Junior building scholarship database for students

Junior Acacia Fauser is enrolled in E.L.P. As a semester project for the class, she wants to make knowledge of scholarships more accessible to students who may be put off by small prize amounts. Fauser plans to create a spreadsheet that details as many of the available scholarships as possible. 

The spreadsheet will have a link directly to the sign up website for any given scholarship, as a summary of each one that details the format of that scholarship. Each scholarship will also have an informative description of the requirements, such as PSAT and ACT scores, GPA, age, etc. 

The end product is a tool that students can use to be made aware of how many scholarships there are. 

The idea of cataloging all of these local scholarships is something that started out as a personal goal for Fauser to help manage the financial strain of college. Having adult life slowly creeping up all of the time was something that Fauser found rather stressful, and adding on the financial burden of college as the general next step for students that were graduating high school wasn’t helping. As a way to help prepare for the future and for college, Fauser created a personal spreadsheet to keep track of scholarships to apply for later. The spreadsheet was simply to help manage the scholarships that Fauser wanted to apply for, and not much beyond that. One thing Fauser immediately noticed about the process of applying for scholarships is how detailed and tedious it can become. Initially, she had to set up a profile that had tons of information about herself, such as GPA, test scores and other academic information. It was very detailed and took time and motivation to complete. Her profile helped determine what scholarships she should apply for based on how likely she would be to win them.

Fauser found that this part of the process is what turns many students away. They take note of all of the work that goes into even applying for a scholarship and then realize that the work might not be worth the reward that small scholarships offer. 

Fauser, however, was not turned off by the small prize that most local scholarships offered. Instead of seeing the minimal dent that $200 would do in tuition, Fauser looked at it as a way to cover textbooks, dorm supplies and some food. This mindset gave Fauser the motivation to continue researching. 

A little while later Fauser made another important discovery about small scholarships. Fauser found that smaller scholarships often aren’t just one time deals. Most of them are recurring every year, some of them as often as every month. 

It was at this point that Fauser realized that this was information that needed to be shared. Conveniently, it was also around this time that E.L.P began its annual semester-long project, of which, students could choose something that they want to research in depth, so long as they can prove that they have effort and dedication to put toward it. 

For this project Fauser decided to take the spreadsheet to a much larger scale, documenting every local scholarship possible and making it accessible and easier for those who feel like scholarships are a large amount of work for something that doesn’t seem like it can make a difference. 

As a proof of concept for this project, Fauser is using the spreadsheet to apply for and win as many scholarships as possible before May, to prove that by stacking up all the small scholarships that push people away, the serious financial burden that is college can be cut down to a manageable amount. By using the scholarships in the right way, Fauser hopes to be able to save and invest money, instead of being broke like the average college student. 

Around May, when everything is said and done, Fauser will have a finalized version of the spreadsheet that can help students with working toward scholarships for their future.