Outside Scholarships: The Complete Guide

The financial aid landscape has shifted dramatically in recent months, and families need to understand both the opportunities and potential pitfalls that come with outside scholarships. While these funding sources can provide valuable support for college expenses, they can also create unexpected complications that many families don’t discover until it’s too late.

Recent Changes in Financial Aid

Before diving into outside scholarships, let’s address some critical updates affecting college funding. The federal government recently considered cutting Pell Grants from $7,395 to $5,710, which would have devastated low-income families. Fortunately, this change has been reversed, maintaining the current Pell Grant levels that range from $740 to $7,400 depending on family income.

However, a more concerning development affects graduate and professional school students. New limits now cap graduate school loans at $100,000 and professional school loans (law, medical, dental) at $200,000. This creates a significant problem when you consider that law school typically costs around $300,000 total, and medical school can reach $500,000 over four years.

Previously, students could borrow the full cost of attendance, making these programs accessible to students from all economic backgrounds. Now, families must come up with substantial amounts out of pocket. For law school, that means finding an additional $100,000. For medical school, families need $300,000 beyond what loans will cover. This shift will likely reduce the number of students entering these critical professions, creating shortages in healthcare, legal services, and other essential fields.

Understanding Outside Scholarships

Outside scholarships are awards from sources other than the federal government, state government, or the college you plan to attend. These include scholarships from corporations like Facebook, Coca-Cola, Intel, Chase, and Sallie Mae, as well as local organizations, community groups, and regional foundations.

The most effective approach to finding these opportunities starts at the local level. Check your city’s website, regional utility companies like your local water district or power company, and don’t overlook your parents’ employers. Many larger companies offer scholarships specifically for employees’ children.

For broader searches, several websites aggregate scholarship opportunities. While this isn’t an endorsement of any particular platform, the most commonly used sites include Bold.org, FastWeb, Going Merry, BigFuture, Scholarships.com, Scholarship Owl, Niche, Sallie Mae’s scholarship search, and Unigo. Remember, never pay for scholarship lists or applications. Any legitimate scholarship will never require payment upfront.

Strategic Approaches to Scholarship Hunting

The key to successful scholarship hunting lies in understanding that it’s fundamentally a numbers game. For smaller scholarships in the $500 to $1,000 range, you have roughly a 10% chance of winning if you put in quality effort. As scholarship amounts increase, your odds decrease significantly. The Gates Scholarship, which covers four years of college completely, has approximately one in ten million odds.

This reality shapes the strategy you should adopt. Younger students (9th, 10th, and 11th graders) should aim to find and apply for one scholarship per week. This consistent approach builds a substantial application portfolio over time. Some scholarships are even available for students as young as fourth, fifth, or sixth grade, holding funds until the student reaches college age.

When searching, think strategically about keywords. If you’re passionate about surfing, don’t just search for “surfing scholarships.” Try related terms like “water sports,” “ocean conservation,” “coastal communities,” or “beach safety.” Include your location in searches to find regional opportunities with smaller applicant pools.

The best time to search runs from fall through spring each year. Create a spreadsheet tracking applications, deadlines, award amounts, renewal requirements, and notification dates. This organization becomes crucial as you manage multiple applications.

The Application Process

Successful scholarship applications require thorough preparation. Read requirements carefully and follow every instruction precisely. Many scholarships function like mini college applications, requiring transcripts, letters of recommendation from teachers, personal essays, and sometimes even interviews.

Calendar management is essential. Missing a deadline means missing an opportunity, regardless of how strong your application might be. Seek feedback on essays and supporting materials, whether from coaches in a guidance program or trusted mentors. Quality matters more than quantity, but don’t let perfectionism prevent you from submitting applications.

The Hidden Risks of Outside Scholarships

Here’s where many families get surprised. Outside scholarships can actually hurt your financial aid package if your family income exceeds $100,000 annually. This happens through a process that feels counterintuitive to most families.

Let’s say UC Berkeley offers your family $10,000 in financial aid, and you win a $3,000 outside scholarship. Most families expect to receive $13,000 total. Instead, here’s what actually happens: UC Berkeley reduces their award to $7,000 and adds your $3,000 outside scholarship, keeping your total at $10,000.

The only families exempt from this reduction are Pell Grant recipients, those considered low-income. For these families, scholarships do stack on top of institutional aid. Everyone else faces what’s called “scholarship displacement.”

The Long-Term Impact of Non-Renewable Scholarships

This displacement becomes particularly problematic with non-renewable scholarships. Consider this scenario: you receive $10,000 annually from a college over four years, totaling $40,000. Then you win a one-year $3,000 outside scholarship.

Year one: $7,000 from college + $3,000 outside scholarship = $10,000 total Years two through four: $7,000 from college + $0 outside scholarship = $7,000 annually

You’ve lost $3,000 per year for three years, totaling $9,000 in reduced aid. Scale this up to larger amounts, and the losses become substantial. A $15,000 one-year scholarship could cost you $45,000 over four years if it displaces renewable institutional aid.

What to Look For in Scholarship Terms

Before applying, investigate these critical factors:

Duration: How long does the scholarship last? Is it renewable automatically, or do you need to reapply each year?

Payment method: Will funds go directly to you or to the school? When scholarships go directly to schools, the displacement effect is more likely to occur because institutions can track the funding source.

Renewal requirements: What GPA or other criteria must you maintain? What happens if you don’t meet these requirements?

The ideal outside scholarship sends money directly to you rather than the school, renewable for multiple years, and worth enough to justify the application effort while not creating major displacement issues.

Avoiding Scholarship Scams

Legitimate scholarships never require payment or request sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers upfront. Be wary of opportunities that seem too easy. Scholarships that require only your name and email address are typically data mining operations rather than real funding opportunities.

Red flags include application fees, promises of guaranteed awards, pressure to act quickly, and requests for bank account information. If something feels too good to be true, it probably is.

Special Considerations for International Students

International students face unique challenges in the scholarship landscape. Most will only qualify for in-state tuition at their home state public universities. Private schools often require international students to complete a Certificate of Finance form proving they can pay for one full year of college costs upfront.

