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Student story: Overcoming financial obstacles to college

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  • leafers seed style avatar for user reggabrazaldo
    Hi i am a freshmen in highschool im wondering
    how do you get scholarships for college
    Do AP classes help pay for college
    How do AP classes benefit a student
    (9 votes)
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  • aqualine tree style avatar for user Carlos Moctezuma
    Hey, I am wondering, how do you apply for scholarships at school?
    (9 votes)
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    • leaf blue style avatar for user Peterson
      It really depends on the school. Some schools automatically consider you for a scholarship when you send in your freshmen application, or require that you fill out a separate scholarship-specific form in addition to your acceptance application. Furthermore, some colleges offer a variety of scholarship types, and have certain requirements, prerequisites, and forms that go along with each (usually high GPAs and demonstration of leadership/extra-curricular activities for the highest scholarships). Also, there are many, many scholarships available outside of the school made available by the government, local institutions, and school boards. These almost always require an application to be considered.

      For the school scholarships, it would be best to check their website for exact details regarding their requirements; for the outside-of-school scholarships, also check their websites, and talk with a high school counselor or college financial-aid officer to find out about the scholarships and how to apply for them.
      (11 votes)
  • blobby green style avatar for user Amely Jurgen
    Is Khan Academy information on colleges only pertinent to the USA?
    (7 votes)
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    • old spice man green style avatar for user Matt B
      Mostly yes. Outside the US, the process is luckily much simpler: follow your school system and do well in each class. Keep going to the better schools and study hard. Education will pay off. If you do very well, you will continue to university by a streamlined process.
      Inside the US, colleges look at more than simply grades and the application process is also much more variable, as is the culture about going to university. College/university in the US for good students is almost an expectation, while this is much less the case for non-US countries because there are other sort of professional schools and traineeships.
      (6 votes)
  • leafers seed style avatar for user catilin
    The process of getting a Financial Aid does take many steps to get it right. Also why is there so many steps to it you don't need lot of information I really don't completely understand .
    (4 votes)
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  • mr pants orange style avatar for user frapboy
    how can I apply for college
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby blue style avatar for user claire0125wang21
    How can i get financial support with college applications as a non-US student? I am an asian student in tenth grade and is currently planning on going to a college in the US.
    (3 votes)
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    • aqualine tree style avatar for user David Alexander
      Unlike the generous government of Taiwan, the government of the USA does not support the education of international students. You might qualify for special international student scholarship funds at some private universities, but it's not likely that those will be sufficient for the high cost of attendance there.
      Claire, there's an entire big world out there, and there are excellent university study opportunities in Taiwan, itself. So, have a conversation with your parents about money, and set your goals accordingly.
      (1 vote)
  • blobby green style avatar for user m100035812
    What if I don't stand out academically enough to get academic scholarships and our income is not low enough to get financial aide? I also am not a shining star in any extra curricular activities.Am I too average for scholarships and college?
    (3 votes)
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  • mr pants green style avatar for user João Pedro Souza Matos
    How get a financial aid (that is not a loan)?
    (2 votes)
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    • leaf orange style avatar for user Benny C
      Schools don't give out financial aid in the form of loans. Loans come from banks. Instead, they give out reward packages, grants, and scholarships. They can all add up to thousands of dollars, if you're a good student!
      (3 votes)
  • male robot hal style avatar for user Greg L
    What are the benchmarks one would need to qualify for a fee waver?
    Is this solely based on family income, is there some academic threshold needed to demonstrate you are worthy of consideration, is it based on your ability to come up with some sob story about how desolate and down on your luck you are, or do they wave anyone who asks making the fee something that only the uninformed pay?
    (2 votes)
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  • male robot johnny style avatar for user luiscolwell
    what is the best way of getting scholarships when you have already graduated when i was 16 with a 2.7 GPA with 26.50 credits?
    (2 votes)
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Video transcript

- So I think when I was first thinking about university it was probably my junior year of high school. The scariest part about the process for me was definitely going to be the cost of actually applying to schools. I did a preliminary search and saw that it costs up to 80 dollars to apply to each individual school and so one of my big concerns going into the process was definitely about whether or not I'd be able to afford to apply to a lot of schools. No, I was actually not aware of fee wavers at the time until of course I found out through Quest Bridge. The way I found out about this process actually is the summer after my junior year of high school I attended a Quest Bridge conference actually here at Yale University where kind of the Quest Bridge team talked to low income students about, not only the process of actually applying to schools, but also about the different benefits that you can take advantage of such as fee wavers that you could usually get from your guidance counselor or via contacting the admissions office for universities.