Student Spotlight – Going to College Debt Free
How to Go To College Debt Free
At Imagine College Coaching, we delight in seeing students succeed! We enjoy doing Student Spotlights to help you see real life students who have been able to pay for college with scholarships and some who’ve gone to college debt free.
There are scholarship opportunities for all students. The difficult part is finding the scholarships. There are several large scholarship databases available for free but I find that the process is overwhelming. There are hundreds of thousands of scholarships with no way to know which ones are legitimate and which ones are scams just trying to get your email. I found it exhausting to filter through hundreds of thousands of scholarships and try to keep a spreadsheet of all of them updated daily.
I knew there had to be a better way. I wanted to use my time in a way that was efficient and actually helped me earn money rather than just spending my days filtering through unwanted information. In an effort to help my own kids and my students find money for college, I developed an easy and efficient scholarship database and online course to help people find money for college. A small investment in these options will have great rewards. The database is updated every 24 hours, filters scholarships unique to each student, eliminates spam scholarships and allows for you to have 3 “buckets” of organization.
You can check out Imagine Scholarships database here. This is the best resource available to help students find money for college.
Let’s look at an example of a student who was successful in paying for 100% of her college with scholarships and going to school debt free.
How I went to college debt free
Hi there!
My name is Peyton Phifer and I just recently graduated from The University of Texas at Austin debt free all thanks to my incredible scholarship! During my senior year of high school, I applied for and was awarded the St. David’s Foundation Neal Kocurek Scholarship. The St. David’s Neal Kocurek Scholarship is a scholarship for high school seniors from a five county area around Austin, TX looking to pursue a career in health care. The SDNK Scholarship provides scholars with $7,500 per year for up to 8 years of undergraduate and graduate education. Now here is where my story gets interesting: not only was I awarded this life-changing scholarship, but I have also been lucky enough to intern with the St. David’s Foundation department that makes this scholarship possible for the past 3 years! So, I want to tell you a bit about what I did to receive the SDNK Scholarship in high school and what qualities St. David’s Foundation loves to see in scholarship applicants!
How To Find Scholarships For College
During my sophomore year of high school, I attended a week-long nursing camp through Austin Community College. This camp ignited my passion for health care, and it was at this point that I realized I wanted to pursue this path in college. I used this passion to drive my all of my academic and extracurricular decisions in high school. Having gone to a smaller school, Liberty Hill High School, my course and extracurricular options were limited, but I set out to become as involved as possible, while simultaneously maintaining a very high GPA. In an effort to gain leadership experience, I became a member of the National Honor Society, the president of our HOSA chapter, and the captain of the varsity volleyball team. Through these various organizations, I was able to obtain a total of 150 volunteer hours at organizations like Special Olympics, a local food bank, and a youth sporting center. Even after I graduated from high school, I spent the summer volunteering in the medical surgical unit of a local hospital. On top of volunteering, I made a personal goal to start working as soon as I legally could, which would teach me work ethic and responsibility like I had never experienced before. I worked as a server and an assistant manager at a local diner, I started giving private volleyball lessons to younger players in town, and I pet sat for several friends. All of my efforts in high school had a common goal: to connect with people as much as possible, much like I would be in the field of health care. I was sure to elaborate on my experiences and how they would allow me to excel in the field of health care during my scholarship interviews.
Standing Apart From Competition in the Scholarship Process
Like I said earlier, as a Community Affairs Intern for St. David’s Foundation, I have had the opportunity to view scholarship applications and sit in on scholarship interviews. There are several qualities that make potential future scholars stand out and the majority of them come down to being a well-rounded, determined student with a lot of grit. Scholars who obtain good grades in their courses, particularly their STEM and Dual Credit/AP/IB classes tend to stand out, since this illustrates that the applicant will be able to handle collegiate level coursework. Extracurricular involvement and/or work experience in areas related to health care or related to something the applicant is really passionate about are always great as well. Having clear, passionate, and even creative essays help applicants stick out in the applicant pool and as you can imagine, so does having essays free of grammatical errors. If you are interested in pursuing a career in health care, be sure to check out the St. David’s Neal Kocurek Scholarship today – it is truly life changing! Best of luck on your college journey! You are going to have so much fun!