How to get involved with SCS
The South Central Scholars Foundation holds events throughout the year for junior and senior high school students that live and go to school in or around South Central Los Angeles.
Events include, but are not limited to:
- college fairs
- financial aid workshops
- application workshops
- campus visits
- leadership conference
If you are interested in learning more about these events and being notified by email, click here to join our mailing list. In addition, check this website regularly for updates regarding events, scholarships, and announcements for high school juniors and seniors.
The South Central Scholars - Scholarship Application
The application is made available in April and is open to senior high school students that live and go to school in or around South Central Los Angeles. The scholarship application requests the following information:
- High School GPA (as of fall semester of 12th grade)
- AP courses (taken and scheduled)
- AP course test results (if taken and results received)
- SAT/ACT test scores (if taken)
- extracurricular activities (sports, student organizations, religious organizations, pre-college programs, etc.)
- scholarship awards received (if applicable)
- personal statement (the question will be available here in March)
Documents that you will need to submit are:
- updated resume (should reflect all work, volunteer, and other experiences up to fall semester of 12th grade)
- high school transcript (up to fall semester of 12th grade, ONLY OFFICIAL will be accepted)
- financial aid award (from college that you will attend/accept)
- student aid report (SAR) from fafsa.ed.gov
The application will open in April and will remain open for 30 days, after which applications will no longer be accepted. To prepare for this, make sure that you talk to your counselors ahead of time regarding the documents that you will need to submit, the timeline and costs attached to getting those documents, and assistance with documents that you will need to prepare/update (resume, personal statement).
Applicants are notified of the results of their application in June. ALL SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS for 2010-2011 will be REQUIRED to attend a 2-day leadership conference in Los Angeles in July/August of 2010 (this is waived for students attending summer programs at their colleges ONLY).
Tips to getting ready for the application:
- make sure you apply for the FAFSA before the March 2nd deadline! (www.fafsa.ed.gov)
- make sure to review the checklist above
- get to know SCS by visiting your college counselor, going to an SCS event, or talking to an SCS staff member
SCS College Application Guide
High school students: Please stay tuned as SCS develops our first-ever guide to the college application process. Our guide will walk you through the fundamentals of picking the right schools to apply to, understanding financial aid, writing a great college essay, and acing your interview.
Check back in Summer of 2009!
High School Scholar Resources
To help guide your way through the college-pathway process, South Central Scholars has created the following templates to help you identify what you will need to ensure that you are "on track." Please use as you need and make sure to contact South Central Scholar staff for help!
Upcoming Events for High School Juniors & Seniors!
FREE SAT PREPARATION WORKSHOP Updated on 11/2/09!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Westin LAX Hotel
Los Angeles, CA
Each One - Teach One Alliance for Academic Access, Achievement, and Success will host their second free SAT Prep Workshop. There will be two sessions each on Mathematics and Reading/Writing. Students or parents can reserve a seat by clicking on the link below. You can also register by calling (866) 398-4055 and leave the following information: student's name, school, grade level, contact number, parent's name, and email address. This is a first come-first served event, and seats are limited to 200 students!
http://freesatprepworkshop.com
SCS FAMILY NIGHT
Saturday, November 14, 2009 NOT the 7th!
4:00-6:00PM
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church
Los Angeles, CA
Join us and learn about applying to the Ivy League, Liberal Art, and No-Loan Colleges. Bring your family and have a discussion about what you need to know to get ahead!
SCS FINANCIAL AID WORKSHOP
Saturday, January 2, 2010
1:00-3:00PM
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church
Los Angeles, CA
Bring a FAFSA form or a laptop, and come prepared with your 2008 taxes! Learn the ins and outs of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
No Loan Colleges
No Loan Colleges provide access to Top Quality education. Most colleges that offer no-loan packages offer wonderful undergraduate programs at a cost of next-to-nothing for you and your parents/guardians.
Remember, No Loans = No Debt.
Being debt free gives you the freedom to pursue whatever career you like since you will not be held back by pressure to make money right away to cover loan payments. Having debt right out of college can result in settling for jobs not aligned with your study/experience, and anxiety spent wondering how to get back in "the game." In addition, having no loans after your undergraduate career makes you more flexible and open to getting loans that you would need for a graduate program.
Click on the link below to see a listing of No Loan colleges, and consider them as you work on creating that "Smart List" of colleges to apply to in your senior year.
High School Scholarships
Bank of America Student Leader Program Application DUE February 17, 2010!!
adfad Bank of America is looking for tomorrow?s community leaders today. Since the program?s inception in 2004, Bank of America has recognized more than 1,500 Student Leaders as exemplary high school students with a passion for helping their communities. Selected Student Leaders participate in a paid summer internship with a designated local nonprofit organization where they experience first-hand how they can help shape their communities-now and in the future. To enhance their leadership experience, awardees also participate in a six-day, all-expense paid Student Leadership Summit in Washington, DC provided by Bank of America. The nonprofit internship and Student Leadership Summit exposes students to leadership aspects in civic, nonprofit and business arenas. Our goal is to nurture and develop our country?s next generation of community leaders ? for our neighborhoods, our cities, and beyond. To learn more about the program, please visit www.bankofamerica.com/foundation.