While some private schools claim to offer international student financial aid, the reality rarely matches the marketing. Until international students achieve permanent resident status, options remain extremely limited.

Timeline Considerations for Current Seniors

Senior year families face time pressures. The FAFSA is scheduled to open October 1st, though reliability remains questionable given previous technical issues. Everything should be submitted by December, with financial aid decisions arriving by April.

Current seniors shouldn’t attempt the FAFSA or CSS Profile without professional guidance if they’re applying early action or early decision. The financial aid process isn’t as straightforward as it appears, and mistakes made early can’t be easily corrected.

The Numbers Game Strategy

Success in outside scholarships requires realistic expectations and strategic thinking. Cast a wide net, but balance your time investment against probable returns. Applying to one scholarship with one-in-ten-million odds isn’t a sound strategy. Instead, focus on smaller, local, or niche scholarships where your odds improve significantly.

Local scholarships often have smaller applicant pools. A city scholarship might have 50 applicants versus 10,000 for a national award. Regional scholarships from your parent’s employer or local service organization offer better odds than corporate mega-scholarships.

Building Your Scholarship Portfolio

Start early, especially if you’re in 9th, 10th, or 11th grade. Time is your biggest asset. Create systems for tracking opportunities, deadlines, and requirements. Develop strong essay writing skills, as most quality scholarships require written responses.

Consider your unique characteristics, interests, and background. Scholarships exist for almost every demographic, interest, and career path. The more specific the scholarship criteria match your profile, the better your chances.

When Outside Scholarships Make Sense

Outside scholarships work best for families who either qualify as low-income (eligible for Pell Grants) or receive minimal institutional aid. If your expected family contribution leaves you paying most college costs anyway, outside scholarships provide genuine additional funding without displacement concerns.

They also make sense when targeting specific, renewable multi-year awards that justify the application investment. A four-year renewable scholarship worth $5,000 annually provides $20,000 total value, making the application effort worthwhile even if it causes some displacement.

Professional Guidance Benefits

The financial aid landscape grows more complex each year. Professional guidance helps families navigate these complications, avoid costly mistakes, and maximize available opportunities. The stakes are high, with college costs continuing to rise and aid formulas becoming more intricate.

Working with experienced financial aid professionals provides strategic advantages in positioning your family for maximum aid eligibility while avoiding common pitfalls that can cost thousands of dollars over four years.

The scholarship search process rewards persistence, organization, and strategic thinking. Start early, stay organized, understand the rules, and don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Every dollar you can secure through legitimate means reduces the overall cost of your college education.

Outside scholarships represent just one piece of a comprehensive college funding strategy. When approached with proper knowledge and realistic expectations, they can provide valuable support for your educational goals while avoiding the hidden traps that catch unprepared families.

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Full Transcript

Introduction and overview of financial aid updates

All right, welcome everyone. Okay, my name is Coach David. We are here with Eagle Financial Aid. This is another one

of our Wednesday trainings. It is 5:00 on September 24th and we’re here to talk

a little bit about outside scholarships. Right now, we’re going to talk about how they can help. We’re also going to talk

about how they can hurt you. Right? So, just as we’re starting out here, if you can put your child’s grade in the chat,

right, that’d be kind of uh great, right? so I can understand who is here, right? I see more people filtering in.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you guys for being on time. Um, and again, if you guys do have questions, put them

in the Q&A, put them in the chat. If they’re in line with what we’re talking about, I’ll go ahead and answer them at that point. If they are not in line with

what we are talking about, I’ll go ahead and kind of answer them at the end. Okay, we have a lot of 12th graders

here. That’s good, right? And also not good, right? And I’ll tell you a little bit why it’s good and not good that 12th

graders are here. Now 9th, 10th graders, this is really going to help you. But again, there are things you have to be worried about when you’re thinking about

outside scholarships. So let’s kind of jump straight into it. So just a little bit about today, right? We’re going to

be talking about financial aid news, new things that have happened, right? Outside scholarships, right? What they are, right? How you find them, right?

How they can hurt and help you. We’ll also talk about a phenomenon called scholarship displacement. I talked about

it before more in depth today. I’ll just do a brief overview to give you an idea of exactly what that is. Right now, for

those of you that are here for the first time again, welcome. Whether you joined us from uh you know, you guys are a new

coaching family in our Eagle Out coaching programs or if you are here from Facebook, right? Welcome, welcome,

welcome. My name is Coach David, right? Uh you’ll always see me here. I always wear the same hat, right? I have like

five of them, right? Uh so that’s kind of my trademark, right? Uh Nike, please sponsor, right? Uh but um the other

thing is well I’m a former law school and college admissions reader right I’ve also been working in the financial aid

space for the last 15 years right and I’m ready to I’m ready and willing to help your family save money okay but

there’s some things that you guys need to do in order to do that as well you need to get the full understanding of the financial aid process in order to do

that now over the next couple weeks we’ll be doing a full review of everything that’s needed in order for

you to go through the financial aid process right Now, for those of you guys that do know, right, you know that the

FAFSA is supposed to open on October 1st. I’m still not sure that it is, right? Uh but I’ll talk about that a

little bit later when once we kind of get into that at the end, right? And I do have a special offer there as well. So, we’ll talk about that. Okay. But

let’s jump straight into financial aid news. Right. The first thing here is this. There’s been a lot of stirrup kind

of like in the government and in college kind of admissions and college financial aid about the changes to college

financial aid. Right? One of the new policies that was going to be in place was that they were going to cut the PEL

grants. Now, for those of you guys that know what a Pell Grant is, PEL grants are for families that are considered

Pell Grants explained

lowincome, right? And it for those families, right, they were going to drop the amount of financial aid that was

given from 7 $7,395 to $5,710.

Right now, the good news that I have here is that change is not going to be happening. They are not cutting PEL

grants, right? So for our lower income families, right, that is a blessing, right? That extra $1,600 might be the

extra money that they need to pay for, you know, whatever this is, you know, fees and books and, you know, kind of

their meal plan, right? So again, that’s a good thing there. Right now, just a little bit more about the Pell Grants.

