In This Chapter

Every sport has its rare moments of peak performance. You’ve got the grand slam in baseball, the hat trick in hockey, and the slam dunk in basketball. Well, in the arena of college planning, landing a scholarship is truly that “superstar” moment for a parent or student. That’s because scholarships, at their core, are free money that is awarded based on how well someone has performed, be it on the field, in the classroom, or on his scholarship essay.

Make no mistake about it, winning scholarships is a competitive sport. You’re not just competing against yourself in terms of finding the right options, dressing up your application, and keeping track of key deadlines. You’re also competing against every other person who is scrambling to pay for college, in large part because there are just not enough scholarships to go around.

But don’t be discouraged. Winning scholarships is as much a test of someone’s endurance and willingness to commit to a long-term process as it is about how qualified you actually are to win. To some degree, it’s a numbers game, just like a hole in one in golf. You hit enough balls (or send enough applications), and you’ll eventually get a hole in one.