Scholarships
Merit scholarships are awarded to students based on their academic achievements in high school. Most colleges award these scholarships based on a students grade point average (gpa) and their ACT or SAT score.
Based on these numbers, there are levels to how much you can be awarded. You can find a college's merit scholarship listed on their financial aid page.
Youngstown State University automatically awards first year students with merit scholarships.
A list of scholarships given can be found here:
Scholarship Search Sites and Matching Platforms
If you have searched for scholarships online, chances are you have come across sites such as FastWeb and scholarships.com. These sites contain some traditional scholarships, but the majority of "scholarships" posted are drawings or contests listed by companies trying to get your personal data or promoting student loans. Sites that are more reliable to search for traditional scholarships are bigfuture and careeronestop.
How can you tell the difference? A traditional scholarship listing will ask for transcripts and possibly letters of recommendation. They will also have guidelines or qualifications that are required such as a 3.0+ gpa. Nontraditional scholarships (drawings/contests) may say sponsored by or promoted by.
If you plan to use these scholarship sites, you should create a separate email just for scholarship searches. This way your personal email Inbox will not get flooded with promotions from companies trying to sell to you.
Local Scholarships
Local scholarships are scholarships offered by local churches, membership groups, banks, etc. These organizations prefer to give scholarships to students living in their communities. We will post the local scholarships on this page as we get them. The local scholarships usually don't open their applications until January. If you cannot print the scholarship applications, Mr. Lenz can give you copies.
