Around the Campfire: How to Win Scholarships

One of my frustrations is the failure of Indian students to apply for and win scholarships. In a research project completed 12 years ago, we found that the average number of scholarships Indian students apply for is only one. The minimum should be about 40. Actually, most Indian students don’t apply for any scholarships, and one out of 20 will apply for several.

There are lots of myths about scholarships. One of the most destructive is that Indian students should apply for Indian scholarships. Wrong! There are only about 100 or 150 Indian scholarships out of 1.5 million scholarships in the U. S. If you are looking for Indian scholarships you are looking in a small pile. There is a much more huge pile out there called “scholarships.” That’s where students should be.

Another myth is that scholarships are based on need. Most scholarships, at least 90% of them, are based on merit. You could be poor as a church mouse, but if you go to them with a 2.0 GPA you are not going to win. You need excellent grades, high ACT/SAT test scores, and a clear vision if you’re going to win scholarships.

A third myth is that scholarships are part of Financial Aid. The FA program, which started in 1966 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s poverty programs, is a new and separate program from scholarships. Scholarships, on the other hand, are part of the movement for higher education in the U. S. that goes back to the colonies and the founding of Harvard, Dartmouth, and William and Mary. Until the 1950s you needed to be an Old White Boy to earn these scholarships.

Minorities and women were out. But more and more these scholarships are knocking down the barriers and being fair about the process. The most hard-to-find applicants for scholarships are Native Americans. That’s why this is a golden opportunity for Indian kids. We have had only one student, Isaiah Rodriguez from Laguna Pueblo, who went all the way with scholarships.

I helped him find 102 scholarships and he won 70 of them. He had been a dropout for five years, but decided being an assistant fry cook in a restaurant was not the way he wanted to go.

Another myth is that scholarships are only for students who are just finishing high school. Our oldest graduate, Dr. Harriet Skye (Lakota), was 62 years old when she earned her BA degree. She kept going for an MA and then a Ph. D. She just wrote me the other day saying she has finally retired as Vice President of United Tribes Education and Technical College in Bismarck.

Another one of our graduates, Delbert James (Navajo), was 48 years old when he earned his BA in Social Work. But he went to work immediately in child protection for the tribe and has done great work.

Students think they can win scholarships on the first draft of their essay. They probably won’t. I help students with their essays all the time, almost every day of my life, and can tell you that almost none of them get it right on the first draft. I mean way less than one percent can do that. In fact, in 25 years of operating our scholarship program, we have only had one essay that was an A+. I want to see one more before I die, but I may not.

The students who have done well, including Isaiah and over 720 others, have worked hard on their essays. I critiqued Isaiah’s essay about six times before he had it good enough to win.

Students think they can start to look for scholarships just before they enter college. It breaks my heart to hear from them in June when they are going to start the following September. There are almost no deadlines in May, June, July, and August. There are lots of deadlines in October, November, December, January, February, March, and April.

In other words, by the end of April the scholarship season is practically over. Students need to start a year before they are going to start college, not the month before. I hate it when I hear about a scholarship from the Elks or the Lions that no one applied for.

Some of the things that students need to have in their essays and normally forget are:

•  Their mother’s name, occupation, tribe, age, and hobbies.

•  Same for dad.

•  Names, ages, occupations, and interests of siblings.

•  Name of mentor in high school, what she did for you, what you did for her.

•  What their major will be.

•  Where they plan to attend college.

•  Their GPA, both raw and percentiles.

•  Their ACT score. Most Indian students are disappointed with their ACT scores. They have a 3.8 GPA in high school, and think they will score at the 90th percentile or higher. They are disappointed when they score at the 40th or 50th. In my experience, it is impossible to score well on the ACT or SAT unless students are heavy readers. This means one to two books a week; almost none of our students read this much. The ACT is largely a test of knowledge, not a test of “academic ability.” If you don’t know a lot of stuff, you can’t score high. Students should start taking the ACT in the tenth grade, and not wait until the last possible time to take it as a senior.

• Their experience with their tribe. This counts for all the handful of Indian scholarships, and counts just as well with the other 99% of scholarships that have nothing to do with Indians.

Seniors in high school should be well on their way with their scholarship search by now, January. But as I have told students for over 40 years, it is never too late to start looking for scholarships.

At one school I visited three months ago, I talked to 200 students. I decided to ask them something I had never asked before. “How many of you have been just messing around, not really trying?” I asked them. About 40% raised their hands. Our schools are not pushing these students hard enough.

“If you want to go to Harvard,” I told them, “and you have not been really trying, go to a community college for a year or two, ace it, and I will get you into Harvard or Stanford.” And I mean it. I have done that dozens of times.

I hate to see Indian talent wasted. It does my heart good to produce a medical doctor like Dr. Lana Doxtater (Oneida) or a dentist like Dr. Drew Preston (Navajo). We need all the doctors, lawyers, nurses, pharmacists, teachers, veterinarians, and engineers we can get.