As college is quickly approaching, you might be starting to think about how you’re going to pay for everything. No worries! There are a few things you can get started on now — or put on your radar going forward.
FAFSA
Completing your FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is super important. The results of the FAFSA are used to determine how much financial assistance you will be offered in the form of loans, grants and work-study. As the name suggests, the FAFSA is a *free* application, so even if you don’t know if you’re eligible for aid, it’s still worth it to submit.
This year, the priority date for UW Oshkosh is March 15. If you submit your information prior to that date, you’ll increase your chances of receiving all the aid you’re eligible for. You can still receive financial aid after that date, though! The first round of awards typically goes out in April.
Next year, things will change up a little bit with dates and such! Stay tuned for more information on that.
Scholarships
Scholarships are a great way to get extra financial assistance for college. Scholarships can be based on academics, extracurriculars or even just geographic information. There are so many different ones to look into, and so many different places to look. For example, the admissions office offers a number of scholarships to prospective students. Many of our scholarships’ application deadlines are coming up in March and April, so if you haven’t already checked out our list of available scholarships, I recommend you do it now!
Why apply for scholarships? Because if you don’t, you never know if you’d get one or not! Here are a few tips and things you should know as you get in the scholarship “zone.”
1. There are so many scholarships out there. You just have to look! Just make sure you’re not using a site that asks you to pay money in order to see or apply for scholarships.
2. The earlier you start working on applications, the better. Those deadlines can sneak up on you faster than you’d think! Waiting until the last minute is only going to make things more difficult.
3. Scholarships only cost you time — but they can pay off big time. Say a scholarship takes you an hour… and you get $500 out of it. That’s $500 an hour!! Time well spent.
4. Prior to filling out your scholarships, it helps too keep a list of all the awards you’ve won, your volunteer experiences and your school/community involvement to make filling out each application a breeze. (A lot of them will ask similar questions.)
5. If you go a “template essay” route, please make sure you check that you’re changing and modifying it based on each scholarship. Proofreading is critical!
If you have any questions about UW Oshkosh admissions-based scholarships, you can email our scholarship coordinator at stiglerj@uwosh.edu. If you have questions about financial aid, you can email fao@uwosh.edu.