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by Alexis Mattera

Sure, brevity was a virtue for our Short & Tweet and Haiku Ninja scholarships but for the more verbose students in the crowd, there’s the Resolve to Evolve Essay Scholarship. The deadline for submission is September 30th, so if you haven’t started writing yet, here’s some helpful info.

The Resolve to Evolve Essay Scholarship – or the R2E, as we like to call it – provides students with the opportunity to move beyond finger-pointing and offer constructive criticism and workable solutions for problems facing an administration or organization. Each 300- to 800-word essay must be written in response to one of two questions; this year, they focus on the possible detrimental effects of technology on the masses and whether or not a college degree has value.

Who can enter and what will they win? Glad you asked! The R2E is open to all United States citizens who are registered users of Scholarships.com, will be enrolled in high school (grades 9 through 12) during the 2011-2012 academic year and will be between the ages of 13 and 19 at the time the award is given. The applicant who submits the best overall essay will receive a $2,000 scholarship. One (1) winner will also be selected from each grade level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior) and will receive a $1,000 scholarship each.

As we said, the deadline is September 30th so there's still time to enter. For more information on R2E, click here or view the official rules. And remember, to access this and other scholarship opportunities, complete a Scholarships.com profile and conduct a free scholarship search today!

by Agnes Jasinski

The number of high school students signing up for Advanced Placement (AP) courses has grown significantly over the last year, but the number of students failing the exams to receive credit for the classes grew right alongside those figures, according to a USA Today analysis released today. The number of students failing the exams was particularly high in Southern states like Arkansas and Mississippi.

AP courses, typically offered to high school juniors and seniors, allow students to take college-level classes in high school and potentially earn college credit.  Most colleges require students to receive a 3 or higher to receive credit for the courses, based on a 1-5 scale. Nearly 3 million students took the tests last year; more than two in five, or about 41 percent, earned a failing mark of a 1 or 2. In the South, about half of all students failed the exams, a failure rate up 7 percentage points over the last 10 years. The worst performer was Arkansas; more than 70 percent of AP test-takers there failed their final exams. Ten years ago, about 36.5 percent of AP test-takers nationwide failed their exams.

The CollegeBoard, which offers the exams, has already responded. Officials there say it's misleading to consider all AP exams equal. Some courses, such as AP Physics, have seen higher numbers of students passing. The number of students taking AP English Literature, however, have not been as successful. Statistically, it shouldn't be all that surprising that there are more students failing the tests, as the number of students taking the tests has grown significantly. Enrollment in AP courses has grown from about 704,000 students in 1999 to 1.7 million last year.

Should you be worried? If you're eager to get your college career started or get some college prep under your belt, and feel confident enough in your abilities and academic record to tackle the extra work, these numbers shouldn't dissuade you from adding an AP course or two to your course schedule. As long as you weigh the benefits and drawbacks, AP courses are worth considering.  AP credit can be a way to build your resume and explore a potential college major, and save money on your college education if you do well enough on those exams to get some college credit.

by Agnes Jasinski

Public high schools in eight states will introduce a program next year that will allow their high school sophomores to test out of their junior and senior years if they are interested in enrolling in community college early.

The program is the brainchild of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), and was announced Wednesday. Those who do well on the tests, which will be called "board exams," but aren't interested in going to a community college will be able to continue taking college prep courses at their high schools to prepare for filing applications to the selective schools of their choice. Those who fail the exams will be eligible to retake them at the end of their junior and senior years.

According to the NCEE, the program's goals are to reduce the number of college students in remedial courses, and to better prepare high school students for campus life and the rigors of academics at institutions of higher education. Today, nearly half of the students in community colleges take one or more remedial courses and many are never able to complete developmental courses and move on to credit-level courses to complete their college degree, according to the NCEE. 

Students would be tested on a broad range of topics, including the standard English and math. Between 10 to 20 schools in the eight states involved will offer the program, modeled after existing programs in countries like Australia, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Ireland, and the Netherlands, in the 2010-2011 academic year. According to an article in the New York Times, the program has received a $1.5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help states and school districts get the program running. Start-up costs for school districts would be about $500 per student; that would cover the costs of courses, tests, and teacher training. To cover future costs, the eight states in the program plan to apply for a portion of the $350 million in federal stimulus money designated for improving public school testing, according to the New York Times.

The eight states offering the program are Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. The NCEE hopes the program, which was a part of recommendations set into motion by the NCEE in 2006, will spread across the country. Their other recommendations included getting children in school by the time they were 3 years old and giving states control over local school districts.

by Suada Kolovic

Unfortunately, only two winners walked away with the $355 Mega Millions jackpot and if you weren’t one of them, instant fame and fortune may not be in the cards for you, but a lucrative career that is in high demand could be four short years away. If you’re struggling to come up with ideas for possible majors and post-collegiate careers, looking at majors that are sought after may not be a bad place to start.

