There are nearly 40 organizations that have generously decided to offer scholarships to area seniors - some are guaranteed to be awarded to a Liberty senior, many others might be choosing winners from across Wentzville School District, and a few are available in the county, region, or a handful of schools in the area. But, one thing they have in common is that you have MUCH better odds of being selected than for national scholarships!

We had an in-person meeting last week to go over all of the important information. In case you missed the meeting, here is a Local Scholarship Slideshow that covers all of the information I presented.

The link to the list of Local Scholarships is also below (this was the handout at the senior scholarship meeting). You can see a very brief description of each scholarship on this list. Most of the scholarships applications are on the Scholarship Central website. Seniors will create a Scholarship Central account and answer some standard questions. At the end of creating their profile, they will be "matched" with scholarships. Their answers to the profile questions will automatically flow through to the applications they fill out which can save a lot of time. **Note: all of the WSD Scholarships are all on ONE application**. Use the scholarship list as your planning/to-do list. You will only answer the sub-questions for the scholarships you wish to apply to.

As you can see, there are also a few local scholarships that are not on Scholarship Central. They have their own scholarship application. Students can access the links to Scholarship Central and all of the independent scholarship applications by click on the button below that says "Mrs. Gerringer's Scholarship Page." IMPORTANT NOTE: These scholarships will have different deadlines than the WSD Scholarships. So please keep track of your deadlines!!

Most scholarships will require that students provide a transcript. Seniors can access and download an unofficial copy of their transcript from their Xello account that they may use for scholarship applications. Students will need to upload the PDF into their Scholarship Central account. To locate your transcript, go to Xello's main dashboard --> College Planning --> View Applications --> scroll down to the section titled "Transcripts" and you will see a small link to your transcript.

The deadline for all of the WSD Local Scholarships is March 16th at 11:59 pm. Many of the others are near that date, but you should pay careful attention to deadlines so you don't run out of time.

Most of these scholarships will be awarded at WSD Scholarship Awards Night on May 15th. (This is an invitiation-only event to honor scholarship winners; invitations will be mailed out in April).

IMPORTANT NOTE: Seniors, YOU are responsible for all aspects of completing these applications (this includes reaching out if you have any questions). Parents, thank you for your support in requiring your child to take responsibility for these.

Good luck!!