A Beginner’s Guide to the Perfect College Recommendation Letter

By now, college applications are coming to a close and you’re probably putting the final touches on your application. Or, if you’re a junior you’re already thinking about how to submit the perfect application. Part of the application process is the recommendation letter. Recommendation letters are an integral part of a college application. Some colleges, most in fact, require that you submit one. So, what is a recommendation letter and do you get your hands on one?

Letters of recommendation are simple: it’s a letter from people who know you well enough to write about you as an individual.

 Why Do Colleges Even Want Recommendation Letters?

Colleges understand that you are more than the numbers that define you (GPA, SAT, ACT, etc.). Admissions officials love when students excel academically. However, letters of recommendation from people who know you well supply a more personal approach to your application. Much like the essay, the letter reveals things about you that test scores and numbers cannot. It shows the college or university things such as: your ability to work in a group, how well you overcome challenges, your ability to adapt, etc.

Who the Heck Do I Ask?

Talk to peers, family, teachers and councilors about who you should ask.

If you decide to use a teacher for your recommendation, use a current teacher or someone who knows you inside and out of class (i.e. your English teacher who also coaches your baseball team) Believe it or not, you don’t have to just ask teachers and administrators. Ask influential adults who can write strong recommendation letters. These can be people like, youth pastors, outside sports coaches, etc.

No matter who you ask, make sure they are fully willing and excited to write one for you, you don’t want a letter that was written by someone who felt obligated to write it. 

When Should I Start Asking?

It’s never too early to start thinking about college recommendation letters. Start having meetings with the people who you think could best represent you.

About the middle of your junior year start having conversations with your teachers and councilors about who is the best fit to write your letter. This is going to give the person writing plenty of time to write the best letter-- a last-minute recommendation isn’t going to be all that good.

When you find those select people to write your letters make sure to communicate with them. Let the person writing your letter know about all of your accomplishments. Some examples of things you could tell them would be: a job you have, a project you did or an obstacle you over came. Have meetings and talk about the contents of your letter. Be certain that the writer knows when the letter is due.

Teachers especially write many recommendation letters, be sure to show your gratitude and be patient with them. Showing your gratitude through a nice thank you e-mail or card would really mean a lot to them!

A good recommendation letter can put the finishing touches on an already great college application, so be sure to stay organized through this process. Know your deadlines, keep tabs on the people doing your recommendations and everything should run smooth.

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10 Scholarships to Apply For in August/September

“We believe, that is, you and I, that education is not an expense. We believe it is an investment.” –Lyndon B. Johnston

1. $5,000 Young Patriots Essay Contest

Deadline: January 5^th, 2017

Age/Grade: Middle and High School

  The Young Patriots Essay Contest is designed to challenge middle and high school students to creatively engage with public policy and current events through the art of writing. We assign a controversial topic each year, and three winners are chosen to receive a scholarship out of hundreds of essay submissions. Find the topic and entry instructions below! "Are international free trade agreements in the best interest of the United States? Why or why not?"

Contest participants have the opportunity to: -Earn a college scholarship of up to $5,000 -Have your essay published on Debate Central -See your essay posted on the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) home page -Have your essay shared with 200,000 NCPA Policy Patriots via email -Have your winning entry be sent to your hometown newspapers, radio, and TV

Essays must be written in English and should not exceed 1,200 words. A bibliography does not count towards the word total.

2. Don’t Text and Drive Scholarship

Deadline: September 30, 2016

Age/Grade: None

Citizenship Limit: US or Legal Citizen

Do you know how far you will drive on the freeway if you take your eyes off the road for five seconds, the average time it takes to send a text? An entire football field. According to the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, texting while driving makes drivers 23 times more likely to get into a "safety-critical event." The purpose of this scholarship is to help you understand the risks of texting while driving. You must be a high school freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior or a current or entering college or graduate school student of any level. Home-schooled students are also eligible. There is no age limit. You must also be a U.S. citizen or legal resident.