According to a survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), organizations are most interested in hiring new college graduates with bachelor’s degrees in the business, engineering and computer science fields. Nearly 62 percent of the organizations participating in NACE’s Job Outlook 2011 survey said they plan to hire accounting graduates, followed by finance (57 percent) and electrical engineering (53.5 percent). Here are the top six degrees according to NACE’s findings:

1. Accounting
2. Finance
3. Electrical Engineering
4. Mechanical Engineering
5. Computer Science
6. Business Administration/Management

Each year, through the Job Outlook survey, NACE surveys its employer members about their hiring plans in order to project the job market for new college graduates. Do you agree with this list? Let us know what you think.

by Suada Kolovic

Text messaging, Twitter and Facebook have revolutionized the way we communicate with one another on a daily basis. From slang terms to text-speak, the casualness has become somewhat routine but what happens when students blur those barriers of online communication and slang shortcuts creep into the classroom? High school teachers are dealing with a lot more IDKs, IMOs and IDCs on assignments nationwide.

Terry Wood, a foreign language teacher at St. Mary's Ryken High School in Leonardtown, Md., has seen a "dramatic decline" in the writing abilities of her students. "They do not capitalize words or use punctuation anymore," Wood, a teacher with 10 years of in-class experience, says. "Even in e-mails to teachers or [on] writing assignments, any word longer than one syllable is now abbreviated to one."

While some advocates have argued that the use of slang is simply an evolution of language, Chad Dion Lassiter, professor of race relations at the University of Pennsylvania disagrees: He considers it "a dumbing down of culture." "We're looking at some of these writing skills and what I'm noticing is [that] there is miscommunication due to the fact that their communication is so limited," he says. "The problem is the adults. We have to train adults to work with young people and hold them accountable."

What do you think? Does slang belong on assignments? If not, how should teachers combat this growing trend of text lingo in the classroom?

by Alexis Mattera

This past Saturday, one-third of high school students taking the SAT opened their writing sections and were met with a prompt that even the most extensive prep courses couldn’t have prepared them for. The topic? Reality television and its impact on its viewers.

While the prompt didn’t ask test-takers to cite specific shows or characters (as a New York Daily News headline suggests), SAT owner the College Board has been called culturally insensitive because the question assumes all students have a television, watch reality television and watch enough reality television to distinguish between them. Angela Garcia, executive director of the SAT program, responded that all essay prompts are pretested with students and then reviewed "to ensure that they are easily understood and that each student has an opportunity to respond, and is wide-ranging enough for a student to demonstrate their writing skills." Still, students, parents and school officials are equal parts distraught and confused, anxiously awaiting to see how answers to this question will impact scores.

Standardized testing – whether it’s about changes to existing exams or the decision to make submitting scores optional – is a hot topic as of late and now, we want to hear from you. Did you receive the reality prompt? How did you respond? Do you think you would have fared better if you were given a different prompt? Do you think the SAT (or standardized testing in general) is an accurate measure of a student’s worth?

by Suada Kolovic

Through November 26, KFC wants high school seniors to put their tweeting skills to good use and apply for the $20,000 Colonel’s Scholars scholarship. KFC is asking college hopefuls to tweet why they exemplify Colonel Sanders’ commitment to education and enriching their communities, and why they are deserving of a college scholarship. The scholarship winner, announced on December 1, will receive up to $5,000 per year for the next four years to pursue a bachelor’s degree at an accredited public university within his or her home state.

And a scholarship for tweeting is definitely S-O, G double O D good! For more information on this scholarship and others you may be eligible for, conduct a free scholarship search!

by Emily

Roosevelt University in Chicago has just awarded its first batch of full-tuition scholarships to students graduating from Social Justice High School, a school on the city's southwest side.  Eight graduates from Social Justice High School earned four-year scholarships, each worth more than $80,000, for earning good grades and doing well on the ACT.

The program was announced in 2006 to give low-income students at a predominately Hispanic high school incentive to succeed in high school and go on to college.  To qualify, students must earn at least a 20 on the ACT and maintain a cumulative GPA of at least a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.  The scholarships cover up to the full cost of tuition at Roosevelt for four years, minus other aid.  In addition, the students will also receive housing allowances of $11,000 per year to allow them to live in the Roosevelt University dorms downtown.

Winning scholarships can hold many benefits for students beyond just financial ones.  The Roosevelt University scholarships at Social Justice High School encourage students not to give up on academics and to push themselves in school.  Several of the recipients retook the ACT or put in extra effort on their coursework in order to qualify for the scholarship.  Winning a scholarship can also motivate students to be more successful in college, according to research into benefits of scholarships.

The Chicago Sun-Times has more information on the Roosevelt University scholarship porgram. This is just one of many generous local scholarships out there.  To learn about other scholarship opportunities, you can conduct a free college scholarship search.

by Emily

High school seniors in a school district in Texas will receive $1 million in scholarships after their district was named the winner of this year's Broad Prize for Urban Education. The award is offered annually by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and is designed to reward notable gains in student achievement and in narrowing the achievement gap for poor and minority students. Aldine Independent School District, which serves the Houston area, won the top prize this year, after having previously been a runner up for the prize three times.