To apply to be a student leader, click here!
For a program flyer, click here!
Save Me a Spot in College Application DUE 3/15/10!!
Make your voice heard and make money for college! The Campaign for College Opportunity invites you to participate in their ?Save Me a Spot in College? scholarship contest. All 6th through 12th grade students in California can participate and this year close to 300 students will win $500 to $2500 scholarships. To enter create a written word, poster or TV ad entry answering the question, ?Why should California leaders save you and your peers a spot in college?? In other words, imagine you have the governor and state legislators sitting in front of you and you get the chance to tell them why you think they should invest in your opportunities and those of your peers to go to college. The deadline is March 15, 2010. For more information, please review the attachments and visit the contest website at www.collegecampaign.org/contest. If you have any questions contact Elizabeth Robles via email or 213-817-6034.
In the News...
Web site helps students choose college
By Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer
Published Monday, September 21, 2009
Seventeen-year-old Tatiana Castro visited a college fair near her small Southern California town and had a chance to talk with representatives of Yale, New York University and a half dozen other East Coast colleges she's interested in.
The senior learned about the fair not from her Riverside County high school - which has one counselor for every 462 students - but during a live Web chat on CollegeWeekLive.com, which allowed her to correspond with college counselors about everything from her SATs to college sports.
In a year when many public school counselors are being laid off because California lawmakers repealed a $200 million mandated counseling program, and when deep cuts to university budgets make it harder for them to reach out to prospective students, students are finding these services online - and for free.
"It was a really good experience," said Tatiana, who also chatted over the Web with freshmen from Yale in Connecticut and American University in Washington, D.C., and took a test prep course. "You can ask (admissions representatives) about personal statements, financial aid, SATs - anything. It allowed me to cut down on the whole looking-for-college process.
"And they said there was a college fair near my home - something I didn't even know was happening."
Sites are catching on
CollegeWeekLive.com has exploded in popularity since it premiered in 2007. For students like Tatiana, whose family can't afford to take her on an East Coast college tour, the online site - billed as "the world's biggest virtual college fair" - is one alternative.
It's run by PlatformQ, a company that produces online events, and relies on advertising and fees from colleges.
Students log on to the site and see a virtual trade show, with booths for about 200 colleges. More than 100 additional colleges are due to join in the next few weeks, said spokeswoman Martha Collins.
Last school year, the site scheduled just two live events - a college fair in the fall and spring, which brought in 28,000 students each, Collins said. Now live conversations about all things collegiate are scheduled far more frequently, she said.
For example, Oct. 1 will be University of California Day, in which representatives from UC's nine undergraduate campuses will be available for live chats from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Oct. 8 will be Guidance Counselor Day. Oct. 20 is strictly for UC Riverside. And Nov. 4 will be an open chat with representatives from every college.
Also scheduled are interactive seminars on numerous topics, including writing college essays and interviews with experts on student aid and admissions strategies. Last week there was a daylong test-prep class.
If you miss a session, everything is archived and available on the site.
"CollegeWeekLive is wonderful, but it should not replace the credentialed professionals that students ought to have access to," said Pam Bachilla of the California Association of School Counselors.
Even before lawmakers repealed California's mandated counseling program earlier this year, the state had only 1 counselor for every 650 middle and high school students - the worst ratio in the country, Bachilla said.
Yet maybe because of all that pressure, "counselors are very happy with CollegeWeekLive," she said.
Universities like it, too. Bob Patterson knew about it when he worked in admissions at the University of North Carolina. So when he became deputy director of admissions at UC Berkeley six months ago, he invited the undergraduate UC campuses to join - and they did.
Strapped by budget
"We're not able to recruit as much as we used to because of budget restrictions," Patterson said. "CollegeWeekLive serves any student interested in coming to a virtual environment."
Apart from that site, UC Berkeley and other schools are finding value in conducting more business electronically. For example, Berkeley admissions representatives are available for live chats with prospective students from 4 to 5 p.m. every Wednesday from now through Nov. 18.
Meanwhile, Tatiana, whose family arrived in the Southern California town of Temecula five years ago from Colombia, is intent on studying international relations back East. She said she doesn't blame her high school counselor for not helping her through that process last year.
"She did not know much about East Coast colleges. She was more focused on California. So these people online really helped."
College counseling and more on Internet
To participate in one of CollegeWeekLive's free events, including the Oct. 1
UC Day, go to www.collegeweeklive.com.
UC Berkeley will also offer its own live admissions chats through Nov. 18 at links.sfgate.com/ZIEU, which also has a link to register for UC Day.
Pre-College Opportunities
More information coming!