Scholarships for students seeking success

Post date: Jan 29, 2018 4:5:43 PM

As the college application process for many seniors winds down, many are looking for and applying to scholarships that various schools, as well as other foundations offer.

The WHHS Alumni Foundation provides scholarships ranging from $1000 to a full-ride scholarship for various achievements. Debbie Heldman, Executive Director of the Alumni Foundation, helps to make these scholarships possible.

By speaking to various willing donors, she helps them create scholarships and make them available to the student body.

The scholarships themselves are fit to each student for a variety of reasons, such as merit, personality, accomplishments and character.

A scholarship is usually the product of a faithful alumni who wishes to either give back personally or in the memory of someone else.

For example, Heldman explained a scholarship called “The Glue” scholarship. This scholarship was created by the parents of a student who had died as a young man.

He was often described as “The Glue” of the school because he knew and socialized with students from all the different groups of cliques.

The scholarship is now given to a current student who embodies these qualities themselves in the hopes of promoting the success of that type of student.

The application for a scholarship like this consists of two parts: a basic background sheet listing information about the student and a personal essay about the student.

According to Heldman, the essay is the most important part of the application. She emphasized that the personal and intriguing stories written in the essay not only convince her to pick that student for the scholarship, but also impact her personally.

This scholarship opportunity is one of the only ones available that does not require high levels of merit. The story you tell in your essay is very important — it shows the Alumni Foundation who you are as a person so that you can be placed with the best scholarship for you.

Once Heldman has read an essay, if qualified, she matches the student to a scholarship that encapsulates the different parts of the student such as merit, personality, and extra curricular activities.

Although there are numerous scholarships available, many WHHS students do not take advantage of this opportunity.

In the past years there have been roughly 30 to 40 scholarships available.

Senior classes usually have around 400 students, however Heldman says she only gets about 200 applications.

Heldman urges students to at least submit an application. There are informative packets available in the college information center and grade level offices.

A full list of scholarships and opportunities will be available in April.