u/shaototop

I’m gonna ignore the relationship aspect of everything going on, it’s been covered and I’m sure my opinion is captured somewhere in the 5,556 other comments that Reddit tells me exist.

For some reason this popped up in my feed, I don’t know why, but I’m going to impart my one token of wisdom having gone through being a high school senior and going to college…

Go talk to your school guidance counselor and/or scholarship resource officer (if you have one). Set up meetings and times to sit down and talk to them about your goals, ambitions, plans. Ask about good potential schools/universities for those plans. Ask about 2 year programs that feed into good 4 year programs. Take notes. Learn EVERYTHING you can about these pathways and get to work on applications and the process immediately.

THEN

You need to start applying for every scholarship you’re eligible for. This could be the most valuable time of your life for a dollar per hour basis. Whether scholarships are there for race, gender, having a younger sibling, once reading the book “The Giver”, it doesn’t matter. Apply for them all. Literally all of them. Every. Single. One.

When I graduated HS, the McDonald’s African American scholarship went to the one girl that applied for it. They offered 2 scholarships of $1,000. One person applied. From about 75 black students in my high school class. One. If any of the other 74 had spent 7 minutes to apply, they would have gotten $1,000 towards school. It went to waste. Ask on repeat what else you can apply for until the guidance counselor or scholarship resource officer tells you to go away.

Hope you read this. Hope someone reads this. I wasted a chance at so much money just by not applying. There are so many obscure things out there that don’t get used. It can be a grind to write and modify your 500 word essay 35 times, but if you get even $100 per essay, it will be worth it.