Juniors and Seniors, it’s that time of the year where scholarship deadlines are coming in faster than anybody ever wanted. The chance where you compete with hundreds of different students to have an organization/business help with your college tuition. Scholarships can come in as little as $100 or as big as a full ride to college! This time of the year can get stressful with fall sports starting up, teachers assigning homework, tests, maintaining a social life and any other extra-curricular activities. Even though this is a LOT to handle, it is important to get those scholarships done!

But most of these deadlines are a couple of months away? You’re not wrong, but if you wait a month or weeks away from that deadline, the chances are that you might not get it done in time and you’ll stress yourself out. Former Great Bend High School Senior Daniel Abbott, who won the Koch Scholarship in 2019, tells seniors and juniors to “Sell you capabilities. Find something that stands out and will be remembered at the end of a list of resumes.”

There’s a wide variety of scholarships available. Some of them are monthly like Varsity Tutors, where you write an essay over a specific prompt and have the chance to win $200 or scholarships for undocumented immigrants. Some of the more popular ones are the Coca-Cola Scholars, the Rudd Foundation scholarship, the Hagan scholarship, etc. With every big scholarship means that there is big competition, with thousands of other students trying to come up on top. That’s why it’s crucial to make yourself stand out from the rest of the crowd.

This might seem like a lot of work, which it is, but it’ll all pay off in the end. Former Great Bend High School Senior Bayle Sandy who won the Rudd foundation scholarship in 2019 said that “college has always seemed like a far away dream of mine and the Rudd Scholarship made my dream into a reality,” she continues, “I believe that every great achievement began in the hearts and minds of those who dared to dream, to believe that it was possible.”

It’s time to start looking at scholarships, finding which ones will best suit you, and go for it! Even if you don’t think you can win, you never know. In the words of Michael Scott, he once said, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”