Senior Newsletter
August 2024
IMPORTANT DATES
08/01/24 - Many college admission applications open on August 1st.
05/05/25 - Coates Memorial Scholarship deadline - Apply here.
05/06/25 - Scholarship documentation for Honor Day recognition due - Submit here.
05/13/25 - Deadline for changes to the scholarship list for Honor Day
05/13/25 - 3rd/4th block exams for seniors
05/14/25 - 1st/2nd block exams for seniors
05/14/25 - Last senior lunch and school walkthroughs
05/14/25 - Senior Sunset at 7:15 p.m.
05/15/25 - Honor Day Practice, 8:00 a.m.
05/16/25 - Honor Day at Grace Life Church 8:30 a.m.
05/22/25 - Graduation practice @ stadium - 9:00 a.m.
05/22/25 - Graduation @ James F. Moore Stadium - 7:30 p.m.
06/30/25 - Cotton-Top Beacon Scholarship deadline - Apply here.
Scholarship Documentation for Honor Day
Cole Honors College - UNA
This website offers an extensive database of scholarships. While you might encounter a few ads, there are numerous scholarship opportunities available to explore. In addition, the site offers career-related Q&A and career videos to help you explore potential career paths or get a better understanding of your current career choice.
Tell us your plans!
Senior Plans
Please complete the Google Form below to let us know your plans after graduation.
Who is Eligible?
High School Senior, College Freshmen, Sophomores, and Juniors who are:
- Sons and daughters of full-time employees of firms which are members of AGA. The employee must have been employed for at least 2 years as of January 1 of the year in which the scholarships are awarded. Parents must be employed with the AGA member firm at the time the scholarship checks are awarded to remain eligible.
- Part-time student employees of firms that are members of AGA. The student must have worked an average of 15 hours a week for at least 6 months as of January 1 of the year in which the scholarships are awarded. Students must be employed with the AGA member firm at the time the scholarship checks are awarded to remain eligible.
Remember to Apply for Scholarships!
Be sure to pay attention to the scholarship deadlines for individual schools listed in "Important Dates"!
Here are a few scholarship websites to check out.
1. Sallie Mae
Sallie Mae is one of the most well-known private student loan companies in the game. To support students in making smart financial decisions, Sallie Mae also offers a free Scholarship Search tool.
After registering, the tool will send you customized alerts to notify you of new available scholarships that match your unique profile. You can also manually search for scholarships that match your interests, skills, and activities.
And wait – it gets better! All students registered with Sallie Mae’s Scholarship Search tool will be automatically entered to win $1,000 in their monthly sweepstakes.
Scholarships.com is one of the most established scholarship websites, having reported nearly $19 billion in scholarships. The site allows you to create a profile then uses that information to match you with scholarships you should apply to.
You can also search by college, state, and a variety of other areas to narrow down your search.
3. Chegg.com
Chegg is well-known for it textbook rentals and homework help, but it’s also a great resource for scholarships. In total, Chegg offers more than 25,000 scholarships and tutors to help review students’ scholarship essays.
4. Fastweb.com
Fastweb is a unique scholarship search engine, claiming to have over 1.5 million scholarships in its database. Similar to how Scholarships.com works, you can create a profile and the tool will find the scholarships that best match your background. Fastweb will even email you those matches along with the deadlines so you can keep up and never miss a scholarship!
5. Niche.com
Niche.com provides insight on colleges and universities using over 140 million reviews and ratings from real students and families. The site also offers a wide variety of scholarships, using a similar matching process to Scholarships.com and Fastweb.
Niche will pair students with scholarships that match their background, interests, and qualifications. A large majority of the scholarships on Niche are also no-essay (oh yeah!).
6. Cappex.com
Cappex provides a wide variety of scholarship opportunities, but what makes it most unique is its Calculator Tool. The tool allows students to calculate their chances of getting into prospective schools. While not the end-all-be-all, the tool is helpful because it can allow you to see whether or not you might get into schools that offer more scholarship money and how much additional leg work you might need to do.
FAFSA opens December 1st!!