We'll select the 10 finalists based on the content of the 140-character message. The winner will be selected based on the content and creativity of the 500- to 1,000-word essay.

3. $1,000 College JumpStart Scholarship

Deadline: October 17, 2016

Age/Grade: 10^th-12^th

Citizenship Limit: US or Legal Citizen

The College JumpStart Scholarship is an annual, merit-based competition that is open to 10th, 11th and 12th graders and college students and non-traditional students. The goal is to recognize students who are committed to using education to better their life and that of their family and/or community.

Applicants must be 10th, 11th or 12th grade high school, college, or adult students. Applicants may study any major and attend any college in the U.S. Applicants must be legal residents of the United States and complete the online application form including the required personal statement. The award may be used for tuition, room and board, books or any related educational expense.

4. $500 Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science International Essay Competition

Deadline: October 5^th, 2016

Age/Grade: High School and International Equivalent

All high school students and international equivalents are invited to submit an essay about the recent effects and future promises of science in our society. Write about particular discoveries, events, or persons from science in current events or present a more general account of the changes and developments. Each essay must be accompanied by a statement of acknowledged validity by a teacher in the field of the sciences, technology, engineering or mathematics.

Students must submit their essays and entry forms electronically on or before the contest deadline of October 8th.

Students who have family members affiliated with the Journal, or serving as contest judges are not eligible to participate.

This year's prompt: Albert Einstein once said, "To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science." The scientific process has become increasingly interdisciplinary. Examine a modern issue in STEM being addressed from an interdisciplinary perspective and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of how these separate fields approach the issue and interact with each other. Potential topics could be found within many fields, including environmental science, engineering, and neuroscience. Note that originality is a substantial component of scoring.

- No literary form other than an essay will be accepted. - Each essay must reflect the contestant’s own writing and original thinking. - No graphs, images, or illustrations should be included in the essay - The essay must be sent via e-mail to dujs@dartmouth.edu with the subject line "DUJS ISEC SUBMISSION." - The Student Entry Form should be scanned and saved as a .pdf, .jpeg, or .png It must be attached to the email in conjunction with the essay. - Entries must be received on or before October 5th.

5. $10,000 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Essay Contest

Deadline: January 4^th, 2017

Age/Grade: Grades 9-12

Citizenship Limit: US Citizens only

The contest is open to United States high school students in grades nine through twelve (9-12) attending public, private, parochial, or home schools; U.S. students under the age of twenty enrolled in a high school correspondence/GED program in any of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, or the U.S. territories; and U.S. citizens attending schools overseas. Past winners and finalists are not eligible to participate. Employees of John Hancock Financial Services and members of their families are not eligible to participate.

Topic: Describe and analyze an act of political courage by a U.S. elected official that took place during or after 1956. Include an analysis of the obstacles, risks, and consequences associated with the act. The essay may concern an issue at the local, state, national, or international level.

Requirements: -Essays can be no more than 1,000 words but must be a minimum of 700 words. Citations and bibliography are not included in the word count -Essays must be the original work of the student. -John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Edward M. Kennedy are not eligible subjects for essays -Essays must describe an act of political courage by a U.S. elected official that occurred during or after 1956, the publication date of Profiles in Courage. The official may have addressed an issue at the local, state, or national level Essays about past recipients of the Profile in Courage Award will be disqualified unless they describe an act of political courage other than the act for which the award was given. -Essays must have a minimum of five sources

6. $500 Odenza Marketing Group Scholarship

Deadline: September 30^th, 2016

Age/Grade: Ages 16-25 and have at least one year of secondary school left

Citizenship Limit: US and Canada only

In order to apply for the Odenza marketing group scholarship, you must first ‘like’ our Facebook page, and write two short essays. Every essay must contain 3 essential elements.

The essay must provide a thesis statement (in the introductory paragraph). The thesis statement must encapsulate the main argument for the paper. It must be clear and coherent, and it must answer the question that has been put forth by the application.

