Certificated Letter Of Intent For High School Summer School: Fill & Download for Free

A great deal has changed in half a century.Fifty years ago, high school students were regarded pretty much as “young adults,” with some immaturity about them, a lack of wisdom, but not as children to be managed, shielded and protected from the world. It was not unusual for boys to come to school in coats and ties and girls to wear hose and heels; indeed, many high schools forbade girls to wear trousers or pants unless it was part of a uniform or costume—such as a band uniform, i.e. Dress codes extended to hair styles, facial hair on boys, even to female makeup in some schools. The aim was not to instill uniformity or conformity but rather to establish an atmosphere of formality and respectability, similar to the adult world.Classes for girls included Home Economics, Typing and Shorthand, and other instruction designed to prepare them for life as adult women, such as it was defined at the time. Boys took courses in woodshop, metal shop, even automotive and appliance repair, for the same reasons. PE classes were strictly separated by gender. There weren’t many organized team sports available for girls—basketball, usually, softball, sometimes, or field hockey, for the most part. Boys played all sports, including baseball. Both genders participated in track and field, however. Varsity sports were pretty much restricted to boys.Open Displays of Affection (ODA) were forbidden on school grounds and certainly inside the buildings, but “steadies” were commonplace. Girls wore their boyfriends’ oversized letter-jackets (letter sweaters in a previous era, usually given only to varsity athletes) and senior rings, often made to fit by adding wound dental floss and then sealed with fingernail polish, as a kind of pre-pre-engagement signal that they were “taken” or at least somewhat committed. (“Lettering” in a sport was a huge deal in the fifties and sixties; by the mid-sixties, letters were also awarded for other extracurricular activities such as music (marching band, choir), chess teams, and dramatics, etc.; when lettering became possible for pep squads and just about everything else, the system was devalued.) It wasn’t uncommon for commencement ceremonies—a huge event with lavish gifts bestowed on graduates—was often followed by a wedding ceremony a few months or a year or so later, with many marrying their high school sweethearts as a matter of course. (Note: Divorce was still stigmatized in the era; a divorced person was not well regarded socially, so most of these marriages, for better or worse, tended to last.)Romance was not stymied, no matter what. Proms and other social events such as banquets and mixers were carefully planned and strictly chaperoned. Alcohol was strictly forbidden, although it was often in evidence. Smoking tobacco, while almost always forbidden, was winked at for the most part, with light punishments doled out to caught offenders. “Smoking in the Boys’ Room” was a huge hit song.Indeed the music of the era—rock and roll, country and western—reflected the maturity of high schoolers in the fifties and sixties. Folk music was also popular, indicating a kind of abstract concern for humanity and the world. Love songs, torch songs, laments for secret romances, unequal romance because of economic class or social standing or even reputation, unrequited or unreturned adoration populated the charts, as did a huge array of dance tunes. American Bandstand set a standard for dance and music, and everyone watched it. The .45 rpm record, introduced in 1949, reigned.The schools themselves were wide open to the public. Access was open and easy, and school grounds were almost never fenced off or restricted to anyone. In many communities, high schoolers left campus for lunch. Some went home and some gathered in local drug stores (where there were lunch counters), soda shops, or hamburger joints near the campus that catered to young people. It was an automotive-centered culture; cars, old and new, were the measure of status; automobiles were both modes of transportation and full obsessions, and most every boy knew more about engines, transmissions, and vehicular power, whether he owned or had access to a car or not, than he did about civics or biology. In some states—Texas, i.e.—one only had to be fourteen years old to have a full driving license, so many students had their own cars or drove their parents’ vehicles to school, even though they lived in walking distance. Some were veritable junkers transformed into hotrods and sleek stock racers; some were beat-up and worn-out jalopies; some were sleek new models with all the latest options and features. Speed and power vied with beauty and design for primacy.On the whole, schools were positioned to be neighborhood institutions, substantial symbols of order and progress and greenhouses in which the future fruits of the nation were emerging. Most school buildings were vintage, many dating back to the previous century; there usually was an attached gymnasium, sometimes a swimming pool, an auditorium (capacious enough to hold all of the student body or to double as a civic auditorium, if needed), a baseball and football field nearby, a cafeteria, often, and sometimes a music rehearsal room. Most had little or no air conditioning, although heating was generally common, since school dismissed during the hotter summer months and there was no reason to cool the buildings. Most older schools had large windows that could be opened on warm days in the autumn or spring. The buildings themselves were landmarks, exuding solidarity and tradition, containing trophy cases and award plaques of previous student triumphs; many had full quads or campuses associated with them, and most were weighty, impressive buildings a community could be proud of.Inside many, things hadn’t changed much in a century. Desks were wooden, one-piece affairs, attached in permanent rows, some still with inkwells from a period before ballpoint pens were common; pencil grooves remained even with modernization. Most were etched deeply with pin-knife carved initials and graffiti of various kinds, some profane or obsene. Blackboards were actual blackboards requiring chalk and dusty erasers. Films were views on 16mm projectors. Maps pulled down from roll-up containers. No one had calculators, but learning to use a slide rule was mandatory. Internal doors were high-transomed affairs, windows double-sashed. Other furniture was institutional, hard, and uncomfortable, as were paint colors. Floors were generally hardwood and reeked of wax and linseed oil, and most classrooms were connected to the Principal’s Office by a wired speaker over which would come announcements or possibly a voice leading the “Pledge of Allegiance” every morning. Class starts and ends were signaled by a bell that would ring in the hallways and sometimes on outer walls.On the whole discipline wasn’t a problem in most schools, although its application could be severe. Corporal punishment was usual, mostly by administering a few swats with a wooden paddle, and while this was sometimes abused by excess, it was seldom questioned by parents who tended to take the side of teachers in matters of their children’s behavior. Even so, recalcitrant “juvenile delinquents” or “J.D.s, as they were sometimes called often found