The official e-newsletter of The Equestrian College Advisor.

From the blog:

I’m always at a bit of a loss this time of year, but not for the reasons you might typically think. The winter holiday season is a hectic series of weeks of shopping and decorating and cooking and making plans with friends and family to spend as much time together as possible, but despite a pace that often seems fairly frantic, it’s actually a substantial period of downtime for me.

Hence the weird sensation of being a bit adrift that always hits me around mid-December – I’m not really accustomed to downtime. Read More

Former champion FEI Young Rider Catherine Chamberlain explains why a professional dressage career was not for her in this moving editorial. 

Choosing Happiness Over Expectations

Parents, do you have a rising or current college student? Have you filled out this year’s FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) yet?

You might be thinking, “Nope. We don’t have time to fill out another form,” But trust me, the potential savings are worth making time for.

Here are five things you need to know about the FAFSA.

Scholarship Applications – How Do I Make Them Work in My Favor?You’ve seen the headlines that scream “Student Received $100K in Scholarships” and “Win Millions in Scholarship Dollars.” For high school seniors, the idea of paying for higher education with bags of free money handed over from charities and corporations is certainly more appealing than cutting a check from the college savings account or taking out loans, but each year, the headlines seem to get bigger and the amount of dollars available for the taking seems to get smaller.How should you go about the search? Stick to these primary tactics:

• Start early. Just like your college search, because you will begin to apply for the scholarships as a high school senior, you should begin to identify the ones you’ll qualify for as early as junior year. Start locally first with businesses, your high school, church, your parents’ employers, and clubs or organizations that you and your family belong to. When the pool of applicants for scholarship dollars is limited to those in your region, you stand a better chance of winning one than when you compete against students from fifty states in the national scholarship competitions.

• Target carefully. Scholarships aren’t just limited to top athletes or scholars, there are also a host of them available to students who want to study in certain fields, participate in certain types of outside activities (volunteering, fundraising for organizations, work experience, etc.). If you know what you want to study in college, you can research scholarships for students with interests in those areas. 

• Meet the guidelines. If the scholarship requires an interview, an application essay, or letters of recommendation, make sure you not only have all of these items available when you submit your application, but that you get everything turned in on time. Scholarship committees are strict with both requirements and deadlines and you’d hate to miss out because you were one day late! 

• Don’t stop applying. Scholarships for undergraduate students aren’t just awarded to high school seniors as they make the transition – millions of scholarship dollars are available to all undergraduate students, which means that you can re-apply for certain scholarships each year you are enrolled in college!

Many students forget this fact and wind up leaving money on the table. Searching for scholarships can be a time consuming process, but the rewards are great. Put the hours in now and you may find that they pay off (literally!) after graduation.

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