Entering High School Seniors have a busy year ahead of SAT exams, college visits, essays and numerous applications. You will soon find out, if you haven’t already, that money for college is harder to come by these days. You need to start planning now to ensure that you have the necessary funds to attend college.
Scholarships can help fill in the financial gap between federal aid and grants, with free college money. If you are an Asian American or a Pacific Islander American, there are many scholarship resources awarding free college money, available to you that you may not be aware of. Many Asian Pacific Islander scholarship applications and other scholarships, will be available online very soon. Now is the time for you to start seeking out every single, free scholarship you may be eligible for. Someone is going to win that free money for college and it may as well be you.
Who Qualifies as an Asian American?
Asian scholarships are available to students with an Asian Pacific Islander heritage. Qualifying students must show one of the following origins: Bangladeshi, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Indian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Laotian, Malaysian, Nepalese, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Thai and Vietnamese, Montagnards, Khemer Khong, Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, including: Carolinian, Chamorro/Guamanian, Fijian, Maori, Marshallese, Micronesian, Native Hawaiian, Palauan, Samoan, and Tahitian, the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau.
Once you determine your ethnic eligibility, take stock of all your positive attributes that would appeal to a scholarship committee awarding free money to attend college. Start preparing a list of all your acedmic, athletic and personal achievements. Think about whom you can contact for personal recommendations. Once you get your entire list together, start applying for Asian and other scholarships to maximize your chances of obtaining enough money for college.
Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund
(http://www.apiasf.org/)
The Asian and Pacific islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF), is a relatively new scholarship organization, that is specifically geared to awarding free scholarship money to entering freshmen of Asian and Pacific Islander descent. It offers 200, one-time awards of $2,500, which is a significant amount of free money for college. Students must be U.S. citizens or legal residents, planning to enter a two or four year accredited college, with at least a 2.7 GPA on a 4.0 grading scale.
Organization for Chinese Americans
(http://www.ocanational.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1)
The Organization for Chinese Americans (OCA) sponsors three different scholarships for Asian and Pacific Islander American students, making awards of $2,000 to first time, entering college freshmen. All three scholarships require U.S. citizenship or legal residency and a 3.0 GPA. The three scholarships each have their own, additional criteria.
The UPS Gold Mountain scholarship is available only to those students who are the first in their family to attend college, who can also show financial need. The Verizon scholarship is available to entering freshman students with financial need. The AXA Achievement Scholarship is available to those students that can demonstrate, community involvement, leadership and academic achievement.
Gates Millennium Scholars Scholarship
(http://www.gmsp.org/)
The Gates Millennium Scholarship (GMS) is open to Asian Pacific Islander, and other minority students that have an unmet financial, and are Pell grant eligible. Students need to have a 3.3 GPA and be able to show extensive community involvement and leadership ability. These scholarship awards are significant at $2,500, which are renewable each of the four years you are in college. The GMS applications are available online now, so get started!
Other Scholarships
Other scholarship available to Asian and Pacific Islander students are offered through the Hmong National Development, Inc, (HND), (http://hndinc.org/content/view/26/43/), Japanese Americans Citizens League (JACL) (http://www.jacl.org/edu/scholar.htm) and Asian American Journalist Association. (AAJA) (ttp://www.aaja.org/programs/for_students/scholarships/)
Eligibility requirements differ with each other scholarship program, offered by the sponsoring organizations. The programs offered through the JACL, require student membership with the organization, to be eligible for scholarships. It is worthwhile to carefully check each scholarship offered and apply for as many as you can. Other scholarships, through the AAJA require that students be studying journalism or a related field.