College and Career Group with the 2025 Local Scholarship Folder

Local Scholarship Application Season

By Giselle Ramirez

January 24th, 2025

With the college application season over, local scholarship applications are open and ready for applications for any senior, with approximately 60 scholarships and a chance to win over $200,000 for college.

Local scholarships are given to students at LHS from the community every year. Councilors Secretary Mrs. Charlene Emerson  has been promoting them since winter break and many are starting to apply now.

“I’ve been continuously advertising since December,” Emerson said. “It’s not that difficult to find and apply to scholarships since they’re all listed in the Schoology group all the seniors are in.”

Local Scholarships are available to every LHS Senior no matter how long they’ve been at the school. That is the only requirement, other than the ones in the scholarships, to apply to them College and Career Advisor Mrs. Vadgama said

“Most of them just say you have to graduate in an intent to continue your studies,” Vadgama said.

Most companies and people that offer the scholarships have been committed to LHS, and providing scholarships for years. Some were even alumni that wanted to support students.

“They would approach Mrs. Emerson or me and say, ‘Hey, we would like to offer a scholarship,’” Vadgama said. “And then we would ask them to submit info, and then what is required and the deadline to compile it and put it on the website.”

In the College and Career Group, that all the seniors are in, there is a special folder for Local Scholarships. Each one has a brief description of the requirements before you press onto the application information.

“There are approximately 60 scholarships available this year, and in total it would approximately be $200,000 offered to students,” Emerson said.

The amount of money given to students depends on the person(s) or company and as well as how many students apply to the scholarships. Smaller amounts and larger amounts are distributed in different ways depending on many factors.

“If it’s a big amount they would send it to the school the student wants and if it’s a smaller amount they’ll give them a check,” Vadgama said. “But in the end it solely depends on how much money and how the donor wants to give it away.”

Not many students apply for Local Scholarships or do it too late Emerson said. Although, there are some students who have applied, such as Senior Dominic Senuca.

“The money and all the other opportunities for these scholarships are amazing and I wanted to be part of it,” Senuca said. “There was a scholarship I applied to that was called the Davide Sinfellow Scholarship, and all you need to do is have over a 3.0 GPA , be a US citizen, and be under 18.”

The estimated deadline for all of the scholarships, though each differs and students should make sure to meet specific deadlines, is March 1st. Even if the time frame is long, students shouldn’t waste any time.

“Don’t procrastinate,” Emerson said. “It will take little to apply. Students get stressed over it because they start at the last minute.”

It’s important that when applying for the local scholarships to read over the instructions and requirements carefully.

“A lot of them require essays they need to write and even show the need for financial aid,” Vadgama said. “The financial aid needed though should not be a statement that says ‘I need financial aid.’ It should be more personal; the more personal you are the more the donor gets to know you, which will increase your chances of getting the scholarship.”

Even if these are local scholarships, it could still be quite difficult to get through the application process. AVID students, like Senior Dakota Gardea, appreciate the help that AVID provides.

“As an AVID student it’s been easier than doing it on my own, so I appreciated Ms. Krugle’s help and my peers' help as well,” Gardea said. “ The organization process learned from AVID has helped me a ton with applications.”

On scholarships, even state and national ones, an aspect that will help students stand out is community service.

“Community service isn’t something that should have been left out,” Vadgama said. “You should have started thinking about when entering high school since a lot of these are based on how involved you are in the community.”

Each scholarship has different requirements and specificities on who can apply. Though Senior Arthur Galvan said it’s pretty straightforward.

“Some of them are filling out like a general scholarship that you could use for every single one,” Galvan said. “It’s pretty amazing, but at the same time I feel like it could be more open-ended. Like it’s very constrained and doesn’t allow a lot of opportunity to really show different sides of yourself.”

Local scholarships aren’t like state and national scholarships since there’s not a lot of competition compared to those, Senior Autumn Lamontagne said.

“You’re not competing with the whole country or the state because it’s specific towards our school and our community,” Lamontarne said.

Even though it’s a smaller population applying for the scholarships, students should still consider being creative.

“Don’t wait to do them since it’s really hard to miss the deadlines,” Senuca said. “Also be creative with your writing; make them unique and different.”

With over 50 local scholarships, it seems overwhelming and difficult but it’s not.

“It looks overwhelming but it's not,” Vadgama said. “ Once you get one application done and one essay done, you can kind of tweak it to meet the requirements of all of them. It’s a rhythm you fall into.”