What is the National Beta Club College Scholarship?
It can be difficult to pay for college. You may still need help to fund your education after receiving financial aid from your institution. External, privately-funded scholarships are an excellent way to receive additional funding. The amounts awarded range from the hundreds to tens of thousands. Different scholarship programs have different missions, target populations, and eligibility requirements, and you are bound to find one for which you are eligible.
About the National Beta Club College Scholarship
The National Beta Club is an American academic youth organization. With more than 500,000 active members and more than 8,750 both in the U.S. and abroad, it is the largest independent, non-profit educational organization in the country.
An academic honors club, the Beta Club “promotes the ideals of academic achievement, character, service and leadership” for students grades 4 through 12. As part of the opportunities it offers its members, the National Beta Club offers over $300,000 in scholarships to members in the 12th year. Individual scholarships come in amounts ranging from $1,000 to $20,000, with over 250 scholarships awarded annually.
Applying to the Beta Club College Scholarship
The National Beta Club Scholarship is for members only. Here, we will cover how to apply to the scholarship.
The Beta Club admits members who are already high-achieving, so the scholarship is looking for those who have distinguished themselves even further.
The scholarship application takes place online, and for the 2019 scholarship, members could access the application on November 1, 2018. For rising seniors, you should expect a similar time at which you can access the application.
The scholarship application occurs in two phases.
In phase one, interested 12th grade Beta Club members complete an application summarizing their academic accomplishments, and activities performed within and outside of National Beta Club. Applicants should also state their future academic and extracurricular plans. The deadline for the 2019 scholarships was January 24; you should expect a similar deadline for 2020. Applicants accepted to be semifinalists are notified through email within a month’s time. Semifinalists then proceed to phase two.
In phase two, semifinalists will submit additional materials such as essays and letters of recommendation, a complete list of which will be sent to these applicants. In 2019, the phase two deadline was March 21.
Scholarship winners are announced in May.
Tips for Applying to College Scholarships
The National Beta Club values not only academic excellence but leadership, service, and commendable character. Scholarship applications frequently ask for demonstration of strong academics and extracurriculars, such as community service and school leadership, but quality of “character” is an aspect that is less often addressed in scholarship programs. This is primarily because character is highly subjective and difficult to quantify or measure. In addition, it’s assumed that character is reflected in the narrative drawn through an applicant’s academics and especially extracurricular activities.
The Beta Club, like many other scholarships, doesn’t have a section of their application set aside specifically for applicants to present the quality of their character, but the scholarship committee will likely be making their own judgements from the pieces of the rest of your application. We have the following tips on applying for the scholarship.
Make an impression
It’s important to make a strong impression for anything you apply for, and definitely for scholarships. Beta Club members are ambitious and accomplished across the board, so you need to find your particular strengths, and expand on them in your application. The most memorable applications have the highest chances. Try to see if you can weave together activities or projects you’ve done, whether as part of Beta or on your own, with your academics to create an identifiable and memorable narrative of your successes.
Talk to winners
It’s always a good idea to talk to those who have received Beta Club scholarships in the past, to get a sense of their experience in going through the application process, their accomplishments, and to see if they have any tips for you.
The National Beta Club announces their annual winners online, so you should be able to get in touch with them quite easily, especially since you’re already a part of the Beta Club.
Know what you’re applying for
Since you are already—or already will be—a Beta member by the time you apply for the college scholarships, you should have a strong sense of the Beta Club community and its values. Understanding the host organization is crucial for having higher chances at winning the scholarships because you can emphasize some points and leave out others in your application to adjust it accordingly for each scholarship.
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