The Pell Grants range. It’s not always that you get the full PEL grant or not, right? It can range anywhere between

$740 to $7,400. So basically, you know,

from one unit to 10 units of of money, right? So, and anywhere in between, right? And it just depends on where you

fall on the income spectrum, right? Another piece of news, right, that I’ve

already talked about before, but I wanted to make sure that we talked about again because this is a piece of information that’s been coming up in

across academia in general, right? One of the new things that has happened with the kind of one big beautiful bill is

that there are now limits on graduate and professional schools, right? As far as loans, now a lot of families might be

thinking, well, why is that an issue, right? Well, here’s why it’s an issue, right? The new limits that have been

placed on graduate school and on professional school like law school or medical school, dental school, so on and

so forth is 200k, right? For graduate school, it’s 100k.

Here in lies the problem, right? So I went to law school, right? Law school

generally speaking, tuition plus room and board books, right? And our books are about this thick, all of them,

right? And again, they’re all hardbound this and that. There’s nowhere you can find them online, unfortunately. And so

each book is like $3, $400, right? And you’re taking, I don’t know, eight classes a year, right? So that’s another

$3,000 in just books, right? But here is the issue for law school. The total cost

of going to law school, roughly speaking, is about $300,000. That’s what the all-in costs are, right? If we’re

limiting professional school, law school, which is is a professional school, to $200,000 in loans, basically

what the government is saying is that families now need to come up with $100,000 in order to send their kid to

that school. Before the student could take out the full cost of attendance as

a loan, right? Making it possible for students of all backgrounds to go to

these professional schools, medical school, so on and so forth. Medical school is even worse. It’s about $125,000 a year, right? And so over the

course of four years in medical school, that’s half a million dollar, right? And so if you can only take out $200,000,

well, where’s the other $300,000 coming from? I don’t know. It’s supposed to come from mom and dad, right? But what

if mom and dad don’t have that money? The question now becomes in the future, how this how is this going to affect

future students that are going to these programs? And realistically, I think the answer is that people are not going to

go anymore. That means a shortage of, you know, people with M’s programs and

PhD programs under their belt. That also means less doctors, less uh, you know,

students that are going to nursing programs, students that are going to dental programs, pharmacy programs, law school programs. That across the board,

the kind of like highlevel industries that a lot of our like students are kind of pushing for, they’re not going to be

a reality anymore because well, their families can’t afford it. Okay? And so again, these are some bits of news that

I want to put out there in the world because a lot of people don’t know, right? They have these thoughts of, “Oh, well, my student’s going to go to

medical school.” Well, realistically, that means you have to fork up $300,000, right? The question is, do we have that

that kind of money, right? Now, a lot of people are thinking, well, yeah, well, we can get financial aid. I’m sorry. For

graduate school and professional school, there is no such thing as financial aid. Your students after they graduate from

Graduate and professional loan limits

college are considered independent students. And because a lot of students are going straight from college to

graduate schools, a lot of students income is zero. So if the school had to pay for all of that, unfortunately they

c they cannot they cannot run their school off of getting zero dollars from the students. Okay? And so they do

charge and that’s why the loans were in place so that students could go and then they pay them back because they’re going

into higher kind of like you know higher income professions, right? So, how this

will play out in the next 10-15 years, we’ll have to see. But I think my prediction is pretty spot-on. We’re going to have less of everything, right?

Uh and unfortunately, um the government made it that way. Okay. Now, as far as what’s going to happen in the future and

new news that comes up, I will I will try at my best to kind of keep everyone updated, right, with the new news,

right? I’ll try to stay as objective as possible, right, and give you guys just the facts. Okay. Now before we get into

the training I have a quick message because I saw a lot of 12th grade students here right now here we do still

have programs literally I asked our team today right our college coaching team

and I said are we still accepting 2026 and they said yes until September 30th after that we can’t help you okay so if

you do have a 12th grade student and you want to talk to our team right please make sure to reach out right now even if

you’re a younger grade student right our prices stay the same doesn’t matter if you sign up in 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th

grade. So, please reach out so that you can get your journey started with us early, right? The earlier you start, the

more we can help. Okay? So, if you do have questions and you want to join one of our coaching programs for your for

your eth, 9th, 10th, 11th grade student, right? Or even 12th grade student, right, for the next week, please go

ahead and contact us. You can text us at 9497750865.

Just text college. our team will reach out to you, ask you the questions that we need in order to make sure that you’re getting the help that you your

family really needs. Right? You can also book your own consultation with that QR code there. So, I’m just going to leave

this up for a couple seconds so people can take screenshots or if you’re watching on your on your iPad, just, you know, uh take out your phone real

quickly, go ahead and scan that QR code so that you can sign up for a consultation. Okay? So, I’ll give you

guys about five six seconds there. Okay?

All right, let us move on. All right, so let’s talk about outside scholarships. Okay, so the first thing is what are

they? Right, so these are scholarships that are not from the following sources.

Federal government, state government, the college you are going to attend. Okay, so keep that in mind. Okay,

they’re from other places, outside companies, outside organizations, an outside scholarship source that is not

linked to one of these three areas. It’s considered an outside scholarship. Now,

I understand there are a lot of different words that are used in financial aid, but if the federal

government, state government, or college that you’re going to is giving you money to make them separate, we’re just going

to call that free money, right? And then we’re going to call outside scholarships outside scholarships. So, we’re going to

try to separate the two, right? Uh, I understand that there are things called scholarships that are given to you by certain colleges, right? But again, not

the same thing because it they are part of different categories. Okay? So, think about like Facebook scholarship. I know

I’m I’m doing like a whole PR thing right now. Facebook scholarship, Coca-Cola scholarship, Intel scholarship, right? Uh, you know, Sally

May scholarship, right? You know, Chase scholarship. All these different companies have scholarships available,

but those are the ones that we’re talking about here. Okay, the first question I always get from families

across the board, right? Uh doesn’t matter what income situation is, where do you find them? And here are kind of

like some of my tips to help you guys out here. The first thing is search at your local level, right? So look at your

city’s website, right? There might be regional district things like so I live in the Bay Area, right? Uh you might

look at PG&E, you might look at like your water district. There’s different places that have charitable giving and

donations and scholarships for uh students that live in their area and are going to college. And one that a lot of

people don’t like kind of think about are your parents employers. A lot of kind of employers, especially larger

employers, do have scholarships for their kind of employees, right? At a larger level, there’s a lot of websites

that people can use to find scholarships. And I’m going to go over a couple of them, right? Um so there’s

just a couple here. I’m not, and again, I put a note on the side because I know that someone’s going to bash me later

for this, right? But this is not an endorsement of any of these websites. I’m not saying that these websites are

great or not great. These are just the most common ones that people go to, right? The most searched ones, right?

