| Everybody knows the stories about great football | | | | ordinary? Do you write, paint, play an instrument, |
| players who rise from the ghetto to great fame | | | | sing, compose music, act, dance, or manifest |
| and fortune because prestigious schools recruit | | | | some other special gift in one of the visual or |
| them to play ball. Everybody also knows a few | | | | performing arts? If you do, seek scholarships that |
| stories about scholarship athletes who fail to | | | | support your study. |
| capitalize on their academic opportunities, | | | | Select the school with the best reputation for |
| preparing for life after football as aggressively as | | | | propelling its graduates into the limelight, and then |
| they prepare for football itself. People seldom | | | | work with a financial aid and scholarship advisor to |
| hear the stories about gifted students and | | | | find ways to pay the bills. If you have talents as a |
| virtuoso musicians and brilliant artists who also win | | | | writer, why not look at programs at Iowa or |
| scholarships to prestigious universities, making the | | | | Syracuse? If you have drama talents, why not |
| most of their gifts as they build their skills to | | | | look at Yale's drama school? And if you wish to |
| match their natural talents. As NCAA commercials | | | | become a film-maker, why not look at UCLA and |
| remind you, there are more than 300,000 | | | | USC. All of those schools have distinguished |
| scholarship athletes in college, and most of them | | | | reputations, because they attract the best and |
| plan to go pro in something other than sports. | | | | brightest students to study under the most |
| Just as importantly, there are more scholarship | | | | brilliant professors. You can and should become |
| students attending school with full support | | | | one of those bright, talented students. |
| because of their natural gifts than there are | | | | Many of the best schools have endowments for |
| scholarship athletes. | | | | gifted students who cannot quite meet the price |
| Single mothers do not lose their personal | | | | of admission. Many scholarships are ear-marked to |
| distinctions when babies arrive. In fact, a baby's | | | | go to students with very particular gifts. You |
| arrival gives you more reason than ever to | | | | cannot win a scholarship of which you do not |
| pursue the gift that sets you apart from | | | | know and for which you do not apply. Consult an |
| everyone else: what kind of example do you set | | | | aid counselor at your school-of-choice and get |
| for your son or daughter if you settle for being | | | | busy applying. |