Tips and Reminders for Seniors

Remind seniors to:

•  Do their OSAC scholarship application online. If they still need to complete the activities chart, they should do that first to make the OSAC ap process easier;
  

• Invite family friends and relatives to help them with college and scholarship essays by completing a brag sheet about the student that provides the student with some insight into what others see in him or her. Also have conversations with these folks about things that students may think are ordinary about themselves but that really make them extraordinary -- like the student who steps up when a classmate is being bullied or struggling with homework, etc. The best personal statements often live in seemingly simple tasks;
  

•  Get their FAFSA pin # and FAFSA worksheet prepared, so that filling it out online Jan. 1 will be a piece of cake; also have their parents get all of their 2012 tax info rounded up, so that they, too, will have an easy time of completing the online FAFSA (Remember they can go back and fill in the 2013 tax info later when they've got those taxes completed.);

• Sign up for Fast Web and apply for some scholarships NOW. There are still some out there with deadlines early in the year;

• Plot out which search engine, and local, scholarships they will apply for next term and when the deadlines are;
  

• Review at home the new 2014 Careers Oregon booklet (If these are not yet on the front tble, they are in the open boxes by my desk, so feel free to help yourselves.);

• Followup on any scholarship aps they've submitted this fall. They might find they got one.