Sample Scholarship Thank You Letter: Fill & Download for Free

Congratulations on being considered for the National Junior Honor Society. To write a letter for the application to NJHS, first be familiar with what the organization is about. You can see the eligibility requirements here:https://www.njhs.us/students/membership/how-to-become-a-memberOn that page, the five “pillars”—Scholarship, Leadership, Service, Character and Citizenship—are described. Typically, the letter you write describes two things:How your actions and attributes match up to those five attributes, andHow you can serve the goals of the organization and your school chapter.On the second point above, it may help to know what kind of service projects and activities your school chapter has done in the past and to think of ways and ideas of how you can help your chapter do good work for others and its members in the future.You may have a rubric in the application package that will guide you on what to write about or emphasize. Some school chapters will even provide a question prompt upon which you can focus your letter.If not, you can look at samples of letters and requirement descriptions here:Sample Essay For National Honors Society Free EssaysNJHS: National Junior Honor SocietyIf you are unsure of the word count expectation (word count is often shorter for NJHS than for its older-level counterpart, NHS), check in with your school chapter’s advisor. The letter can be as short as 250 words or as long as 1200 words in some cases.Write from the heart. Sometimes it is hard to write about how wonderful we are since we are taught to be modest, but it is necessary to talk about what good things you are and do, how you can use those fine qualities to serve and inspire others. Try to include some specific instances of where you shone brightly in your school work, in your extracurricular activities, in community service, etc.If you aren’t sure what to focus upon about yourself, ask family members and friends what comes first to mind when they think about your qualities and what you have accomplished. Make a list—that will help you outline a nice letter to match up to the pillars of NJHS and how you can serve the organization, its goals and its members.Writing such letters is a wonderful practice for writing other application letters—cover letters for jobs, essays for college applications, motivational speeches, and more. When you have finished writing your letter, read it out loud to catch errors and proofread it. Have a family member or friend read it to give you feedback as well.Many wishes for your continued success, and thank you for the A2A!

First you need to meet all of the admission requirements and submit all the necessary application materials and complete the FAFSA. Then, whatever entrance exam they require, whether the GRE or whatever it is, you need to absolutely kill it. By that I mean land a score that is clearly higher than what most of the students who are admitted to that school/program have. If your undergraduate grades are good, that's great too, but you can't change your grades at this point and you CAN still change your entrance exam score. If you've taken the exam already and can improve your score by taking it again, set aside a few weeks to prepare and take it again. Take all the sample tests you can get your hands on with a timer until you can no longer improve your sample test score, and then take the exam.Basically, to get scholarship money, you need to be too good on paper for the school you are applying to. In exchange for you bolstering their numbers, they will offer you scholarship money to convince you to go to their school instead of the others you are qualified for because of your test score. Apply to at least three schools. Go to the one that offers you the best overall deal. If you get into a school you are barely qualified for, it may be very good news, but you probably won't be offered as much grant or scholarship money as you will from a school you are overqualified for. Once you get in, there will probably be other scholarship opportunities, so keep an eye out for that. I applied for and received a scholarship every year when I was in law school, hundreds of dollars in free cash, and all I had to do was write a letter asking for it by the deadline. I don't know why everyone wouldn't do something that simple, but they didn't.And don't forget to write a thank you note for every scholarship you get. You want the people who fund these scholarships to know you appreciated the help. Tell them sincerely what it means to you. Seriously, sometimes a thank you note for scholarship money will lead to more scholarship money or even a phone call and a great job lead. Real people with money who are successful in your chosen field are funding or administering these scholarships and they will read your thank you notes. Not enough people take the trouble to say thank you, so you definitely want to be one of the scholarship recipients who does it.Good luck!

