missed that you can fix before sending it in.

#3. Be specific - make your essay match the criteria that the organization specifies. Be sure to read all the instructions. Don't make your essays a "one size fits all" type that all seem the same. Each one should be completely different. In other words, make each essay directly apply to the group it goes to.

#4. Make sure you get your scholarship essay in on time. Double-check the due dates. Your essay could be thrown out if it gets there late. Allow extra time in the mail to make sure your college scholarship essay gets there when you want it to.

#5. Write in your own style - let your voice be heard. That is not to say to write in poor English. You still have to observe good grammar and use spell check (and see #2, above). But it's better than okay to be yourself. Scholarship committees are looking for people who are creative and original. Not TOO original, but definitely heads above the crowd.

#6. Back up, back up, back up. Make sure and save your essay every time you pause in writing it. Put a copy on a backup disk or online at a backup site. That way, if your computer has a problem, your scholarship essay will still be safe and sound. A great backup site to use (and it's free for most users) is MyOther Drive.

Want to learn more about how to make your scholarship essay the best it can be? Check out these great links:

Kay Peterson: Writing the Scholarship Essay (from the FinAid site)
From Owens Community College (Findlay, Ohio): Writing a Strong Scholarship Essay
Sample college essays - on the College Board site
Other Scholarship application tips - from the University of Maryland
Essay writing tips from Daytona State College
College Application Essays that will Get you Accepted by Christine Howell

Do you have a tip you would like to share? Add it in the comments, below.

Thank you!

___________________________

And here are some of my other websites and blogs -
You are most welcome to come and visit.

The Nontraditional Student website
The Nontrad blog
The Nontrad Yahoo group
Nontrads on Twitter 

November is National Scholarship Month

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A really good Fastweb Article 

about National Scholarship Month


I was over at one of my favorite scholarship search sites, Fastweb, today, and I noticed a great article there with this title (National Scholarship Month...) written by Mark Kantrowitz. In this article, Kantrowitz gives an overview of what a scholarship is, and what kinds of scholarships are available.

The reason that November was chosen to be the National Scholarship month was because it is the beginning of the main scholarship time, Kantrowitz explains. He also says that many different kinds of scholarships are available today, even unusual ones such as "duck calling or knitting with wool." Unfortunately, I am not proficient at those skills, but maybe a reader out there is!

I found this article because I recently learned that the websites Fastweb (which has long been one of my favorites) and another site, FinAid.org, are connected. So now I totally recommend both sites. Not only are they free, but they feature many articles, such as this one, that I like. They also have sections for students, parents, and educators, as well asother information that college scholarship and grant seekers need, like how to volunteer, how to find internships and jobs, and tons of other information too.

You can read the rest of the article I just read here: November is National Scholarship Month. Thanks, Mr. Kantrowitz, for a great article. I like it because it is upbeat and inspirational, and not too long or boring either.

Explore these sites further:
The FinAid Site
The FastWeb Site
The article: November is National Scholarship Month

Later! And good luck with your scholarship and grant search.

Betsyanne

Which search sites are the best?

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Here is some good information, and some reviews of scholarship sites. 

The question of the day: Which search sites are the best?

Here is a GREAT website that rates the following scholarship search sites:
Fastweb, Scholarships.com, Peterson's, College Board, Scholarship Experts, FindTuition.com, NextStudent, SRN Express, and BrokeScholar.

It is the Finaid website.

The site ranks these 9 sites for their recall, the percentage of relevant awards for each searcher that is in the search results, and their precision, which is the percentage of matches for the searcher. The results are listed in a chart that they title Scholarship Database Quality.

Here is the website page on the Finaid site that shows the results of their study:
http://www.finaid.org/scholarships/awardcount.phtml#NPSAS

Finaid.org gives Fastweb the highest score on their chart. The others range from 93/75 (percentages) for Scholarships.com, to the worst one which is SRN Express, with a score of 33/31.

This is a great study, and a super addition to what we know about scholarship and grant search sites. The page also features another pair of graphs indicating how actual college students paid for school.

Find out more about search sites:

Links:
The FinAid Scholarship Search page
The Fastweb site
Sean's Review of Scholarship sites from EdFund.org
Search sites recommended by UNLV
Glendale.edu's list of scholarship search sites
More reviews of different sites - from College Scholarships.org

My links:
The Nontrad page Scholarships and Grants links page 1
The Nontrad page Scholarships and Grants links page 2

The Nontrad site and blog
The Nontrad Yahoo group
The Nontrad forum