FAFSA - REQUIRED FOR GRADUATION
Beginning with the Class of 2022, the state of Alabama set into place requirements that made the FAFSA a requirement for graduation. Read more about that here. However, students can opt out and still graduate by completing a waiver.
FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Completing your FAFSA is the way to get federal student loans (meaning, student loans from the government), grants, and work study.
The newly updated FAFSA opens in December and uses income tax information from 2023.
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The first step is to create an FSA-ID. You and your parent/guardian will both need one. If you have a sibling in college already, your parent/guardian may already have an FSA-ID...he or she will use that same information to log in. However, you will need your own!
Please see the FSA ID worksheet attached below.
Once you have your FSA-ID, log in to FAFSA here.
If you need help--and most people will!--you can make an appointment with Financial Aid at UNA or Shoals. There are excellent tutorials on YouTube, as well: Check out the Federal Student Aid channel here! We also hope to host FAFSA help nights on our campus this fall.
Remember to Sign Off on the Diploma List with Mrs. Turner!
And BRING YOUR $5 Final Transcript Fee!!
Seniors MUST bring $5 in cash to cover their transcript fee before signing off on their diploma.
You still have time to improve your score!
One Point on the ACT Can Make a Big Difference!
Senior Timeline
College Essays
Have you thought about your college essay yet?
It's important to get started on your college/scholarship application process including your essay (essays) as soon as possible.
Check out this website for tips on starting yours.
Transcripts
Request a Transcript
- Below is a link to a Google Form that you must complete to request your transcript to be sent to a college /agency. Please do not request a transcript to be sent until you have applied to the college or job. For fall admission, most colleges will start on August 1.
- You will need to use the Google Form each time you need a transcript to be sent to a college, agency, or employer.
- If you receive a request for your final transcript to be sent to your college or employer, please keep in mind that this will not happen until the day after you graduate, so please do not use this form to make this request. There is another process that we will use in May.
- I have also posted a link to the form in Google Classroom, Class of 2025--Seniors. Please check your email and Google Classroom at least twice a day. Information about scholarships, college day previews, etc. will be shared. The deadlines are important.
- If you need a recommendation letter from Mrs. Black or me, please submit your resume with your request. We require at least a two-week notice to make sure that we have plenty of time to write your letter, as well as meet the needs of the other students in the building. If there is a circumstance that arises, please reach out to us immediately.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/190woHi3Hp3O9HROZyjihrcQx6sThCvCx5CtvGkroV1g/
HONOR DAY AND GRADUATION INFO
Participation in Honor Day and all practices is mandatory in order to walk at Graduation (MSHS Student Handbook).
Frequently Asked Questions:
What are the dates?
Wed., May 14 - Walkthrough, Last Lunch, and Honor Day practice (Grace Life Church)
Fri., May 16, 8:30 a.m.- HONOR DAY (Grace Life Church)
Thurs., May 22
9:00 a.m. - Graduation Practice (James F. Moore Stadium)
7:30 p.m. - GRADUATION (James F. Moore Stadium, meet at the Facility at 6:45 p.m. at the latest)
HONOR DAY Submissions for scholarship recognition:
May 2 - scholarship award letters (copies) due
May 7 - Honor Day Scholarship listing posted
May 12 - deadline to make changes to listing
What do I wear?*
Students may wear comfortable clothing for Honor Day and Graduation Practices.
For the ceremonies, students should wear:
- Black dress OR a dress of another color that does not show at the top or bottom of the gown
- Black dress shoes
- OR -
- Black or dark gray dress pants
- White collared dress shirt
- Tie (bow tie or standard necktie, any color)
- Black dress shoes
*If you do not have access to any of these, or if you know of someone who does not have access to these, please let someone in the counseling offices know. We can help!
When do we order invitations?
Students will have the opportunity to order invitations through Balfour in Nov/Dec. However, some students choose to create their own invitations. Either option is fine.
What happens if I change diploma types?
In January, students will sign off on their diploma types and the names to appear on their diplomas. If a diploma type changes after that, and/or if there is a name misspelling, the student will be responsible for the cost of the new diploma.