The end of the school year is less than a month away. Amid the excitement, this is when many seniors feel the pressure to prepare for life after graduation. College applications are in.
Now, they’re faced with scholarship deadlines.
Senior Czara Cabillo has been taking on these stressors head-on.
“I’ve finished the Universal Application one for the Alaska Community Scholarship, which applied me for like multiple scholarships already,” Cabillo said. “Right now I’m about to be done with like two more local ones.”
Even the smallest scholarship gives an advantage to students who plan to pursue secondary education. Many local scholarships are not only for students planning to attend university, but also for those planning to pursue trades — like the local Rainy Day Quilt Guild Scholarship, which prefers students with a future in the arts, and the First City Rotary Vocational Scholarship, for students pursuing trades. They’re not huge amounts of money, but they help.
“It takes out the stress of, ‘Where am I gonna find the money?’” Cabillo said. “It makes me feel more excited and like, this can actually happen for me.”
Cabillo said the monthly newsletters that the Kayhi counselors send out through email are a big help to her. They’re full of information and reminders that students may need for the month, like testing dates, graduation requirements and scholarship deadlines.
School counselors ensure upcoming and current seniors are on the right track to graduate and succeed by preparing for independence after high school.
Natasha O’Brien has been working as a counselor since 2008. She said that the Ketchikan High School Counselors manage over 200 scholarships, between local, state and national sources.
“Helping kids find good fits as far as affordable schools, and then also helping kids find scholarships to help supplement whatever they do, as far as the college they want to attend, is really important to me because that provides opportunities for kids,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien stresses the importance of actually applying for and completing these scholarship applications in full — especially the local ones.
With these local scholarships, many have no applicants. Others have just a few. That increases the likelihood of being accepted.
“I know that I’ve had scholarships where there have been a few applications turned in,” O’Brien said. “And the awarding group said, ‘Well, only one of the applications was actually complete, and we were going to give out three $500 scholarships, but we’re gonna give $1,500 to the one that turned it in complete.’”
As the end of the school year gets closer, many seniors get antsy for graduation. Senioritis hits. Time management gets harder and deadlines slip. Some scholarship applications can be time consuming. O’Brien encourages seniors to compare them to a job.
“When students talk about how much time it takes, I tell them to look at the amount of the scholarship,” O’Brien said. “Say, ‘Okay, well, that’s your hourly rate,’ or if you spend 30 minutes on a $1,000 scholarship, that’s a pretty good hourly rate for the work that you’re putting into it.”
Lilly Pader is a senior at Kayhi. She has received a National Honor Society Scholarship from an application that she threw together at the last minute. As of earlier this month, she had applied for nearly 30 scholarships, and had 30 left on her list.
Most of them have been from the monthly newsletters.
“I feel like I don’t know that many other resources to see scholarships,” Pader said.
She struggles with procrastination. But Pader also recommends turning the application in, even if it isn’t your best work — as she knows from experience, there’s a chance you may be the only applicant.
Even though the scholarship that Pader received wasn’t one that she put the most effort into, it was enough to show interest and get accepted.
If scholarships are done online, it speeds up the process; just upload the documents and submit. But, she said, most local scholarships are done on paper and can be a hassle to turn in. Those are harder to finish last minute.
“With the paper ones, you have to print everything out,” Pader said. “You have to get it all in order, you have to figure out what your cover page is going to be, and then you have to figure out a time when Mrs. O’Brien’s gonna be there to turn it into her. It’s a little more of a hassle.”
Pader said it’s important to be flexible and keep options open. For example, if a scholarship is for students who will return to Alaska after college, it’s okay to apply — even if those plans aren’t set in stone.
Pader, while planning to be a doctor in the future, is going to work on charters during the summers. She’s using that to her advantage.
“There are some scholarships where it says you have to go into a maritime career,” Pader said. “I’m planning on being a charter captain for the next 3 years to help pay for my college, but I’m not actually planning on going into a maritime career. I’m still applying for those.”
Scholarship application season is live and ongoing, and it’s important to keep options open.
Talk to local businesses, search online sources, and talk to previous scholarship recipients to learn more about organizations that offer scholarships. Every bit counts.
This story is part of a collaboration between Kayhi’s journalism program and KRBD.
