Sunday, February 28, 2010

Why fill out a FAFSA? Here are tips.

Filling out your FAFSA form

The FAFSA is the free application for Federal student aid. It not only gives you the estimated amount that you will receive when you fill it out, it also sends your application to the school of your choice and also applies you to other scholarships and grants that you qualify for.

Some sites just pretend to be the "real" FAFSA site, and will do your application for you or help you for a price. Never use those if you can help it. The REAL FAFSA site is totally free.

Here is the link to go there:
http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

Tips to help!
Save your form often: Fill out this form and save it often, so you don't lose any of your information. At the end of the application, you will receive your very own password and PIN number. Keep this information totally private. You will find out what awards and loans you qualify for in a few days or a week after that usually. (Read the page at the end to find out how long you will be waiting.)

Print out the ending page with your personal information on it and keep it in a safe place, marking on your calendar when to check back.


See what YOU qualify for by filling out this form for yourself. And good luck!

Have what you need out when you fill out the FAFSA: (watch this video):


More information:
Scholarships, page one on the Nontrads site
Start Here: How to fill out the FAFSA form (official)
FAFSA Tips and Common Misstakes to Avoid When Applying for Student Aid (from the NASFAA.org site)
The Five-Minute FAFSA (above)

I hope this is helpful to you!

Betsyanne


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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

The Top Five Scholarship Links and Leads

Have you already tried to get scholarships and never did? OR maybe you have not started to do work towards getting scholarships.

I think one major reason people don't try to get grants or scholarships is that they don't think it will do any good to try; that others may have more qualifications, or that it will be just a waste of time. But don't give up. There are plenty of people who HAVE gotten scholarships and grants from some sites.

Lately, I have noticed a lot of sites that put themselves out there as being "official" sites or actually offer scholarships themselves. I think this might be a good way to get traffic to your site, but you never actually KNOW that some of the sites are legitimate. I think sticking to the tried and true sites doesn't hurt, and is probably the wise course to take.

Below I have listed my Top 5 links and sites for you to try. They are also listed at the Scholarship Pages at my other site, The Nontraditional Student website.  I have more links and sites listed there too, and you can check those pages here: Scholarships Page One, and Scholarships Page Two.

Here are my Top Five sites:

#1: The Official FAFSA site - register here if you are serious about going back to school and already have your GED. http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ Filling out the application automatically puts you in competition for many grants and scholarships across the country. Plus, it is a totally free site. Filling out the form does NOT mean you have to go back to school. It only give you options. An affiliated page here is Student Aid on the Web.

#2.  Fastweb Scholarship Search pages. http://www.fastweb.com/ This site has a LOT of scholarships listed. You register at the site and they find what scholarships match your profile. Here is their description from the site: "There's a reason Fastweb is recommended by more than 16,000 high schools across the country. Last year, one out of three college-bound high school seniors used Fastweb to find money for school. You won't find more scholarships anywhere else." The site authors also say that this site is the "largest private sector scholarship database in the world."

#3. Fastaid (Fastap) Scholarship Free Search. http://www.fastaid.com/ This site is also really good. Check out the comments that people who have used their site have given. Their link here explains how the FAFSA works, and also give tips to international students and has 10 questions you can ask your Financial Aid Administrator.

#4. The Fresch Aid Pages - http://www.freschinfo.com/index.php (From the site) "FreSch! has a database of over 5,000 organizations and foundations that offer scholarships, representing approximately 450,000 awards." You can search this site for free without registering. This link tells about how this site was started, and how it grew. On the Fresch site, they also have pages on different kinds of loans, Success Stories, Tips on finding Scholarships, and tips on filling out scholarship applications, too.

#5. There are several sites that are tied for fifth place, so I will list them all here. Here they are: Career One Stop Scholarship Search, the Dr. Torres Database, Fed Money.org, College Net, and the Broke Scholar pages.

Please leave a comment and list YOUR favorite Scholarship and Grant search spots.

-Betsyanne

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