And the one thing I will say is that paying to get a scholarship or a scholarship list is never the right

thing to do. The reason is because that’s literally just a scam. Oh, pay $14.99, we’ll give you a list of 1500

scholarships. and then you go in and look and half of them like like 90% of them don’t even apply to you, right? And

Outside scholarships overview

90% of them you’re not even eligible for, right? So you you shouldn’t be paying for anything. Now the one thing

that I have seen right on one website that I I frequently tell students to go to and start searching is bold.org. One

of the things that has happened is that bold.org has become a lot more data miningish, right? And what I mean by

that is that they ask where you go to school. They ask about this. They ask about that so that you can sign up for an account to go into the website.

That’s fine. They’re not asking for money. They’re not asking for your credit card information. If they’re not asking for those sorts of things, that

is fine. But Fast Webb has been kind of like a steady seller, right, of like where people go. Bold.org, Going Mary,

Big Future, Scholarships.com, Scolarship Owl, like Niche, right? Sally May,

Unigo, all these places are places that people go to find scholarships. Okay, so the internet is your friend in this

situation. Okay, but a lot of families are like, “Well, where do I look? Which one should I apply to?” And my answer

is, I can’t tell you because there’s literally literally millions of them and I’m not exactly sure which ones would

fit, right? But here’s the reason why I said at the beginning of our our program like this, this is going to be really

kind of like it’s a little bit like, oh, uh-oh, you’re in 12th grade. And also for our younger students, well, it’s like, oh, it’s great that you’re here

because you have more time, right? The first thing is that you should try to look for scholarships well in advance,

right? So there are scholarships that are available for students that are starting in like fourth, fifth, sixth grade, right? So basically what happens

is you apply for it in those grades uh and then uh they’ll hold the scholarship for you until you are headed off to

college. Right now the best time to search for scholarships is basically right now from the fall to the spring.

Right? Um and again like one of the ways that we can help you is working with the financial aid edge program. We don’t

necessarily help with the outside scholarships. If you are part of our kind of like uh college coaching

programs, then yes, we will help you with these outside scholarships. Not necessarily finding which ones you

should apply to, but once you find the ones you want to apply to, then we’ll help you with the application process in

the essay process, interview process, those pieces. Right now, if you’re working with our program, one of the

things I want to say, and we’ll talk about this later again, too, is that you need to be aware of nonrenewable

scholarships, right? And it could cut into the financial aid that you get. Okay. Now, another key piece is how to

search, right? You this is really a keyword battle, right? So, we’ll just

kind of like give you like an example, right? So again, there’s like a bunch of things like involvement, service,

leadership, talent, background, right? So if you’re looking at like a certain keyword, most of those websites have

keyword searches, right? So you can find ones that are more relevant to you, right? So you know, even in your brow in

your like like Google search browser, you can type in like a keyword and type in grant or scholarship or award. But

like let’s say that you’re looking for like you’re like a big-time surfer, right? uh and you look up surfing scholarships, you also want to look up

other variations or other like kind of uh corollary terms to see if there’s anything that also fits, right? So like

surfing, water sports, body surfing, surfboards, you want to look up other terms that are similar as well and in

that same area so that you can see if there’s anything out there, right? Again, and another thing that we also

tell students is it’s also a good thing to add in your location, right? because there might be more specific like city

regional or kind of like you know state things that can help you in your search to find things that are more relatable

to you and that you are eligible for. Okay. So again where to search now how

to search right so that those are kind of two pieces right now frequency right

frequency is very important now I have the goal at the bottom right for younger students I say find one a week right the

question is well why do we want to find one a week right the answer is because scholarships are really about kind of

like a numbers game right now for those of you that have had consultations with me and we’ve talked about these outside

scholarships one of the things that you’ll you’ll notice that I always talk about when I when I talk about outside scholarships is that the percentage of

kind of the pro or the probability of winning it. Right now, if it’s a smaller scholarship like 500 bucks, 750 bucks,

a,000 bucks, right? Realistically, you have like again, if you if you kind of put your time and effort into it, you

have about a 10% chance of winning that scholarship, right? the larger the amount that that or the larger the

amount of the scholarship that you’re trying to apply for, the the the kind of the the lower the probability that

you’ll actually get it, right? I’ll just give you an example like the GATE scholarship, that’s a 4-year fully

funded college education, right? That’s literally like a one in 10 million shot, right? Um so for that one, your chances

are super low, right? Um so the question becomes, what kind of, you know, strategy are you going to take? Are you

going to take that 10%? are you going to take that you know.1% what are we going to spend our time and effort on right

but as far as kind of the things you should be doing you need to thoroughly read through the requirements make sure you follow all the steps right there’s

going to be a lot of documents that you need to gather okay so you might be thinking what are you talking about documents just like application and

essay maybe no some of them ask for like teacher letters of recommendation transcripts right it’s like a mini like

some of the the scholarships are like mini college applications so there are a lot of things to kind of keep in place

Right? You should also be kind of putting things on a calendar, right? And so figuring out kind of when deadlines are. It’s a very important piece of the

puzzle, right? Uh obviously, you want to make sure that you are turning in a strong application as far as the supporting materials such as the essays,

right? And also make sure that you’re seeking feedback and review uh if you’re in our coaching program from your coaches or if you’re not in our coaching

programs from someone else, right? And then obviously following up, right? and then maintaining the different

scholarships that you have kind of applied for. You know, creating a quick kind of like, you know, sheets, a Google

Sheets or an Excel sheet of where you’ve applied and kind of what the award is and when they’re going to let you know.