The Broad Foundation names five finalists each year and from them, chooses a winner for the $1 million Broad Prize. This year, the other finalists were Broward County, Florida (a two-time finalist); Long Beach, California (a former winner and three-time finalist); Socorro Independent School District in El Paso, Texas; and Gwinnet County Public Schools in the Atlanta, Georgia area.

Aldine won the prize based on a number of factors. The Broad Foundation cited the district's gains in breaking "the predictive power of poverty," as the district's predominately low-income students outperformed peers of similar backgrounds on state standardized tests. The achievement gap for both low-income and minority students has been closing at Aldine, with a 14-point reduction in the achievement gap for African-American middle schoolers in math over the last four years. Other successes included Aldine's recruitment of highly qualified teachers, engagement with students, and districtwide standardization of education practices and curriculum (many poor families move around within the district, so making what is taught in each grade more uniform across the district helps them keep from falling behind).

The scholarship awards will help further the success of graduates from Aldine, with $20,000 over four years going to students who enroll in four-year colleges and universities and up to $5,000 over two years going to students who enroll in community colleges. Students at other finalist schools will also receive scholarship money: each of the prize's four finalist districts will receive $250,000 to award to their high school students.

by Suada Kolovic

Deadlines and due dates are serious stressors for almost everyone on the planet and this anxiety is only intensified when there’s money on the line. In the month of March, scholarship deadlines are ample and abundant to say the least and here at Scholarships.com, we know that you’re so busy during the school year with homework, extracurricular obligations and jobs that finding the time to successfully apply for scholarships and actually meeting those scholarship application deadlines can seem downright impossible. With the right strategy and willpower, however, you can stay on track and easily defeat those deadlines woes.

Perhaps the best advice for meeting scholarship application deadlines is to be honest with yourself about what you’re likely to finish and how long it’s likely to take you. If you know that you’re not going to be able to write a scholarship-worthy essay in less than a day, then you should either give yourself more time to prepare a particular scholarship application or to cross that essay scholarship off your list of potential sources of scholarship money. The key to effectively meeting scholarship application deadlines and winning scholarships is to effectively prioritize your scholarship opportunities and application efforts. Don’t strain yourself, don’t procrastinate and don’t force yourself into a situation where you must submit subpar work. Give yourself time, get organized and prepare as much as possible beforehand and you’ll be on well on your way to success in your scholarship search.

Below are some scholarships with fast-approaching applications deadlines. Remember, the sooner you start your scholarship search the better; it really could make all the difference when it comes to making a serious dent in your post-college financial situation.

• GE-Reagan Foundation Scholarships

  Honoring the legacy and character of our nation's 40th President, this program rewards up to 20 college-bound students who demonstrate exemplary leadership, drive, integrity, and citizenship with financial assistance to pursue higher education. These renewable scholarships are $10,000 annually per recipient – that’s potentially up to $40,000 per recipient over the course of their college careers. The application deadline is March 18th.

• The "You Like Me…You Really Like Me" Facebook Scholarship

  The "You Like Me...You Really Like Me" Facebook Scholarship will go to the Scholarships.com fan that is making the best use of our website’s many resources as determined by comments on our Facebook page. Love our scholarship search? Tell us why! Is our financial aid info really helping you out? Send us an example! Think our college prep section is the best? Give us a shout out! The application deadline is March 31st.

• Zinch Weekly "Three Sentence Essay" Scholarship

  Writing three sentences and banking $1,000 to put toward college may seem like a dream but it is indeed a reality with the Three Sentence Essay from Zinch. Though many essay scholarships have word count requirements in the hundreds or thousands, Zinch caps theirs at 280 characters and requires applicants to respond to a prompt that changes on a weekly basis. All high school and college students (including international students) are eligible to participate so go ahead and check out the prompt, think about it some and submit a concise yet thoughtful answer worthy of $1,000.

• Kohl's Cares Scholarship Program

  The Kohl’s Cares® Scholarship Program recognizes and rewards young volunteers (ages 6-18) whose efforts have made a positive impact on their communities. This year, Kohl’s plans to recognize more than 2,100 kids with prizes ranging from $50 Kohl’s Gift Cards to $1,000 or $10,000 scholarships. Nominations accepted online from February 1st through March 15th. Winners are chosen based on the project, benefits and outcomes.

• GoDaddy.com .ME Scholarship

  The Go Daddy .ME Scholarship is all about YOU! Do you have what it takes to be a Go Daddy Scholar? We want to know how the Internet or Internet technology (e.g., websites, blogs, forums, social media, etc.) has helped you during the course of your studies. Have you used the Internet to advance your athletic, artistic or intellectual pursuits? How do you envision benefitting from it through college and beyond? Tell us in 500 words or less and you can become one of 10 Go Daddy Scholars to receive $10,000 for your college tuition. The application deadline is March 15th.