Scholarship Guidance Program for High School Seniors and Senior 4-H Members

Anderson, Kylie Rose

Publication

Scholarship Guidance Program for High School Seniors and Senior 4-H Members

Anderson, Kylie Rose

Description

Scholarships are a crucial element in alleviating the financial burden of college. Recipients are chosen through an intense application process that focuses on awarding scholarships to individuals based on merit, academics, financial income, and culture. One of the hardest parts of this process is making an application stand out and creating it in a way that effectively highlights one’s best qualities. In highschool, I was taught how to fill out scholarship applications and draw attention to my best qualities in an effective and meaningful way. This paid off and upon graduating from highschool, I was awarded multiple local and county scholarships that totalled over $44,000. In college, I served as a volunteer scholarship judge for the Wyoming State 4-H Foundation and quickly found out that the majority of Wyoming youth have no training on how to make their scholarship applications stand out. With this knowledge, I created a 4-H Scholarship Guidance Program and High School Senior Scholarship Guidance Program. Under the guidance of my mentor, I researched what other websites claimed to be the most important elements within a scholarship, compared them to my own thoughts and experiences, and compared them with my focus group opinions. My focus group consisted of eight high school seniors and juniors who were actively involved in the 4-H program and were beginning to apply for scholarships. For the High School Senior Scholarship Guidance Program, I created two documents; a scholarship application timeline and a general tips and tricks document that explains what the most important parts of application should be and how seniors can make their application stand out. For the 4-H Scholarship Guidance Program, I created one document that explains each of the 4-H application questions in depth and gives tips on what to include on the 4-H member’s resume for this scholarship specifically. I also had a video filmed that gives a brief overview of the 4-H application process and what should be included within the application. The following presentation will showcase my products and further explain my methods.