The reason I have recieved the scholarships I have is because my mother spends ALL DAY LONG helping my sister and I with filling out scholarship applications. She has been going in to the school's CAP advisor's office once a week since October, 1998 and has pushed us to fill out at least 30 applications each. In many ways, it has been her full time job. Without her support, nagging, proofreading, and suggestions, I would probably never have even applied for a scholarship, much less win one.

My mother would not let either my sister or myself go out of the house if we needed to write an essay for a scholarship application that was coming due. Honestly. She even made my sister stay home from work one night because the scholarship deadline was the next day and my sister had not written her essay (it was worth a $500 scholarship which my sister did win).

My "resume" has helped me greatly and probably made all the difference. I am very active in volunteer work around town, and have done so much that I have awards on local, county, state, and national levels as a result. My volunteer work makes it hard for me to go unnoticed. I got flown up to Providence, Rhode Island for a Student Leader Competition (won a $2000 scholarship renewable for 4 years) and the judges said to me that they had never seen a resume like mine.

I have kept a journal of every volunteer event, every club, every award, every project, and included my county fair blue ribbons and other fair awards since the summer before 9th grade. Coupled with my church activities and my decent GPA, you could say I am "The Bomb" on paper.

In my opinion, students really have to have done stuff for all four years in school for it to pay off as a senior. It's almost too late once you are already a senior. But even if you didn't start volunteering and getting active in school till you were a sophomore or junior, you should try anyway.

Here are my best tips:

• Start volunteering around town as early as 9th grade
• Join at least 3 school clubs
• Try to hold office at least once in school
• Join at least one out-of-school club like 4-H, YMCA, BSA, GS USA... something... and hold office at least two out of four years.
• Keep a journal of everything you do.
• If you are not able to aggressively compete for awards and titles in school, at least compete or exhibit things in your local county fair. Blue ribbons means first place.
• Enter as many contests as you can. Even if you do not win, you are automatically a runner-up or a participant just for trying. "Runner-up" and "participant" looks good on a resume, too. It shows you are not afraid of competition.
• Apply for everything. Leave nothing out.
• Write those essays and amend them to fit the criteria of each scholarship you apply for, if you can. I used one essay 6 times with a modification here and there.
• Get letters of recommendation from friends, employers, counselors, and any one else you can... even your doctor... and save the originals.
• Finally, do your absolute best in school. Take all your classes seriously, study hard, and do the best you can.

Work hard and you are on your way to success! Good Luck!