All these things are very important. Okay. Now, if you’re in a younger grade, again, finding one a week and then like

Scholarship stacking rules and displacement

putting it onto, you know, your spreadsheet of, you know, different, you know, applications and then figuring out

when you’re allowed to apply and this and that, so on and so forth. Uh, that kind of getting started in younger

grades is a very useful tool. So keep that in mind there. Okay.

How often, right? Uh so again, I already kind of talked about this, right? But again, the more apps you turn in, the

higher the chances that you’re going to get more wins, let’s call it, right? Um and so make sure that you’re kind of

doing that, right? Uh the other thing is that there are kind of like uh different stacking rules at different schools,

right? So you might have, I don’t know, $15 $500 scholarships, right? if you do have $1,500 scholarships, well, that’s

$7,500 there, right? Um, so again, you want to try to kind of like balance out

the time and effort that you’re spending, but again, if you’re if you’re kind of like, you know, putting everything on the gate scholarship

that’s like 1 in 10 million, the the chances aren’t very good. Okay? Uh so

cast the wide net, apply for as many as possible uh in the time and you know with within the time and like effort

like limitations that you do have but but remember it is a numbers game. Okay.

Now again I talked about this a little bit earlier but don’t get tricked, right? Avoid any application fees,

personal information requests like social security numbers. They don’t really need those sorts of things. Uh but legitimate scholarships will never

require payment, right? So, if they say, “Oh, well, to get a one in25 chance to get a $5,000 scholarship, please pay

$49.95, right? That’s not a legit scholarship, right?” Um, and the one thing I will say is that there are very

few scholarships that will ask you for nothing, right? Oh, put in your name and email address and then you’ll get a scholarship. No, it doesn’t happen that

way, right? So, they they need to see some effort on your part. So, if there is no work, usually mean it means that

it’s a fake scholarship. They’re just trying to get your information. Okay? So keep that in mind there. Okay. Now,

quick takeaways, right? So, first thing, start early. So, my 9th, 10th, 11th graders that are here, I just gave you

that warning, right? Higher and obviously there are higher odds of being awarded smaller value scholarships. So,

again, balance your time and effort, right? Uh obviously, local more niche types of scholarships have a smaller

population of candidates. So, again, your probabilities go up, right? Make sure you’re looking for renewable scholarships. And we’ll talk about this

in kind of like this the scholarship displacement a little bit later, right? Um and be proactive and persistent,

okay? Uh you know, if you just sit there, no one’s going to give you anything. You have to put in the time and effort. And finally, because of the

scams, right? Be aware of too good to be true scholarships, okay? So keep that in mind there, right? But, right, and I

have a big butt here, right? Because scholarships, outside scholarships are great, right? uh they help fund a lot of

students like college expenses, right? But you have to be careful here, right?

And why do you need to be careful? Well, right, they can help or hurt you, right?

So, let’s kind of go through each part of it. Let’s start with help, right? I didn’t keep this slide very long

because, okay, getting money for college is always going to help. I don’t think we need to explain this any further,

right? So, if you got $10,000 to pay for college because you applied to, I don’t know, 25 scholarships and you want and

you got a bunch of them, great. Good job, right? That’s going to help pay for college, done. There’s no explanation needed,

right? But this is how it can hurt you. And a lot of people don’t realize this

until I tell them about it. Okay? So, you can basically think of it in a very, very simple way. Okay? Now, if your

income is above $100,000, generally speaking, anywhere in the United States, you’re not going to be considered

lowinccome. Okay? And if that is the case, one of the things that will happen with your financial aid versus outside

scholarships is that they are going to balance against each other and it’s going to hurt you if you get an outside

scholarship. I’ll give you an example. Okay? So, the example is UC Berkeley gave you 10K. That’s how much they gave

you. you got an outside scholarship for $3,000. Now, any normal person would

think$10,000 plus 3,000 equals 13,000. Okay, but here’s what actually happens.

The total effect of the money you can use for college is still 10,000, right?

And a lot of you guys might be thinking and scratching your heads and be like, “Oh, that math doesn’t make sense, Coach David.” Right? And here’s what happens.

Let me show you what basically what’s going to happen, right? is that UC

Berkeley was ever only going to maximum allow you to get $10,000 for school,

right? That’s it. That’s all they were going to give you, right? And they were they they’re never going to go over that. But if they see that you went

outside to get $3,000 on your own, they’re not going to add it on top. The

only students and families that are allowed to stack their scholarships on top of each other are families that are

PEL grant eligible. So it means that you need to be considered low income in order for them to stack your your

scholarships. Okay? So if you are a PEL grant recipient, then yes, UC Berkeley

gave you 10. You got an outside scholarship for three. You will now have $13,000 to use for college. But every

other family, every other family that is above $100,000, right? Is this right? This is what happens. $10,000 from UC

Berkeley gets reduced to $7,000. They add in your outside scholarship so that

the net effect of your overall financial aid package is still $10,000.

Okay. Now, right, there’s probably a lot of families out there that are thinking,

“What the heck? Why would they do that?” Right? And I think the same thing every time I explain this, right? It’s like,

“We put in the extra time and effort to to apply for these scholarships, so why are you penalizing us for it?” And you

might be thinking, “Well, it’s not really a penalty.” Well, it is, right? Think about it. You don’t get any extra

Pell vs non-Pell family differences

money and you put in all that time and effort to do the application and the essays. So, you wasted your time. Okay?

So, it did harm you, right? So, keep that piece in mind. Now, when you’re looking

at scholarships, you need to be looking at the conditions. One of the reasons why I say that this can hurt you is if

you if you apply for like a $3,000 scholarship that is nonrenewable. Let’s say you apply for an outside scholarship

and it’s only good for one year, right? This is the net effect of what you just did. You had $10,000 over the course of

four years. That would have been $40,000, right? But now you have $7,000

from school and $3,000 from outside the first year. The net effect is neutral. You’re still getting $10,000. That’s

fine. But if that $3,000 scholarship is only good for one year, what happens in year two? Your baseline has now been set

at $7,000. that $3,000 that’s blank there, they’re expecting you to fill that. So, you’re losing out on $3,000 in

year two, $3,000 in year three, and $3,000 in year four. Right? So, you’re losing out on $9,000 over the course of

the next three years, right? Now, that might be like, okay, well, $9,000 what, whatever, right? But what if I increase

those numbers and it was like tens of thousands of dollars, right? What if

what if it was that, you know, you got, I don’t know, let’s let’s make it like

different numbers. Let’s say you got $50,000 uh from, you know, a certain school and

then you got a $15,000 scholarship from somewhere. Your baseline would be now 35. You added in your 15 for year one.