Back when I was an eleven-year-old in the 6th grade, I lived in a poor mountain community in Northern California. Most of the townspeople relied on the lumber mill to provide for their meager income. There were a lot of people barely scraping by on what little money came in.Times were tough.A lot of times the mill shut down and families were forced to move out of town to find employment elsewhere.I lost a lot of friends that way.Kids went hungry. There were a lot of skinny children up in those mountains. A lot of those kids were wearing shoes with holes in them.In the snow.Desperate times.Judge Richard Eaton was an “old-timer” in Shasta County. A pioneer. He was an octogenarian with a kind heart and a flush bank account. He married my grandparents!He was an avid outdoorsman and angler. He enjoyed coming up to the mountains to fish. Sometimes, he would stop by our small classroom and give nature lectures.He would bring in a stuffed raccoon, or a taxidermied owl and set it up on a desk in front of the class and give his talks. We would sit wide-eyed, fascinated, listening to him describe how the animal hunted for food, or built a nest or comfortable burrow, warm enough to survive during the winter snows. He was a natural storyteller and had a way with words.We would raise our little hands and ask question after question, enthralled and intrigued with his wisdom. We were always thrilled to have Judge Eaton stop by. We hugged him goodbye when it was time for him to leave. I'd see his wrinkled face break into a big grin as tears welled up in his eyes, hard to break away.I could feel his pity for us skinny little waifs.One day, a letter was sent home to all the parents in my class.It said we had the opportunity to attend National Environmental Education Development (N.E.E.D) Camp for one week at no charge to the parents!This was an expensive gift to attend a weeklong camping adventure, what with meals, transportation, insurance and staff provided for an entire crop of school children!The generous gift of partial scholarship, provided by Judge Richard Eaton, in cooperation with the Shasta County Board of Education, made it a possibility for every single child to attend, no matter their financial circumstance!Exciting news!N.E.E.D Camp was a place where the kids learned about the environment; survival skills in the wilderness, wildlife, geology, ecology, plant identification, weaving fish traps and shelter building, as well as learning how to use a compass and reading topographical maps. It was all covered in the week-long school.Before we left for camp, we were given a three- day supply of “ImmunOak” in our daily orange juice. Poison oak didn't grow in the mountains, but was plentiful at N.E.E.D Camp. Back in those days, the FDA hadn't yet banned the magic elixir, so I drank down my disgusting anti-venin like a good girl, and to this day, thirty-something years later, I still am immune to poison oak!The day we departed, we were packed into a bus with all our gear, kids, teachers and high school counselors, and made the hour-and-a-half long journey to the camp. We arrived at camp, got our cabin assignments, and settled in for our first time away from home.Goodbye Mommy!It was great!We caught tadpoles and learned about their development. We hiked seven mile loops, through caves (filled with bats) and over waterfalls, collecting specimens to write our reports in the field, amidst trickling creeks and wildflowers. We took water samples from the natural watershed and observed fish in the streams as we tried our hand at catching some in our homemade traps.We didn't have any luck.We watched the deer feeding on the grass right outside our cabin, and learned to identify species of birds. We glassed bald eagles and spied on squirrels and raccoons.We were even dropped off, solo, without a light, on a pitch-black trail one dark night, and had to hike back, in the dark woods, alone, to find our way back to the rest of the group by ourselves. Frightening!I was proud of myself that I didn't cry.This is stuff “city kids” don't learn about in the classroom.This wasn't any regular classroom!Judge Eaton spoke at the camp. He gave a slideshow on bears. It scared me to know I was out in the dark with them. It also made me proud. I learned survival skills at a very young age from N.E.E.D Camp.Afterwards, while he was packing up his projector and the other kids had finally moved away from him, I got up the nerve to approach this gray-haired icon.I said hello and introduced myself. I told him my grandparents names and told him he had married them long ago. He pretended to remember. He smiled at me kindly.Judge Eaton -all images courtesy GoogleI thanked him for giving me a scholarship to attend N.E.E.D Camp. I told him I had learned so much and that I was very appreciative.His eyes got wide and he looked shocked. He pulled me into a hug and knelt before me, eye-level.“Child, in all these years I've been providing this fund, you're the first young person to say those words. I appreciate hearing them, but I always want you to remember, that whenever you give a gift, you should never, ever expect to hear a word of thanks in return. Ever! Because the gift is in the giving, itself. Not in the praise we receive for giving it. Do not expect to be congratulated for it. Do you understand me?”I nodded my head and turned away, disappointed in the rebuff.What a weird, old guy!Of course, I didn't understand him, then.I was only a child.But I thought back to that moment over the years, and one day, I finally caught up to his wisdom.I understand perfectly what he means now.Beautiful.Those simple words changed me forever.When I give a gift, I don't expect to receive accolades or thanks. I don't expect the recipient to express gratitude or overwhelming graciousness; my heart already feels thankful for the beautiful blessing I've bestowed. And that's a gift in itself. A gift I've given to myself.By the time I had made it to high school, I had garnered such respect for N.E.E.D Camp, that I went back and volunteered as a camp counselor when I was seventeen.Somehow, I was assigned a cabin of little boys, instead of girls.Those little guys were a handful, but it was a great experience all over again.Today, it is part of the curriculum of most Shasta County schools for their students to attend the camp. It is a requirement as part of passing the grade level.Over 70,000 students have attended the camp over the years and have acquired basic outdoor skills other students in classrooms throughout the USA will never be required, nor even think are important to learn about!Because those students aren't mountain kids.They probably don't need to worry about being lost in any area bigger than a mall!Like we do.I'm thankful to both Judge Eaton and the Shasta County Board of Education for making a difference. N.E.E.D Camp quite possibly played a part in saving my life later on in life. And the experience changed me forever.The Record Searchlight (April 11, 2011)Since 1971, more than 70,000 students have increased their knowledge of environmental science after going through the weeklong camping experience at the Whiskeytown Environmental School in the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area. In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the school will host a free barbecue with live music and a history lecture Saturday.Sponsored by the school and the Shasta Historical Society, the lecture will cover topics of interest before the school arrived amid the environmental revolution in the beginning of the 1970s. Clinton Kane, park ranger, will be the main speaker.As a general campground in the mid-1900s, church youth groups seasonally used the area for a camp. Before this period, the land served as a stomping ground for the American Indian community. The history, Kane said, has yet to be fully recovered. "It's still a work in progress in terms of learning about the history and putting it together," he said. "I'd like to go as far back as to the mining use of the history, but it's kind of sparse."During the Gold Rush era, the area became a major transportation route for miners heading toward Weaverville from Redding. Inside the park, miners, along with farmers and ranchers, worked on the mining hot spots during the 1850s.The school, a National Environmental Education Development (N.E.E.D.) camp, specializes in improving environmental education for elementary and middle schoolchildren. "Facilities and institutions like the N.E.E.D. camp provide a special dimension to the youth of our community," said Pat Carr, Shasta Historical Society lecture series coordinator. "Oftentimes, they aren't going to get it in the classroom. This is an opportunity to take the classroom outdoors. And the fact that this has been going on for 40 years with 70,000 students makes us appreciate these extraordinary treasures that are in our mist."Fifth- and sixth-graders across several counties make reservations at the school for the overnight trips where students stay in cabins and enjoy campfires. During their stay, they build onto what they've learned of the environment in the classroom with hands-on activities with naturalists. This usually lasts a week. The school offers day camps for younger children starting at the kindergarten level.With generations of children and later their children heading to the camp, Kane said it has become somewhat of a tradition for north state students."It's kind of a tradition in Northern California," he said. "But, unfortunately, with the budget crisis happening on the state and federal level, we don't know if the school will continue as it did back in the day."A downward economy and budget cuts have decreased revenue for educational programs like this one. Whiskeytown may be one of the few N.E.E.D. camps left in the country, Kane said.