Many students never apply for sonography scholarships, missing out on excellent sources of money to pay for tuition and fees. There are many reasons why this occurs, and often those reasons are based on false assumptions. They believe they will not qualify, or there is so much competition that it is not worth the effort. These false assumptions stop students from accessing critical financial aid that could defray the cost of education.
For Everyone Else?
Unfortunately, scholarships have a reputation that discourages many people from applying for them. They are often viewed as being money for the “elite”, so to speak. The elite are viewed as those students with 4.0 GPAs, influential connections or parents who do most of the work completing the applications.
The ultrasound students that have this perspective are missing out on scholarships for Diagnostic Medical programs. Each year there are millions of dollars of scholarships that go unrewarded for several reasons, and one of those reasons is simply that people do not apply for them. The financial aid office at a college or university can help students identify many of the scholarships that are available, but there are also private scholarships that schools may not manage or know about.
Common Misconceptions Cost Students Money
There are many types of scholarships available today. Some are general scholarships awarded to any student attending a higher education program. Others are specialty scholarships that are only awarded to students enrolled in a particular college or working on a particular degree. For example, there are scholarships available that are given only to Allied Health students. The ultrasound scholarships are included in this group.
Per Scholarships.com, it is estimated that 57 percent of students did not attend the school they had on their list as first choice, and over 60 percent said it was due to lack of funding. There is no way to know how many of those people would have started one of the CAAHEP accredited programs if they could afford it. The sad part of the story is that there are scholarships and grants that are not awarded each year because no one applied for them.
Here are some of the false assumptions people made in 2014 about scholarships for sonography students which they should not make in 2015:
- Will never qualify because cannot compete with students who have a 4.0 GPA
- Only students with personal connections are awarded scholarships
- There are too many people applying and not enough money to go around
- The application is too complicated and takes too much time
- Applying for scholarships takes too much effort for the money awarded
- All scholarships are based on merit
- Only good writers should apply
- The money awarded is too small to be of any real help with college expenses
All of these assumptions discourage people from applying for scholarships. It is estimated that high school seniors qualify for 50 to 100 scholarships. Yet many students apply for only one or two scholarships or none at all.
The variety of scholarships available is unlimited. Some are merit based, but many are based on need or college major. Others are based on geographic location because the founders want to encourage people to attend particular educational facilities or to develop a career in the city or region.
No Funding Without Effort
There are sonography scholarships available each year, but students need to shop around and dig deep into what is available.
General scholarships will not have the word “ultrasound” or “sonographer” in them so limiting the search based on those words will mean missing out on opportunities. Instead, search scholarship sites like Fastweb.com, Scholarships.com, Cappex.com and other sites using words like “health sciences” and “Allied Health” in addition to “ultrasound” and “Diagnostic Medical Sonography.” It is well worth the effort.