Improve Your Financial Aid Applications


There are two major types of scholarships in college--need-based and merit. Need-based scholarships are awarded based on financial needs. Merit-based scholarships are awarded based on academic performance, such as GPA, standardized test scores, and academic references. Either way, GPA is an important consideration for the scholarship application.

Boost Your Essays

Most scholarship applications require essays to assess the academic abilities, social skills, and overall well-roundedness of candidates. In order to boost your essay skills, go through the following steps.
1. Proofread all essays. Go through each essay and look for spelling and grammatical errors. Make sure that the flow and formatting make sense in your essay.
2. Check logic in the essays. Read the essays again. Read them critically and ask yourself, "what message am I sending to the selection committee?" It is vital to make your application unique and memorable.
3. Get feedback. Ask friends, associates, and family members to read your essays and go through steps 1 and 2 above. Ask for candid feedback. Make sure that your reviewers give you their honest opinions. Take their feedback with a small grain of salt and make the updates to your essays that you see fit.

Calculate Your GPA

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Read your scholarship application very closely. Determine whether you need to report an unweighted or weighted GPA (or both). Each financial aid office and other scholarship body will have an opinion on what grade system to report. Many scholarships will require a transcript to verify grades. If your scholarship requires weighted grades to be reported, find out which GPA grading scale is to be used. Use this grading scale to calculate your weighted grade point average.

Strengthen Your Scholarship Application

Improve your chances of getting scholarships by improving your grades. In order to improve your weighted grades, take more honors and AP classes, but make sure you can get good grades in the classes. This will improve your weighted grades. If your scholarship application asks for unweighted grades, you can sign up for any classes in which you can do well. Be sure to still take classes that are relevant to your field and that prepare you for college. You high school coursework prepares you for college.
Beyond grades there are other things you can do to boost your application. You can add extracurricular activities, retake standardized tests (ACT or SAT) for a better score, and get new letters of recommendation.