Well, that’s still 50. But in year two, you miss out on 15. Year three, you miss out on 15. Year four, you miss out on on

15. That’s $45,000. Okay? That’s not a good thing. So the

things that you should be looking for right the first is well how long is it good for right does it auto renew do you

need to apply again what’s it and when like what’s the situation and the biggest part of the puzzle is where is

the money going to okay so a lot of people are like well we don’t know where

the money is going to go to and unfortunately until you win a scholarship most of the times you do not know right sometimes they’re going to

send you a check in the mail sometimes they’re going to have a a charity dinner and then that you’re going to show up uh

and and you know they’re going to hand you cash, right? Or like a Visa gift card for 500 bucks or 1,000 bucks,

whatever it is, right? Uh or sometimes they’re going to send it directly to school. When this becomes a problem is

when they are sending it to school because the school will see that that that kind of outside scholarship is

hitting your account because it’s not coming from mom or dad or an individual. It’s going to be coming from an organization, right? And usually, right,

they’re going to be asking for a receipt. They’re going to do this. They’re going to do that. they know what it looks like when a organization

donates a scholarship. Okay, but these are the things that you need to be careful of as you’re looking at things.

Okay, now juniors because I did see a or this is this should now say seniors,

right? Uh my apologies, my my seniors, right? Um this was kind of the same timeline I was using kind of a couple

months ago, but basically for seniors right now, we’re we’re basically, you know, senior year started in August, so

we’re already almost we’re basically here, right? Um now over the next kind of like two three months we’re going to

be working on financial aid right the FAFSA the CSS school specific forms by

December everything will be done right and then by April you should have all your decisions out and also your

financial aid that is the hope right but even this year right uh I have some families that we’re working with from

the past year uh their financial aid still didn’t come out they go to UC’s like UCI UC Davis UCLA they these three

have been the the biggest perpetrators of sending out the financial aid late um But uh everything on our side shows that

they are eligible. They they got it right. But the school just hasn’t like processed it to the student accounts

yet. Okay. Um so uh the financial aid process is not a short one. It is definitely a long one. So if you start

working with us now, we’re probably working with you until July or August of the following year. Okay.

Now, the one thing I ask is that families ask for help. There’s too many people that like go through the process on their own and then later come to us

and be like, “Yeah, I did all this stuff and then I didn’t get any aid or I got very little aid so on and so forth.” So,

right, uh we can’t help them at that point, right? The the the the waters have already been muddied, right?

Because you have turned in things kind of half-hazardly, right? Now, again, I know it seems very simple like, oh, you

know, put in this here, put in this here, but it’s not as easy as you guys think, right? So, there are definitely

different pieces of the puzzle, but the one thing I ask is please reach out to us. Facebook, Discord, email, text,

right? I’m sure you guys have all gotten a text from us. You’ve all gotten an email from us before, right? Uh if you’re in our Discord channel, I always

put an announcement there, right? We also have a financial aid support channel, right? So, reach out to us in

any way possible. Okay? Now, I know that there’s a lot of families that are applying early action and early decision. If that is you and you are a

12th grader, don’t touch the the the don’t do do not touch the FAFSA, do not

touch the the CSS profile until we have a conversation. Right? After the conversation, if I tell you I cannot

help you, then go ahead and do things on your own. But if I tell you that there are possibilities for your family, then we need to kind of think if it makes

sense to sign up for our program or not. But whether you sign up or not, I am more than happy to have consultations

with you. right now. My schedule because you guys uh have shown so much love and

support, right, uh for our program and you guys have signed up for a lot of consultations. My my schedule sucks,

right? Um but I am committed to talking to every single uh you know senior

family that’s out there hopefully before October 1st, so in the next week, right? So if you go onto my calendar and you

don’t see a time available, please reach out to me. I will find a time. Even if I have to wake up super early or stay at

the office late, I will talk to you, right? And I’ll give you kind of my assessment of your situation right there

and then. I don’t like dragging things on being like, “Oh yeah, I’ll talk to you again in two weeks.” No, I’m going

to tell you what I can save you, right? And what our money back guarantee is, right? And if it makes sense for your

Where to search for scholarships that matter

family, I’m going to send you a contract, right? And if that makes sense for you, you can sign up. If it doesn’t make sense for you, that’s fine. But I

don’t like to mince words. I don’t like to kind of like beat around the bush. I’m going to give you the straight talk answers and then if it makes sense, you

them I’ve saved them around 30 to $40,000 a year at various schools. This family makes over 400. I saved them

$42,000 a year at Baylor. This family, their income was a little bit like it was closer to 220, but I saved them

around $30,000 at a UC. So, again, different situations, right? Everyone’s

income is different, right? how things happen are different. So, keep those things in mind. Okay? Now, I told you I

had a special thing for people, right? So, obviously, if you’re here, right, then you you’ll hear it and then you’ll be here next week, right? But there is a

special training next week. And well, it’s special because maybe the FAFSA is opening. I’m not sure yet. I told you

guys this already. I’m not sure if it’s actually going to open or not. I know they’ve been doing beta testing, but even in the beta testing, from what I

hear, it sucks still, right? And so, uh, will it actually open on October 1st?

Well, they promised that it would, right? But I don’t know. Promises are kind of like clouds, right? They

disappear all the time, right? So, uh, we’ll see what happens. If it does open, right, in honor of an ontime opening,

I’m going to be having a special like special offer for our families during that during that week. So, make sure to

be there so that you can kind of take advantage of that special offer we’re having, right? Uh, so stay tuned, right?

