Scholarship opportunities open for seniors now

Stop+in+the+guidance+office+and+pick+up+your+scholarship+applications.

Mikala McCracken

Stop in the guidance office and pick up your scholarship applications.

Julie Bauer, Staff Writer

For college-bound seniors, the time to apply for scholarships is now.

Bellwood-Antis seniors earned a combined total of $56,500 in local scholarships last year at the 30th Annual Achievement Recognition and Scholarship Banquet. This was possible thanks to the generosity of several benefactors in the Bellwood-Antis community.

But there is more money on the table for seniors than just the local awards.

“Many of the [scholarships] we have printed out are local, but we also get information about some regional, state-wide, and national scholarships too,” said high school guidance counselor Ms. Danielle Patton.

For example, Ms. Patton says, there is currently an essay contest offered by the Western PA Trial Lawyers Association. Interested students must write an essay about a court case.

“For this one, we can only submit one essay for the district so I’m asking students to turn them in to Guidance by March 9 so that one can be chosen to move forward,” said Ms. Patton.

If you do not qualify for local scholarships, there are other opportunities.

“Beyond what we have printed in the guidance office, there are a lot of search engines that students can use to search for scholarships on a wider scale,” explained Ms. Patton. Fastweb, BigFuture, and Scholarships.com are a few such search engines that are available to help students find scholarships.

All local scholarship applications are located in the high school Guidance office.