The Scholarship Question

Happy Thanksgiving!

The PEG staff joins me in wishing you and your family a very safe and happy start to this year's holiday season.

I've decided that this installment of the PEG Blog should cover a subject near and dear to every college student's heart, the scholarship.

Mary Baldwin does offer very generous merit scholarships to all incoming students (yes, that does include potential PEG students) in varying amounts from $5,000 to $13,000 based upon a student's current GPA and SAT or ACT scores. In fact, most entering PEG students receive either $11,000 or $13,000 by virtue of their high GPA's and test scores. However, I can well understand that even these generous scholarship amounts, though renewable every year as long as the student remains in good academic standing, may not be enough for a family to be secure in their decision to send their young daughter to college.

The good news? There are scholarships out there, you just have to know where to look.

If your daughter is under the age of 13, then the process of finding an outside scholarship might be more difficult.

"None of the online scholarship databases includes information about college scholarships that are available only to children under age 13 because of federal privacy laws. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), 15 USC 6501, and the Children's Privacy Protection Final Rule, require web sites to obtain "verifiable parental consent" before collecting, using or disclosing individually identifiable information from children under age 13. This effectively prevents online scholarship databases from matching students under age 13 with college scholarships. Because of the difficulties in obtaining consent, all of the scholarship databases avoid the problem by omitting scholarships for underage children from their databases and refusing to register users under age 13."

This information is according to www.finaid.org. However, they also have a listing of scholarships for children who are younger than 13. Please visit this website to see a list of those scholarships.

http://www.finaid.org/scholarships/age13.phtml


Fortunately, the process is easier for children who are age 13 and older. Fast Web is a wonderful scholarships search engine that allows students and their families to learn about prospective scholarships by typing in their personal information, and from that day forward a list of those scholarships that the student may be eligible for will be delivered to the student's email everyday.

There are also other private options to consider. The Davidson Fellows scholarship program, established in 2001, recognizes exceptional students and supports them in the fulfillment
of their potential. Each year, Fellows are awarded scholarships of $50,000, $25,000 or $10,000 and are recognized for their achievements at a special awards reception in Washington, D.C. The deadline for the 2008 Davidson Fellows Scholarship is March 26, 2008.
To be eligible to apply the 2008 Davidson Fellows Scholarship, applicants must be under the age of 18 as of October 1, 2008. For more information about this scholarship program please visit http://www.ditdservices.org/Articles.aspx?ArticleID=36&NavID=1_0 .

Of course, this entry only represents a small sample of the scholarships that are available. I will continue to search and other scholarships will be posted here as well.