ScholarFiles®
 
I was working with some local high school students and helping them to apply for scholarships to help cover their college costs.  They had been doing a lot of research all over the internet for scholarships.  They had Googled some sites and talked with their school counselors over a few weeks and told me they were ready to start applying.  When I asked them to show me the applications or the websites they researched, they couldn’t remember…they didn’t know.  
 
“Ok”, I said, “what is the name of the scholarship?  One student said, “it was something like for girls interested in business.”  Do you remember the name of the organization that sponsored the scholarship, or the name of the site that you saw it on, anything? So now I’m getting desperate and groping for any info and asking if they remembered anything that could help us look it up.  I even went so far as to ask “which computer did you use, maybe we can look up the browser’s history and find it that way”. No luck. This is crazy.  Planning for college is stressful enough, now we’re wasting time trying to find information all over again. This was happening so often and was frustrating the students and school staff and causing some students to dread, even avoid the whole process.  Students were doing the research but with so many listings they were not remembering which sites they had visited.
 
Yes, the students could have been more organized, but how many times have you Googled one thing and found yourself clicking a link that then takes you to another page and then the next link and the next, and the next, and now you find yourself deep down the rabbit hole of the internet, nowhere near where you started and no idea how you got there.  Now what…. 
 
There are thousands of websites listing scholarships some easy to use some not so easy.  Some with complete information and some that direct you to yet another website only to find that you have to fish around multiple pages for the information.  It may not be a big deal if you can sit for hours and get all your scholarship applications done in one sitting…yeah sure…there’s only 24 hours in a day and that’s just not realistic, especially for busy high school seniors.  Homework, sports, college applications, financial aid forms, family responsibilities, more homework, maybe some time with friends. It’s not possible to get it all done in one sitting.  You must do some research learn what is needed and then take this one step at a time and, yes, get more organized.
 
Lots of students apply for multiple scholarships, but then do not keep good records and don't remember which applications they submitted and whether any of the applications required follow up. 
 
Bottom-line, students are losing out on money because of poor organization and bad record keeping. I’ve been seeing this problem for years and I've finally created the solution to help!
 
 The solution is called …
 
ScholarFiles® Scholarships Organized ● Scholarships Won
 
ScholarFiles® is a simple yet ingeniously designed spreadsheet style document that is easy to use and helps students stay organized.
 
ScholarFiles® allows you to keep a listing of all your scholarship information together in one place.
 
Designed in a familiar Excel Spreadsheet format, this valuable organizer includes: 
drop-down menus to make entering easy
the ability to sort and filter columns in the order that works best for you
locked scrolling, so you can see the name of the scholarship while scrolling to the end of the row or column.  
a dollar amount counter called "My Scholarship Total" that totals up all the awarded scholarship dollars you’ve entered. 
 
ScholarFiles® include columns that allow you to list:
Scholarship Name
Scholarship Status
Amount Offered
Application Due Date
Name of the Organization 
Website 
User Name and Password
Special Instructions
Source
Notes, Tips and Follow Up
Were you awarded
Dollar Amount Awarded
 
Don’t lose scholarship money!  Stay organized!  Get
 
 ScholarFiles®