It's scholarship season in Sisters

"Parents must realize there are multiple avenues to pursue funding for college," says Dan Saraceno, Senior Counselor at Sisters High School

Gone are the days when only the top GPA students in schools received all the scholarship monies. There are many ways to fund an education.

Time is of the essence in regards to scholarships, as deadlines are attached.

There are merit awards, need-based aid, and financial aid packages as well as "Outside Source of Aid" that include: local and regional scholarships.

Volunteer Barb Helmstadt updates the ASPIRE database for all local and regional scholarships.

Regional scholarships: The Oregon Student Assistance Commission (OSAC) manages a list of private scholarship of which many are regionally based.

The folks in the ASPIRE office at Sisters High School are well prepared to help students and their parents tackle the seemingly daunting job of hunting for scholarships.

"Millions of dollars go unclaimed every year," said ASPIRE Coordinator Assistant, Linda Peck. "There are scholarships out there for everything, like Tall People Scholarships and Red Head People Scholarships - it's true!"

The volunteers in the ASPIRE Program are trained to assist students to find these scholarships by getting to know the students and helping them remember their accomplishments to date and to encourage them to get writing those essays that all scholarships groups seem to want.

In fact, ASPIRE has its own in-house essay specialist, published author Brenda Smith. Smith comes in weekly to meet with students to begin, rework, edit and finalize their essays.

"We frequently hear 'I can't afford to go to college,'" said ASPIRE Coordinator Susanna Harrison. "When in reality there are many Ivy League schools (Harvard being one of them) that are 100 percent free to qualifying need-based students."

The ASPIRE program comes under the counseling department at Sisters High School. Dan Saraceno, the Senior Counselor, works closely with the ASPIRE program in their implementation of its training in key areas. Scholarships are a key area.

Together the Counseling Department and ASPIRE have laid out a plan for all students who desire free money: FAFSA (Free Application for Student Aid) application by January 1, 2009; OSAC application by February 6, 2009; Common Application by March.

On December 2 from 12 noon to 1 p.m., Becky Wilson, ASPIRE Regional Coordinator, will do an OSAC online application training in the Sisters High School Library.

Anyone from the community is invited to attend.

"I think it's important that students know that some scholarships are not GPA based," said five-year ASPIRE volunteer, Val Anderson.

"Students are surprised at what monies they can get when they apply themselves to the process. It's thrilling for me to see students who have turned themselves around by applying themselves apply for and receive scholarships.

"So I always show the students I work with that there is a lot of scholarship money out there."

Contact the ASPIRE offices at 549-3203 for more information.