The essay must offer supporting evidence. The writer must provide the supporting evidence in paragraph (not bullet or list) form. Each paragraph must contain evidence that supports one idea or concept that proves the thesis statement. The writer must provide citations (in footnote, endnote, or parenthetical form) for all evidence presented.

Every essay must follow basic rules of grammar and format. Every paper must contain a beginning (introductory paragraph), a middle (several supporting paragraphs that compromise the body of the paper), and an end (conclusion paragraph). Grammar is vital for essay composition. Sentence fragments, misspellings, and improper punctuation denote a carelessly-written and poorly-conceived paper.

      7. $1,000 R2C Scholarship

Deadline: September 30, 2016

Age/Grade: 17+ and enrolling in college within 12 months or already enrolled

Citizenship Limit: US Citizens

Scholarship is open to U.S. citizens and legal residents who are starting a program of higher education (college or graduate school) within the next 12 months or are currently enrolled. Applicant must be 17 years of age or older and there is no maximum age limit. Applicant must share in three sentences of less why they are getting their degree.

8. $1,500 Shout It Out Scholarship

Deadline: September 30, 2016

Age/Grade 13+ and will enroll no later than 2022

Citizenship Limit: US Citizen

Scholarship is open to students 13 years of age or older who are legal residents of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia and are currently enrolled (or will enroll no later than the fall of 2022) in an accredited post-secondary institution of higher education. Applicant will need to submit a short response to a given prompt.

9. $1,000 ShipDig.com Scholarship

Deadline: September 30, 2016

Age/Grade: High school seniors and college students

Scholarship is open to high school seniors and college students enrolled in an accredited academic institution. Applicant must submit an essay on the most interesting item they have received in the mail.

10. Up to $100,000 Siemens Competition Scholarship

Deadline: September 20, 2016

     Age/Grade: Grades 9-12

Competition is open to individuals and teams of up to three students in grades 9 through 12. Students are encouraged to do research in mathematics, engineering, biological, or physical science.

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6 Useful Scholarship Websites to Check Out

Finding relevant scholarships can be a challenge; anyone who’s spent more than five minutes searching for one can tell you that. There are numerous scholarship search websites that boast about having millions of scholarships worth billions of dollars in total and that they’ll match you with the perfect ones just for you, but do they actually work? Are your scholarship matches really individualized? How many of those millions of scholarships can you actually apply for? To find out, sign up for six of the most popular free scholarship websites. I filled out each profile as thoroughly as possible in order to get the most relevant matches, listing three different majors (journalism, biomedical sciences, and mathematics) for each website, so as to distinguish between a website not having major-specific scholarships and there not being many scholarships for a specific major.

After a week, here, in no particular order, are the results:

Fastweb

Number of Matches: 51

I’d used Fastweb before as a college search engine, but never to search for scholarships. Every time I would open the website, their main page would always boast about their more than 1.5 million scholarships and how their system targets the perfect scholarships for you based on your interests and skills, so I had high expectations. After filling out my profile, I was matched with 49 scholarships, most of which were pretty general. I only found 3 scholarships that correlated with the majors I put in my profile, but most of the others were ones anyone willing to write an essay or create a short video could apply for. These scholarships seem to be based primarily on age, though the ones I was not qualified for based on my profile were eliminated, so I didn’t have to do a lot of voting through. These types of scholarships are great if you do not know what you’re majoring in or you aren’t super passionate about anything, and if you want to apply to a large quantity of scholarships that don’t require pages and pages of essays.

At the end of the week, I had 2 new scholarship matches, so it seems that their website is updated quite often.

Conclusion: While most Fastweb’s scholarships may not be individualized, it is nevertheless a great resource for scholarships, especially for those who don’t know their major.

