A senior is sitting in the library. He looks down at his hands and remembers how cool it was to be left-handed in elementary school, and how all the other kids loved the doodles he’d do in his notebook. Now he has to worry about his grades, and, if he wants to get a scholarship and go to a good college.
What he doesn’t know is that there are all kinds of scholarships that have nothing to do with academics or sports. They can be found by searching sites like scholarships.com or finaid.org
If you’re left-handed, there’s a scholarship for you. If you are a girl over 5’9 or a boy over 6’2, there is a scholarship for you. If you’re addicted to the tv show The Walking Dead, there is a scholarship for you. There are scholarships for people who are creative, people going into specific fields or to specific collages, even scholarships about going to prom. A good way to find out about these scholarships is by going to the counseling office or the family connections website where scholarships are listed for seniors.
“I think that unusual scholarships can be a good idea because one, they offer opportunity to students, regardless of what the background is, and then I think like anything else something unusual or offbeat tends to catch the eyes of the teenagers or youth,” Counselor Greg Casel said. “If it gives opportunity and exposes more people to that opportunity than that’s great. As long as it’s not illegal or immoral.”
Tall Clubs International offers a $1,000 scholarship for tall people, the Kae Sumner Einfeldt Scholarship. Women who are at least 5’10” and men who are at least 6’2″ are eligible for the award. Candidates must be under 21 years old and plan to attend college in the fall.
“I personally like the scholarship competitions that force students to be creative,” Guidance Counseler Scott Gillespie said. “For example, Duck Brand Tape has a scholarship competition that awards students who create their prom outfits out of duct tape.”
The Duck Brand Duct Tape Stuck on Prom Contest is open to students age 14 years or older who are attending a high school prom in the spring.
Entrants must enter as a couple and attend a high school prom wearing complete attire or accessories made from duct tape. The submission must include a color photograph of the couple together in prom attire.
The first place prize consists of a $5,000 scholarship for each member of the winning couple and a $5,000 cash prize to the school that hosted the prom.
Another unusual scholarship calls on a very specific talent that some kids in LHS possess.
The Chick and Sophie Major Memorial Duck Calling Contest awards a $1,500 scholarship to the winner. The contest is open to any high school senior in the United States who can call ducks. Contestants have 90 seconds to use four calls. The first runner-up receives a $500 scholarship.
Some currently offer special scholarships or discounts for twins and triplets including Carl Albert State College in Oklahoma (Paula Nieto Twin Scholarship), George Washington University in Washington, DC (50% discount for second sibling), Lake Erie College in Painesville, and Ohio (each twin gets the scholarship in alternate years).
“You should get scholarships for things you can actually do stuff with,” sophomore Alexis Dolby said. “I mean, being a twin’s not going to get you anywhere in life, you’re just a twin. But you’ve got to pay for it somehow and if the offer’s out there, you might as well take it, because college isn’t cheap.”
More than one of the students who didn’t previously know about the unusual scholarships agree that they were strange but a good idea.
