Introduction: Scholarship Portfolio Instructions
Students can apply for scholarships based on a wide variety of criteria: specific talents or hobbies, volunteer work, ethnicity or religious affiliation, creative skills, professional areas and many others. When students develop an understanding of their own special interests and skills, they are more likely to find, apply for and be awarded scholarships. Preparing a Scholarship Portfolio will help them prepare and organize for the application process.
A Scholarship Portfolio is a history of a high school career (grades 9 through 12) as you would like it told to employers, schools, or scholarship review committees. The portfolio can be worked on throughout high school and is submitted during senior year to a high school’s career resource advisor. At a minimum, it should include the materials listed in this packet. New information and documentation may be added to the portfolio at any time during senior year.
A résumé is a one-page summary of your work and school experiences. It is important to make your résumé a good representation of yourself. Learn exactly what goes into this important document.
How to properly request a letter of recommendation can speak to your academic potential, character traits, and personality, as well as about how you've connected with others in the school community over the past few years.
All documents will be created and uploaded to the students Google Drive account.yes
Step 1: Building Your Scholarship Portfolio Worksheet- (Brainstorming Day 1 Activity)
Name:____________________(each student will fill in their own worksheet after group brainstorming)
Date:_____________________
A Scholarship Portfolio is an area where you store everything about you that you’re proud
of. Have you written an excellent paper? Won a talent show? Volunteered at your local food bank? Has someone written you a wonderful letter of recommendation? If you have documents or artifacts (an artifact is a picture, certificate, program, award, etc.) from any of those activities, you should be storing them in your Scholarship Portfolio. You can create a Scholarship Portfolio by attaching documents to the portfolio and filling out some of the personal information within the portfolio. Then all of your best work will be neatly stored and organized in one place.
Brainstorm ideas about documents and artifacts that someone might want to include in their portfolio with your partner or team and write them down here:
Part 1: Brainstorming (Session 1 Activity)
1. What documents or artifacts would you like to store in your own portfolio? Brainstorm ideas with a group and then list your items below. Be Creative!
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Step 2: Resume Worksheet-
Your Name
Your Address
Your Email Address
Your phone number
College Major/Career Goals
· What is your tentative major?
· What are your career goals?
Current Education
High School Name or Home School Educated
Graduation Date May 2019
GPA
ACT Score
College (attended as a High School Concurrent if applicable)
Name of College
Concurrent College Credit Hours to date
GPA
High School Activities/Clubs
· List any activities that you are involved in, describe your role in the activities/club, and list your involvement in events that you were part of and your role. Tell about your leadership role in these activities/clubs.
Awards/Achievements
· Please list any awards or achievements received both in your school and community/state.
Employment Experience (if applicable)
· Name of Business Address of Business Your Job Title Dates of Employment
Your specific duties (do not hesitate to list any duties that although appears meaningless to you, may show your customer service skills, your dependability, your willingness to learn, taking leadership, receive direction, taking initiation, etc.)
Volunteer/Community Service
· Name of organization, activity or group Date of service
Type of volunteer or service provided: explain the service provided, your role, and description of what you did.
This can include activities as; county fair, the Balloon Fest, fund raisers, race for a cause, church activities, sports camps, officiating and/or coaching youth activities, etc.
Resume step by step breakdown-open the link.
https://edu.glogster.com/user/AH4557
Resume tips
https://create.piktochart.com/output/32789894-new-piktochart
Step 3: Additional Information for Creating Your Resume.
As a high school student, you may think that you don't need a resume until you are about to graduate from college and begin your search for a full-time job. However, high school students need resumes just as much as college students do. From getting into college to obtaining a part-time job, a resume is essential because college recruiters and employers alike want to see a brief summary of your abilities, education, and experiences. Here is what you should include in your high school resume.
Heading
Your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address should all go at the top of your resume. Be sure to use a permanent address and telephone number. Also, remember to use an e-mail address that sounds professional. FirstnameLastname@ is the standard format for an e-mail address when using it on a resume. Do not use an e-mail address such as hotbody@soandso.com. It just doesn't sound professional.
Objective
An objective lets college recruiters or potential employers know your main goal. If your target is a college recruiter, tailor your objective to that specific school. For example, your objective may be, "To earn a degree in Psychology at Boston College." If you want to get a part-time job, you will need to modify your objective to that particular job, such as "To obtain a part-time barista position with Starbucks."
Education/Academics
In the education section, list the schools you have attended. Be sure to include your GPA if it is a 3.0 or higher. You can also mention any academic honors, awards, and/or recognitions that you have received. These can include honor roll recognitions, essay-writing awards, science competitions, etc.
Experience
The experience section should briefly give an overview of work experience that has taught you valuable skills. In this section, include: title of position, name of organization, location of work (town and state), dates of employment, and description of work responsibilities. Be sure to use action words to describe your job duties, such as sold, created, processed, etc. Since many high school students do not have a lot of work experience, you can also describe class projects in which you have learned important skills or even leave this section out altogether and concentrate on the education/academics and additional information/extracurricular sections.
Additional Information/Extracurricular Activities
The additional information or extracurricular section should be used to place key elements of your background that do not fit in any other section. You may want to include: special skills, leadership roles, volunteer experiences, participation in sports, band, yearbook, etc. This section is where you can demonstrate your uniqueness.
References
Be sure to ask people if they would serve as your reference before you give their names out. You do not need to include your reference information on your resume. A statement at the bottom of your resume that says, "References available upon request," is sufficient.
Having a resume in high school is just good sense. You never know when a recruiter at a college fair or a potential employer might request one.
