Amphitheater Public Schools

Overview

The Amphi Way to Financing College

A big piece of the college puzzle is financing your education. The sites below are a combination of reference websites and actual sites where you apply for financial aid, such as the FAFSA. You never know what aid you might qualify for, so we suggest that everyone apply through the FAFSA at the very least. Spend time researching and applying for appropriate scholarships, even the smaller ones. They all add up!

Financial Aid and Scholarships for college are available in 5 ways:

Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)
Grants – Free Money
Scholarships – Free Money
Work – Study
Loans – Money must be paid back

How do students find information about scholarships?

Ask your school counselor for the latest information.
Check your high school's counseling website frequently.
Use scholarship search engines on Major Clarity.
Use scholarship search engines on Collegeboard
Listen to daily announcements for scholarship updates.

Financial Aid Resources

The FAFSA is a task for graduating seniors, and their parents, to complete early in the new academic year. Only seniors planning to attend college in the fall need to file a FAFSA. Scholarships, however, are available to students in other grades, so start searching. FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid - Parents must complete the application to be eligible for federally-funded loans, grants and some scholarships.

The FAFSA will be available on October 1st. Link here to understand the new dates for your FAFSA. Parents of seniors should have completed the FAFSA as soon after October 1st as possible.

MORE HELP:

In addition to the FAFSA, some schools or scholarships require the College Scholarship Services (CSS)/Financial Aid PROFILE Application. Click here to see the list of schools that require this: College List
Homeless or "Unaccompanied" Youth are eligible for aid! You may need a form from our district's McKinney-Vento Liaison.
Students in Foster Care can access scholarship monies as well. Click on the link for Foster Care to Success to establish an account and get more information.
The Arizona Commission for Post Secondary Education (ACPE) has excellent resources that are specific to Arizona.

Scholarship Search Engines

Use the resources below to search for scholarships. A university may award you scholarships automatically based on your GPA and SAT/ACT scores, but applying for more scholarships will help off-set college expenses. See the bottom of this page for our Scholarship Bulletin, and below that a list of links for sites devoted to finding scholarships.

Remember:

Begin searching your junior year
Build relationships with potential recommenders
Write a Personal Statement and save an electronic copy - it may serve for many scholarships applications with minimal edits
Type your applications, if possible