Cappex

Number of Matches: 39

Cappex is primarily a college search website, and, from what I’m told, is a pretty good one, but it also has a section for scholarships, which sounded very promising. Despite my rather thorough profile, the scholarships I matched with on Cappex weren’t at all individualized; I didn’t find a single one that correlated with the majors I entered in my profile, unless you count the FeetRemedies.com Scholarship on plantar fasciitis for biomedical science. Like Fastweb, it seemed I was matched with scholarships based only on my age, taking nothing else into account. This can actually be a good thing, as I previously explained, but unlike Fastweb, some of the scholarships I matched with I could not apply for because I was simply ineligible for them. Whether it was because I was not a returning college student or a resident of Texas, these scholarships could have been weeded out easily using the information in my profile. The remaining scholarships I was eligible for were of quality, but they could also be found on Fastweb, which had a few more than Cappex did as well.

Conclusion: Although it may be a good college search website, I found it to be a mediocre scholarship search website.

Raise.me

Number of Matches: It’s Complicated

Raise.me is a bit different from your typical scholarship searching website. Instead of matching you with scholarships that you then have to apply for, you are awarded with micro-scholarships from different schools based on your achievements in high school: $500 for each A you get, $200 for having perfect attendance, $10 for every hour you volunteer, and so on. You’ll receive more or less money from an achievement based on the school, as some schools are more focused on community service or extracurricular activities more than others. The most money I received from a school was $70,150 ($17,538 a year) and the least was still $1,455 ($364 a year). It all seems a little too good to be true, and, depending on your preference in schools, it is. Of the 130 schools offering micro-scholarships, most of them are small, liberal arts schools; only 38 schools on the site have over 5000 students, and there aren’t exactly any big name schools. Most of the schools I received micro-scholarships from were from schools I had never heard of in cities I had never heard of. So, while I would definitely give Raise.me a chance, if you know you want to go to a large school or an Ivy League university, it may be best to look elsewhere.

Conclusion: Fantastic for small liberal arts schools and a few large state schools.

Scholarships.com

Number of Matches: 120

To my complete surprise and excitement, this was the first scholarship search website I visited that actually took my profile into account when matching me with scholarships. The scholarships I was provided with fit not only my majors, but also a few other factors listed in my profile such as my religion and high school activities. While I was matched with a few seemingly random scholarships like the ones for PlumbersStock.com and the Maine Grocers & Food Producers Association, most of them either matched my interests or were just generally geared towards all students my age and only required an essay, both of which are things I want when applying for scholarships.

Conclusion: By providing largely relevant scholarships with varying degrees of difficulty, Scholarships.com is a fantastic resource and lives up to its’ name.

The College Board

Number of Matches: 194

The College Board website is one many high school students are familiar with in some capacity, mostly from viewing scores for the SAT, the PSAT, and any AP tests, but it also can be used to search for scholarships. Although it matched me with the most scholarships in total, I was not able to apply for many because they were either past the deadline or I was just ineligible. I did, however, get matched with scholarships that were relevant to my major, but not to anything else; it seemed this was the only website that did not take my age and high school status into account when picking scholarships for me. They only provided a few general anyone-in-high-school-can-apply scholarships: most of their scholarships had specific qualifications such as race, religion, and membership to an organization that I did not fulfill, making me wonder why they were presented as options to me in the first place. All that being said, the scholarships specific to the majors I put in my profile were pretty fantastic on a monetary level and, as a whole, not that difficult to apply for.

Conclusion: Can provide one with great scholarships relevant to their major if they are willing to comb through the ones they’re ineligible for.

Chegg

Number of Matches: 86

When I began looking into different scholarship sites, I had a bunch of people tell me that should sign up for Zinch because they either read an article about it or knew someone who used it. So, sure enough, I typed in Zinch.com and was redirected to a site called Chegg, which specializes in textbook rentals. Thinking I had typed it in wrong, I tried again, but it still came back to Chegg. I soon came to realize that Zinch had been bought out by Chegg in 2011 and their scholarship section had been moved to the last to the last section of the last tab on the homepage. I was curious to see if, despite this major status downgrade, the famed scholarship search engine still lived up to its’ name.

