This CMC Corner by Carol Efting, the scholarship coordinator at the Colorado Mountain College Foundation, was published in the February 1, 2016 Post Independent.
If you, or your son or daughter, will be attending college in the fall, this is no doubt a time of great decisions. It can be daunting. You’ve probably begun to think about what opportunities there are to help you finance this college education. This is a very important time of year to apply for federal financial aid, private or college-provided scholarships, or both.
Scholarships, for the most part, represent dollars that do not have to be repaid. Most colleges have numerous scholarships for students that fit a wide range of categories: first-year, returning, in-district, in-state, and those belonging to underrepresented groups. There are scholarships that have minimum grade point average requirements and those that don’t; there are need-based scholarships; and there are scholarships designated for students in a specific academic program, but also ones that are for any program or for students undecided on their major. You or your child might meet the criteria of several.
Colorado Mountain College, like many of its sister colleges in the state and in the country, offers an online scholarship application that is very easy to complete. Gone are the days when you had to assemble several pages of application materials and recommendations — sometimes multiple applications for different scholarships — and postmark them by a certain date. At CMC, you complete only one application that automatically matches you to all the scholarships for which you qualify. It’s simple and sustainable.
Your CMC scholarship application will send out email requests to those you have named as your references, and they will be provided with a link to upload their letter of reference for you. Your required essay can be typed into a text box provided in the application. You can always save your application and come back later to finish it. And if you have any questions, many people will be standing by to help you, including me.
CMC has approximately $700,000 in scholarship opportunities to award for the coming year. Most of those opportunities close on March 1, so it is imperative you complete your scholarship application by that date. CMC’s average award is between $1,250 and $2,200.
To name just a few opportunities for which you might qualify: the FirstBank First in Family Scholarship (for students first in their families to go to college), the Daniels Fund (for nontraditional students), the Rossetti Scholarship (for Isaacson School for New Media students), the Karen M. Eberhardt Memorial Scholarship (for nursing students) and the Alpine Bank Scholarship (for Hispanic/Latino students).
For most individuals, the CMC scholarship application can be completed — from A to Z — in about an hour. Your first step is to complete an admissions application so you have a CMC email address. Next, start your scholarship application. Why not get started today?
Carol Efting is the scholarship coordinator at the Colorado Mountain College Foundation. She can be reached at 970-947-8355 or cefting@coloradomtn.edu. Find out more at www.coloradomtn.edu/scholarships.