Be there next week to get your special offer. there will be like a special keyword that I need you to put into your

form as you’re signing up for your call. Okay? But I do want to make sure that I

open up for questions. I already see a bunch in there in the chat in the Q&A. So, we’ll definitely start with those. If you have other questions, please make

sure to put them in the Q&A or in the chat. Now, if you want to talk to our team, they are standing by, right? So,

you can text us 650-8605201. Just text money and then our team will

reach out to you. Uh so uh you know my support team uh I have two members on there, right? Uh we have Joanna uh and

we also have Seth, right? Um either one of them will reach out to you so that we can go ahead and find you guys a time

slot. Uh it might take a little time for them to respond because well they’re checking in with me if I can I can stay

late or do this or do that or move things around uh to accommodate especially those 2026 families. Okay. So

uh we’ll start with the questions here and I’ll leave this screen up so that people can ask their questions. Okay. uh and also book their call, right? You can

also book your call straight from that QR code as well. Okay, but let’s kind of get to the questions here. So, uh we had

a question here. It says, “The new loan limits are worrisome, right? Seems like it will discourage students from pursuing graduate education. Do you

think these rules could be revi reverse changed in the next presidency? We have a middle schooler hoping so hoping loan

options become available in the future.” I’ve been right with a lot of my

predictions over the past five years like with what’s going on in the world and things like that, right? But I don’t

I’m not sure, right? Um it is my hope that things get reversed, right? But who

knows what happens in the next election and then in the next congressional elections and this and that. Like I just

don’t know anymore. There’s too many variables, right? But realistically, do I think that these will stand?

No. Right. Because what what’s going to happen is that we’re literally going to see a drop off of students going to graduate schools and we’re going to have

an undereducated, right? Um population, right? We’re not going to have enough

nurses, right? Like think about what happened during the pandemic. We didn’t have enough nurses and we didn’t have enough doctors, right? And then we

decide to put another restriction on doing that and then what happens when, you know, pandemic number two rolls around? We’re going to be in even a

bigger kind of like hole. Okay? So I don’t think that these will necessarily stand. I think there there will be a

change or there’s going to be a huge overhaul of the educational like financial system, right? Um but is it

going to happen in the next year or two? Probably not, right? Is it going to happen in the next 5 10 years? Maybe. In

the next 20 to 25 years, more likely, right? So the question becomes kind of like how long is it going to take?

Right? Uh we have another question. and it says, “Are college scholarship applications due before you know if

you’re admitted or do you receive your decision before applying?” So, as far as the financial aid, so from the federal

government, state government, the college you’re going to, you will find out your scholarship offer if and when you get in because there’s no reason to

give you a scholarship offer if you get rejected. Right? Now, for outside scholarships, they’re they’re kind of

like notification deadlines are different, right? Depending on when you’re applying and what organization it is, right? So, you know, you’ll have to

go to the specific websites for that, right? Uh, we also have another question here and it says, “Is the stacking

offset for aid from schools or merit too?” Um, so the one thing that I always tell parents is that merit scholarships

don’t really exist, right? Um, and again, someone can fight me on this, but

um, it doesn’t, right? Um, at lower tier schools, it does, right? But at the top

like 30 40 schools in the United States, merit scholarships don’t really exist, right? Now I know that they exist at the

UC’s for instance, right? They’re the region scholarship, right? But if you think that you have a good shot of

winning a a region scholarship from a UC, your chance of winning that is 50 out of 10,000. Now, how I got to that

number is this. They literally say on their website that they send out 50 region scholarships, right? And we know

how many students they accept every year at each campus, which is 10,000. So that’s how I get the 50 out of 10,000

shot. If you think that a 50 out of 10,000 shot is a good percent like good

probability and a good percentage, we need to have a conversation, right? But merit scholarships don’t really exist.

So the aid that you’re going to get usually is need- based. If it is need-based, yes, it will offset for

that. Okay. Uh we have another question here. It says, “How would earning scholarship money then affect your

Scholarship scams to avoid

FAFSA? Would they consider stacking money?” I don’t Uh maybe I don’t understand this one. Uh would earnings

would they consider stacking money? I might not fully understand this

question, right? But if you earn money from a scholarship, there’s like a separate tax form you have to fill out, but it doesn’t really count negatively

towards income for the student. So, you should be fine, right? Um so, don’t worry too much about that, right?

There’s like a separate like um I forget the number, but there’s like a 1098T

form or something that they send you, right? Um all right. And then we also have another question here and it says

uh on websites like Bold and the other ones, they auto apply you to a few scholarships. Are those likely?

Is there a point to doing that at all? Realistically, the ones that you auto apply to like again there there’s a one

one in one like 1% of 1% chance that you win it, right? Um, but likelihood it’s

just that’s more of a data mining operation to be honest with you, right? Um, we have a question here and it says,

“Will you have a training on applying for financial aid?” Uh, so I don’t I can’t get into the specifics kind of

online, right? Uh, the reason is because well, we need kind of real data, right?

Um, but right through the different forms and kind of inform you guys about different areas, right? Uh we have

another question here. It says if students are international students, scholarships hurt students such as your example, it reduces the scholarships

from college. So unfortunately, if you are an international student, um usually

and like let’s say your family’s been here for a longer period of time and parents are also here, the the only

thing that you will really get in terms of like benefit is going to your home

state school. So wherever your your family is a resident of, they’ll give you instate tuition. Other than that,

they’re going to expect you to pay full price, especially at the state schools. Now, private schools across the board,

they say that they have international student aid like or yeah, international student financial aid. The reality of it

doesn’t really happen, right? Uh one of the forms that private schools actually have you fill out as you apply to that

school is a certificate of finance, right? A certificate of finance form basically like is basically a form that

makes you prove that you have the cash available to pay for one year of college, right? So that they they know

that they can choose you and that you can enroll, right? So just keep that in mind. Now, unfortunately for international students, I wish there was

more I could do for you on the financial aid side, but there isn’t really, right? You need to get to that permanent

resident status in the United States for there to be more options available for your family. But if you’re still on like

uh if you’re on a if you’re on like a a J visa or an H visa or an L visa until

you have that permanent residency, right, it becomes it’s very difficult for students to get anything. Okay.