I was matched with scholarships on Chegg based solely on my age and year in school, which at this point I’ve come to expect and appreciate in some ways; however, a little over half of the 86 scholarships I was matched with I was ineligible for. Attached to each scholarship were little tags that showed what aspect of my profile it matched: my age, year in school, or sometimes, my citizenship. These tags only graced 37 of the 86 scholarships I matched with, and the rest I was not eligible for because of my age, year in school, or citizenship. The scholarships I was eligible did have a wide range of participation levels, ranging from collecting peanut butter for a food bank to writing an essay about how collecting peanut butter for a food bank can affect your life. Community service was a common theme among many of the scholarships I matched with, which gave the website a bit of a flair in my opinion, as many of the scholarships I looked through over the week were more about academic achievement.

Conclusion: Not sure it lives up to the glory of its’ original name, but it proved it deserves more than being the last section of the last tab.

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Self-Advocacy: Be the Boss of Your Education

Introduction

As for students with learning disabilities, self-advocacy is a crucial skill to have in the classroom, in order to obtain the best educational experience for yourself possible.  Although, everyone can benefit from self-advocacy in and outside of the classroom.  

The Issue

As elementary school students, we so often hear the term “stick up for yourself” without receiving a complete understanding of what it truly means to do so.  This results in naïve misinterpretations about self-advocacy; that it is an easily manageable task that accumulates with time and age.  Well, at least that was my belief.  I was met with the harsh realities of not “sticking up for yourself” as a high school freshman.  Because I did not have the confidence, courage, and acknowledgement, I found that my academic wants and needs weren’t being met to my full satisfaction.  Thankfully, because of the experience, I discovered the secret power that lies in self-advocacy and the impact it can have on one’s educational (and life) experience.  Start the school year off right and be assertive in your education.

Identify Your Voice

Our educational lives are constantly monitored by a small army of adults including our parents, teachers, guidance counselors, club advisers, etc.  In this triumphant sea of elders, it becomes very easy to lose your voice.  Especially if some of these adults feel automatically inclined to exercise their authority over those younger than them, rather than with them.  This lack of a platform can be discouraging to certain students, causing them to withdraw from the nucleus of their educational process rather than towards it.  One of the most significant ways to dispel this unequal share of powers in one’s personal education is to know yourself well enough to vocalize your presence.  By the simple act of acknowledging your academic wants, needs, strengths, weaknesses…etc. you lay the foundation for strong confidence and assurance that cannot go unheard by the adults in your educational journey.

Effective Communication

A large part of self-advocacy is communication.  And for my fellow introverts, allow me to rid of the ridiculous myth that extroverts are the only ones who can naturally speak for themselves.  It merely takes a thorough understanding of self in order to communicate fluently and effectively with those who can provide aid to you.  Taking initiative and being assertive means, in no way, to overrule the authority figures in your education.  Rather, it means to be proactive and engaged in the learning process alongside them.  The learning process is different for everyone.  As for myself, I struggle with severe-to-profound hearing loss, which puts me at a slight disadvantage in certain oral-orientated classes. (Yes, I am calling you out, Honors Spanish.)  Because of this, I had to commence personal conversations with my school advisers in order to address and accommodate these issues.

Conclusion

Self-advocacy does not come easily.  It stems from self-confidence which can, in most cases, take time to build.  With that being said, however, confidence is constantly evolving, so you should not decide to “wait” until you feel that you’ve reached the status quo of confidence that the media portrays.  In the end, you must find what is most important to you as a student and person and inform people of the internal and external barriers making it difficult to attain the educational experience that you deserve.

Leadership Opportunity for Teens

During the summer in which I was a rising sophomore in high school, I was invited to a leadership program for teenagers with hearing loss called LOFT.  It was here that I learned to be self-advocate.  If you are a high school student with any measure of hearing loss/deafness, click on the hyperlink for more information about the program.

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