More Than a Test Score

There are a handful of days left before the semester ends and you enter the mad-dash to prep for finals. Between scouring your noteboook for answers, creating study guides, and wrapping up your final projects, there’s a lot to keep in mind before the big exam. Thankfully our friends at Chegg gathered some insightful advice from a source more than familiar with student anxiety during finals season—a former USC teacher’s assistant.

Read the REAL advice you’ll need to ace your finals…

Congratulations to Jonathan Mason, our latest Weekly “Three Sentence Essay” Scholarship winner!

Who doesn’t love a good field trip? You get to explore new places, meet new people, and best of all, spend some time out of the classroom! Class trips cost money though, so we asked if you had to create a fundraiser to cover the trip’s costs, what would it be? Jonathan’s response stood out to us for finding a fun way to engage his classmates and faculty, while ensuring unwanted possessions don’t go to waste.

Here’s his winning essay:
I believe having a community yard sale would be an efficient way to raise money for a class trip. If all the students, faculty, and parents donate items and combine their efforts, they could sponsor a nice class trip. With the sells and donations received, it would be a fun idea.

Here’s a bit more about our winner:
My name is Jonathan but most just simply call me by my last name, Mason. I am a very outgoing and laid back guy when enjoys the simple things. After graduating high school I want to attend a small to medium sized university, where I plan to study journalism and some sort of sports management. My future goals include becoming a sports journalist, working my way to the radio, and finally to ESPN where it is my dream to have a career.

Here’s a few of our favorite runner’s up:

Lenora V. – If everyone paid $3 to wear their pajamas to school it would not only be a pajama party but it would bring people closer together because they would stand out from the rest. Those in pj’s would bond with others in pj’s resulting in students meeting new people in a unique way.

Tyler H. – I would raffle a new television. There would be twenty tickets per person in our class. There are 168 students in my class and at one dollar a ticket, that is $3360. While a 40″ LED TV at Target is $450, that is a profit of $2910, for our class to do where ever we like.

Nancy A. – If I had to raise money for a class trip, my idea would be to sell origami or paper-mache products. I would sell these because it would require recycling old papers; thus, this would reduce waste. Furthermore, all the paper products would be made by the class making it fun.

Looking for a way to raise funds for your college education? Apply for our Weekly “Three Sentence Essay” Scholarship and you could be $1,000 closer to your goal. Just fill out the application, write your essay, and click “submit”… it’s that simple!

While the holidays are a great time to sit back, relax, and hangout with the family, they’re also a prime opportunity to get a head start on your college planning essentials. With entrance exam season in our midsts and application filing dates just around the corner, now is the perfect time for collegebound upperclassmen to prepare. That’s why we’ve created a comprehensive resource with everything you need to know to gain an edge this semester.

View our holiday college prep guide…a MUST READ for high school juniors and seniors!

Congratulations to our latest Double Your Money Winner, Margaret Rivers! Margaret was awarded The Burger King Scholars Award for $1,000 and because she was smart enough to use Zinch to find it, she’s earned herself an additional $1,000 towards her college education. We asked Margaret to tell us a little about herself and her ambitions—check out what she had to say.

What is your strategy behind applying for scholarships?

My strategy is pretty simple, search, search and search some more and apply to everything you are eligible. Starting first with your high school and then branching out to local, county, state and then nationally.

What career path do you see yourself taking after school?

After school I intend to help under represented youth in the legal system, everyone deserves and second chance.

What technology do you think you couldn’t live without and why?

I can’t live without my iPhone. It has all my info in it I would be lost without it. I even dress it up in different cases.

How are you more than a test score?

I am more than a test score, because I have attributes that are not reflected on any test. I have won scholarships where my GPA was the lowest of the winners, but I won the largest award. God has made me uniquely different from everyone else in the universe and that doesn’t show on a test score.

Looking for a way to get ahead on tuition this semester? Hit up our Double Your Money program to find out if you’re eligible for a scholarship match!

You always hear about how great a resource Twitter is for connecting with new people and sharing information. Yet as a student busy with homework, clubs, and pursuing your degree, how’re those tweets supposed to save you time and money? Well, the truth of the matter is Twitter can be an amazingly valuable tool for finding new scholarship
opportunities, but you have to
know where to look.

Think of it like this, if Facebook is where you go to connect with the people you know, Twitter is where you go to connect with the people you want to know, and in turn, find the information you’re looking for. So how does this translate to scoring some extra cash for college? Here are the steps you’ll need to take to grab that green.

• Follow the #scholarship hashtag. This is the first (and simplest) action you should take for finding scholarship opportunities on Twitter. Whether the tweets are coming from teachers, schools, or actual scholarship providers, anyone who uses that hashtag will show up in your search results.

• Search key phrases. While hashtags are a good way to find helpful information, they’re far from the only method you should be using. Twitter also allows you to search for tweets that run key phrases or terms. When it comes to finding some college funding, try searching for related phrases like “financial aid,” “federal aid,” and “merit based.” Not only will you find tweets full of useful goodies, but you’ll discover which folks are actively discussing these kinds of topics. That brings us to our next point…

• Follow like minds. After you’ve run your searches you should start following the people that provide you with the information most relevant to your needs. Don’t stop there though—make sure to check out who those people are following too! More than likely you’ll stumble across a number of valuable contacts that are also tweeting about scholarship opportunities as well.

• Check for Lists. In addition to researching people to follow, you should also check to see if any of them have been added to a Twitter List. Twitter Lists are another great way to uncover relevant content for two reasons—a). they’re curated by real people and b). they’re usually focused on a single subject, so you know everyone that’s been listed is sharing the info you’ll want. Zinch has their own Twitter List of top financial aid sources too, which you can follow here.

With the dawning of the digital age there are more opportunities than ever to find ways to pay for college, but if you don’t have the tools to illuminate the way, you’re merely wandering around in the dark. By having a focused plan like the one listed above, you’ll be surprised at how easily this information shines through.

If you’re wondering where’s a good starting point for the best info on college admissions, student life, and financial aid, make sure to follow us @Zinch; and if you know a great Twitter resource we should include, leave it in a comment below!