Your child can earn a TAGT scholarship for a summer program

TAGT Summer Scholarships are designed for those gifted and talented students who wish to attend academic or artistic programs during the summer months.  Gifted students, grades K-12, may apply for scholarships of up to $400.  Scholarships are based upon merit, not financial need.  The highest-scoring elementary student and secondary student applicants are chosen as Ann Shaw Scholars and receive $500 each.  Application deadline is March 1, 2010.  All applicants will be notified of their status by April 15.  Please note that for accounting purposes scholarship checks are made payable to both the program and the scholarship winner. 

As you can imagine, the application is very important during the application review process.  Here are some tips from someone who has reviewed the scholarship applications in the past:

• The Student Response portion of the application should be from the student and only the student.  Yes, a kindergartener can dictate her response for the parent to write but the words in the response should be the child’s.  This seems like common sense but you’d be surprised by the number of student responses that appear to be written by a parent.
• The application states, “Be sure to give specific examples,” and you should.  Simply listing that your child is creative is fine, but giving a very specific example of when your child exemplified his creativity is much, much better.
• Make sure you and your child pick an adult who knows your child well and will invest the time to write a great Adult/Professional recommendation.  When I reviewed the applications, this section was the most common disappointment among the reviewers.  Convey to this person that specific examples which provide evidence of a child’s personality are critical and make a huge difference when the application is being reviewed.
• Remember, the person reviewing the application does not know your child.  The application is meant to provide a glimpse into who he is and what he is like.  Any specific information that enables the reviewer to feel like they know the child will work in your child’s favor.

To apply for a TAGT Summer Scholarship or for more information about this amazing opportunity to fund your child’s summer program, click here.