Step 4: How to Properly Request a Letter of Recommendation.
How to Make Your Request
In person. I highly recommend asking for your recommendation face to face. Depending on your teacher's schedule and school culture, it may be appropriate to email your teacher to set up an appointment or meeting. Asking for a letter of recommendation solely over email could be interpreted as impersonal, distant, and less mature, an impression you don't want to make. I also wouldn't recommend asking during class time, but instead find time during a free period, after school, or whenever the teacher has free time to meet. The request may be short, but you still want to create space in case your teacher wants to further discuss your plans.
Rule 1: Plan Ahead
Ideally, you should know which teachers you want to write your recommendation letters well in advance of the start of your college applications. By the end of your junior year, start thinking about which teachers you have had the greatest relationships with throughout your high school career. Try to narrow it down to the 2 or 3 teachers whom you think would be the best to ask.
Rule 2: Ask Nicely
Asking for a recommendation letter shouldn’t just be a two sentence email telling them that they have to write you a letter. If you can, take the time to stop by their classroom, chat with them, catch up, and then ask politely whether they have the time/would be willing to help you get into college by writing you a letter of recommendation. Show that you are asking them to do this for you because you trust them and they were one of your favorite teachers.
Rule 3: Include Relevant Details
While you’re asking for a letter, you should be sure to bring up some memories that you had with him/her to help jog his/her memory and remember you as a student. Bring up a specific experience you had with your teacher that you really enjoyed or something she/he taught you that you haven’t forgotten all this time. You should also give your teacher all the logistical information her or she will need to write this letter, like your GPA, class rank, unofficial transcript, and most importantly, the deadline for when this letter is due. You want the teacher to leave the conversation feeling like they have more than enough information to write you a great letter of recommendation.
Rule 4: Follow Up
After you talk with your teacher and he/she agrees to write you a letter of recommendation, don’t just leave it there. Be sure to send them an email or some more informal form of communication thanking them again for agreeing to write a recommendation letter and asking if there is any information about you that they need to write a great recommendation. You can also contact them periodically before the letter is due to make sure they haven’t forgotten to write you the letter. You can remind them about the application due date, see if the letter is in progress, and ease some of the anxiety you might be feeling as you wait for the letter to be finished.
Rule 5: Say Thank You
Once your teacher has written your recommendation letter, it is so important that you thank them for taking the extra time and effort to help you with your college applications.
Step 5: Portfolio Checklist
Extracurricular Activities
1. List the name, length of time you participated in the activity, and the time spent on it per week.
2. Description:
• Describe what the activity was.
• Did you earn any awards in the activity?
• Did you have any responsibilities or leadership positions?
• What did you learn from it? How did you grow?
Volunteer Services
1. Name of the activity, the organization you volunteered with, when/how long you volunteered, and total number of hours.
2. Description:
• What did you do? What were your responsibilities?
• How did you affect others?
• How did volunteering affect you? What did you learn from it?
Honors/Awards
1. List the name of the award, when you earned it (year/grade level), who you received it from, and whether the award was at school, community, state, or national level.
2. Description:
• Why did you earn it?
• What is it’s importance?
• How meaningful was it?
• Why was it an honor?
Leadership Positions
1. Name of the position, when you had the position (year/grade), and the name of the organization you had the position with.
2. Description:
• What were your responsibilities? • Why was your position important? • What did you learn from it?
• How did you help others with your position?
Academics
1. Keep a transcript in your portfolio with:
• Your GPA (weighted/unweighted)
• A list of your AP, honors, and dual-credit courses; ACT/SAT/AP scores
Final Notes
1.You can sometimes list some honors, awards, and activities twice, as long as they’re listed in different sections. (Check with the scholarship organization to see if they this if you’re unsure.)
2. Use adjectives when writing your descriptions.
3. Elaborate and give as much information as possible.
Step 6: (Session 2 Activity)
1. Finish up creating electronic copies of your Scholarship Portfolio documents.
2. Attach documents and artifacts to Scholarship Portfolio
Step 7: Creating a New Google Doc
If you want to write your resume from scratch or write any other job material on Google Drive, click on “New” in the top left corner of Google Drive. Then click “Google Docs,” which will take you to the editing program. There you can write, edit, format, save, and share your job materials.
If you are not used to Google Docs, don't worry – it is very similar to Microsoft Word. Like Microsoft Word, you can play with the font and font size, add bullet points and other special characters, and do anything else you might want to do on your resume.
Step 8: Uploading a Resume to Google Drive_Editing a Resume
To upload a resume you have already written onto Google Drive, you can take one of two options.
First, you can simply click and drag a document from your computer onto Google Drive.
The other option is below:
In Google Drive, click on “My Drive”Click“Upload Files”Upload the document you want to add to Google Drive
If you want to edit the document, click “Open With” at the top of the page.
Click Google Docs, which will open the document in Google Docs.
Here, you can make any changes to the document that you want, including changing the name of the document. These changes will automatically be saved in Google Drive.
Editing a Resume
As mentioned above, clicking on a document in Google Drive allows you to read it, not edit it.
Here is how to edit your document:
Find the document in your Google Drive and click on it
Click “open with” at the top of the page
Select “Google Docs” – This will allow you to edit the file
It will automatically save any changes to your Google Drive
Step 9: Complete Reflection Question
“What will you do in the future to become an even more impressive candidate for scholarships – volunteer?
Join clubs or organizations?
Design, develop or create something?
Describe the next step that you would like to take to prepare for the scholarship application process.