Fun with Scholarships

So my little cousin is going to be a senior in high school this year, which means she's started her college search. (It also means that I'm probably going to have to stop calling her my "little" cousin.) She's the youngest in her family which means that her parents have already sent a couple of kids to college, so financial aid is an issue. She's started doing some research on college scholarships because she knows how helpful those will be for her and her family. Luckily, she's a really good student, which makes it easier.

I've been helping her out a little bit with the search. I used to love doing scholarship research when I was in high school. (Yeah, I'm a huge dork.) It's great when you find sites where you can do searches for free. It's still amazing to me just how much different stuff is out there, from minority scholarships for various groups to essay contests to scholarships contests from Fortune 500 companies to college grants from different foundations and nonprofit organizations. She and I have also found some cool scholarship opportunities specifically for young women.

And then of course there are all of those college scholarships for athletics, which I certainly never qualified for. My cousin tells me that there's going to be a new show on the CW this fall where the premise involves a girl who becomes a cheerleader because she loses her scholarship and needs to find a new one quickly. I wouldn't know anything about a show like that because I'm way too old to watch the CW. (Ahem.) I don't think my cousin is going to end up a cheerleader, but at least the scholarship part of that is something that a lot of young people can relate to.