Um we have more questions and it says

uh just curious what were the graduate loan limits before? The graduate loan limits before were whatever it costs for

you to graduate, right? So for law school, you could take out $300,000 roughly speaking. For for medical

school, you could take out half a million dollar, right? Um for for all your other programs, it was literally

you could take out the cost of attendance. So whether it cost 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, $100,000, you could take it

all out, but now you can’t. Okay. Uh and we have a question here. It says, “Do

you have a list of colleges that allow scholarship stacking?” None of them do, right? Um, so very few colleges allow

for scholarship stacking unless that’s all you’re doing, right? So let’s say that you got zero financial aid and then

your kid goes out and they get and they win $200, $500 scholarships, then yes, they’ll stack them on top of each other.

They will receive them for you and then you’re all set, right? But just any general college will always discount uh

the outside scholarships from the financial aid that they were going to give you. So there aren’t any colleges

that will stack necessarily. right now. There might be some ones that that have a special policy of allowing even like

non-l low-income families to stack. But the question becomes, is that really the school you want to go to, right? Of of

the ones I’m thinking of in the top 100 or top 150, none of them do. Okay.

All right. So, these were all great questions, kind of like different areas, and you know, hopefully you guys got a

little bit out of this, right? Uh again, I’m going to leave this up for a couple minutes so that you guys can take a screenshot, scan the QR code, get the

phone number so you can text us, but please do reach out. Right. The the worst the thing I hate hearing most is

like, I went to a lot of your trainings, but I didn’t get any financial aid. I did it by myself. And I’m like, what did

you mess up? Right? And I’m sorry to be so blunt about it, right? But literally, I have families that walk in like, yeah,

I have a 20-25 kid. I watched a bunch of your things, did things on my own. Uh but I got I got $700. And I’m like, “You

screwed up big time somewhere.” Right? And I hate to say like, “I told you so.” Right? But, uh, those are the families

that never talked to me, right? Even even if you talk to me, I’m going to try to like make you walk away with some

pieces of advice, right? So, please, please, please sign up for that consultation. Okay.

All right. Uh, we have question here says, “People say real estate investment reduce family contribution, increase

college money. Is this true?” Yeah. So, because I’m in the financial aid world, right, and in the college admissions

world, um I know exactly kind of the the strategy that they’re talking about,

right? Um and uh I I’ve been seeing a lot more ads about that particular strategy, right? Uh the problem with

that is well, like you need to be in a position to make that real estate

investment, right? So, if you’re not, well, it doesn’t really work, right? uh

if you and again it depends on where your in income is right so the question is how much of a deduction can you get

Weekly scholarship planning

on the investment that you’re making right now let’s say that your family makes $500,000 a year right in order for

you to get more financial aid you need you would need to drop your your income by like $380,000

so that means that the property that you invest into would need to have a depreciation in the first year of

$380,000 the question is how much is that property? I don’t know if if a property

needs to uh I I don’t know what the like yearly depreciation is, but I’m guessing that’s going to be in the multi-million

dollar range. If you’re taking a $380,000 depreciation in the first year, right?

So, for a lot of family, it doesn’t really make sense, right? Uh there’s also other strategies out there, too.

Oh, you know, they always say, well, hey, reach out to us and we’ll connect you to a financial person that can help you buy an annuity that can lower lower

your overall kind of income, right? Those strategies are also available. The problem is always cash flow, right?

Again, let’s say you make $500,000 a year, right? And then they say, in order to make it like, you know, in order to

maximize your financial aid, we need to take $400,000 of liquid cash and then we need to throw it into a kind of

qualified annuity that you will start getting at 65, right? Well, I don’t know

about you, but I don’t have $400,000 just laying around in cash somewhere, right? And if you do, well, good for

you, right? but I don’t. Right? So, um, those types of strategies are available.

They are they are possible, right? And I’ve had people do them, right? But you

need to be in a very particular financial situation to be able to take advantage of those things. Okay.

Uh, yeah, tax rebates. Uh I’ve also I’ve also heard about like you know investing in like uh oil and gas industries

because oil and gas industries like have a like a special exemption where it’s like if you make an investment and your

investment is like again to a certain amount. It doesn’t need to be like huge, but to a certain amount, you’re allowed

to take the whole depreciation on that investment um like of the operation, the

gas and oil operation. Like let’s say that it’s like a I don’t know $1 billion oil rig, right? And the depreciation

from that is like I don’t know like two like like $23 million, right? There’s like special things where you can take a

huge amount of a deduction there, right? But again, I’m not a tax expert. Go talk to your CPA. See if it makes sense for

your family, right? If it does, great, right? And if you have the cash, if you don’t have the cash flow issue, wonderful. But usually what I found is

that well, people do have a cash flow issue, right? And so that’s why we try to find other opportunities for your

family. Okay? All right. So, thank you guys for being here with me today, right? I’m going to go ahead leave this

screen up so that you guys can take screenshots, text us, right? But we will be back again next week, right? Uh

hopefully the FAFSA is open. I can kind of show you a couple things in there, right? But if not, right, um you know,

we’ll we’ll talk about something else. but it will be kind of day of. I’ll have to decide if it’s open or not and things like that. Uh so I’ll keep you guys

posted. Okay. Uh but again, thanks for sharing a little time with me tonight and I will see you guys again next week. All right. All right, everyone. Have a

great night. Bye-bye.

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Outside Scholarships: The Complete Guide

Recent Changes in Financial Aid

Understanding Outside Scholarships

Strategic Approaches to Scholarship Hunting

The Application Process

The Hidden Risks of Outside Scholarships

The Long-Term Impact of Non-Renewable Scholarships

What to Look For in Scholarship Terms

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Timeline Considerations for Current Seniors

The Numbers Game Strategy

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When Outside Scholarships Make Sense

Professional Guidance Benefits

Introduction and overview of financial aid updates

Pell Grants explained

Graduate and professional loan limits

Outside scholarships overview

Scholarship stacking rules and displacement

Pell vs non-Pell family differences

Where to search for scholarships that matter

Scholarship scams to avoid

Weekly scholarship planning

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