I love this contest!! I am in dire need of financial aid but it's extremely difficult to get the scholarships I apply for because I have average grades and therefore all of the school geniouses win them all.... Something isn't right there

well think about it. if they rewarded the average person's marks, then they'd be giving scholarships out to a huge portion of the population. it's natural for people to be rewarded based on their achievements.

with that said though, even people with the bets marks don't always get the scholarships either---luck is a major part of this process, and of course involvement outside of school is vital as well.

I think it's really hard... I mean I have above average marks, but I've always had to work my butt off to get them, and I'm really into ballet. Between school and dance and a part-time job, I never had the time to participate in many sports teams, or in school plays, etc.. Just now in my final year I've cut down on the time I spend at the dance studio so I can have more time for school work, and this gave me the time to join the Envirothon team, something I've always wanted to do. But when you go to fill out most scholarship forms I feel like, wow, I suck, should have worked harder, I should have been more driven...why if I'd just quit sleeping think of all the other stuff I could have done. But that's not logical, I did the best I could do, so at least there are contests like this one that recognize that people aren't robots and that everyone has different limits and priorities.

Just try your best and you will pull through.... somehow someway.... where there is a will there IS a way

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plan on going to U of Ottawa for honours and co-op in chemistry.

Although high grades are important, depending on what you want to go into in university, it seems as though a lot of schools now also take into consideration things such as volunteer/extra-curricular hours.

It's a common misconception that school geniuses take all the scholarships, it is actually not true. For most scholarships you only must have a decent, relatively low, average - say 85% or even 80%- and then most look only at EC accomplishments.

So my beef is that the same people with outstanding ECs take all the scholarships. Like the same person getting Loran, Millennium prov. or national, TD, etc. Or at least so it seems.

Well ya it may seem like all the geniuses get all the scholarships, but there are so many scholarships, you just need to know where to look. Like for instance, lots of job places like Tim Hortons awards scholarships and I know my work awards one for business. Besides, average people are what power the country. As i read once in this english passage "fraternity of C-minus, backbone of the Nation..."

Average people run most of the country, without them, what would there be?

i agree with that last bit (though, to be fair some of those major scholarships have criteria stating you can't get more than x number of dollars in scholarship money from other places as well).

my biggest problem is that a lot of the time these major scholarships have province-specific quotas that they need to keep. e.g. a certain proportion of their recipients MUST be from the prairies or the maritimes, even if there might be some from BC or Ontario with superior ECs, marks, essays, etc.

I'm completely with you. And essay writing is getting very annoying...

tuition should be free like in france