5 Minutes Could Save You $$$ in 2019-20: Encourage your student to apply for a scholarship

We have clear blue skies and sunshine in Farmville today, and there’s another bright spot as well: The application period for next year’s scholarships is open!

If your student will be enrolled at Longwood for the 2019-20 academic year—whether a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior this year, or even a graduate student—they are eligible to apply for one of the 370 or so scholarships available. Applications will be accepted through midnight on Feb. 1, 2019.

Submitting the general application—which takes about 5 minutes to complete—is the first step. For some scholarships that’s all that is required. Other scholarships also require a scholarship-specific application, which could require the submission of a resume, a personal statement or essay, a portfolio of work or other information about the applicant.

“Everybody should take the 5 minutes to do the general application,” says Ashley Crute, director of scholarships. When it comes to the scholarships that require an additional scholarship-specific application, Crute has this advice: “Apply for anything and everything you’re qualified for. You never know.”

Some scholarships are merit-based, some are based on financial need and others have a combination of those requirements. In addition, some scholarships have very specific criteria that reflect the interests of the donor or the namesake of the scholarship.

For example, the Camilla C. and Helen B. Tinnell Scholarship in English is designated for a full-time rising junior or senior who is majoring in English, has at least an overall GPA of 3.0 and a 3.2 GPA in English, and has a desire to teach. The Talmadge “Tal” H. Yeatts Scholarship goes to a student who is employed by Longwood’s food-service provider and demonstrates strong academic achievement.

There are scholarships designated for students in the Honors College and for students who want to participate in one of Longwood’s Brock Experiences, which take students around the country to study important issues of the day. The students in the photo above traveled to Arizona in summer 2018 to explore immigration issues.

Awards range from $1,000 per year to $5,000 per year—and some go even higher. To get started, your student should go to https://longwood.academicworks.com. (Sorry, Mom and Dad, you have to have a LancerNet ID and password to access the application.)