themselves frequently subjected to harsher and harsher paddlings, sometimes resulting in serous injury. Girls were also paddled, but not in all schools; often they merely had their hands spanked harshly with a ruler or strap. Teachers were not restricted from laying hands on a violent or disruptive student; suspensions and expulsions were commonly applied for serious offenders to school rules or legal violations. These last punishments often stigmatized a young person in the community and could prevent him or her from finding employment.Grading was tougher than today; there was little forgiveness and no such thing as “grade inflation” or “social promotion.” An A was excellent, and a C was average; a D would get a student through. An F was failure and meant the repeat of a course or summer school; too many Fs usually meant permanent suspension. As a result of this and other things, a much smaller percentage of young people completed high school then than do now. Many dropped out as soon as they turned sixteen, or whatever the minimum age was for leaving without being truant in a given state, to get married or join the army or merely to go to work; eighteen was considered “of age” in many states, although voting privileges had to wait until one was twenty-one; ditto legal purchase of alcohol. Pregnant girls were not allowed to continue in high school, nor were married students of either gender. College-bound students were not in the majority in many areas, and there was little curricular distinction between one group and another, although most schools had, by the end of the 1960s, begun to channel those with college ambitions into more advanced and difficult classes.Indeed, high school curricula were changing by the end of the sixties. Calculus replaced trigonometry as the class to take after geometry; lab sciences became more complex and technical; foreign language requirements modified (Latin or Greek had been dropped in the early fifties; “romance” languages continued to be required for a long time.) “Senior English” or “Senior History” were electives offered for college-bound students. The common thing to say was that history was “coached,” as so often coaches were assigned to teach these survey classes. This began to change in the early seventies, and by the late eighties, the requisite qualifying collegiate degree to teach, the B.Ed. was either phased out or completely cut from most college programs. It had never been a substantial degree, in any case; evolved as a result of a wide-spread state requirement that teachers be “certified,” it had never offered much of substance, and it displaced academic area courses that teachers increasingly needed to keep up with expanding knowledge, particularly in science and technology.Students in the sixties, though, were given solid foundations in mathematics, science, history and geography, literature, English language and grammar, civics, and usually had a good deal of exposure to some form of the fine arts. The focus was on the high school diploma, not on some kind of college-preparatory instruction. There were no AP Courses or college-credit courses, although some students did sign up for correspondence courses with nearby universities; they completed their work by mail and received college credit for it.Many, though, were channeled into “professional schools” such as dedicated, private schools that taught accounting and business practices, skilled labor instruction in such fields as welding, appliance repair, plumbing, electrical work, all providing a certificate at the end of about a year of specialized instruction. Nursing and other technical medical fields had programs of their own and usually were attached to “teaching hospitals,” not to colleges or universities except, perhaps, through loose association. On-campus career counselling was not very effective, with many large high schools having but one counsellor of questionable credentialing on staff, often a teacher of some subject who for one reason or another was deemed incompetent to conduct a class. Most schools functioned with only a single chief administrator, the Principal (usually a man), with Vice-Principals only occurring in particularly large, urban schools.In most of America, athletes ruled in high school. Football and basketball players emerged as the principal stars of the schools, although they competed in popularity against those youths who had more political ambitions on student councils and similar clubs of governance. Popularity was the main measure of success. Cliques and clubs, even fraternal organizations were common, some of them with darker intentions than were obvious. Bullying was common, and it was viewed as an ordinary part of high school experience, traumatic and tormenting as it often was. There were always social divisions based on socio-economic class and, after integration, race, and, as sexual awareness became more and more evident in popular culture, sexual orientation. Few kids, though, entirely escaped some form of torment, either social, emotional, or physical during their high school years. If it didn’t escalate or develop into serious physicality, though, most adults regarded it was just one of life’s lessons it was important to learn.For most of that generation and certainly for the previous generation, a high school diploma had great value both vocationally and socially. The words, “High School Diploma Required” was a familiar line in any classified advertisement for any sort of professional or skilled work employment, and many people said with pride that they were “High school graduates.” It was a rare thing to find in the nineteenth century; and for the first four decades of the twentieth, it remained somewhat special to say, “high school graduate” of someone. Images of high school students in the 1950s and 1960s depicted them as young men and women, not as children. Interestingly the word “teenager” was coined in this era; it was not known previously. In a nation where an eighth-grade education had been pretty much the American average at the end of the 1930s, the post-World War II generation elevated the status of high school in the 1940s through the 1970s to a high regard, something that would, in the 1980s, be more typical of the status enjoyed by undergraduate college students, then in the 1990s and forward by graduate students and those in professional schools for medicine or law, for example. For much of the nation’s history, though, high school was regarded as a kind of “finishing school,” a place where the young were prepared both intellectually and emotionally to be fully responsible adults.Today’s high school students are principally seen as oversized children, delicate and sensitive, in need of social and parental guidance, of protection and shielding from the grimier aspects of real life. The openness of campuses is gone, and the looseness of regulations regarding behavior, dress, appearance has encouraged a galvanizing of childhood through late adolescence. Many high school graduates don’t have driving licenses, let alone their own cars; most have never held a genuine job, even part time; few have much real-life experience to draw on as they emerge from public school. The mythology today is that high schoolers have no sense of personal responsibility, are hormone-raging embryos incapable of adult feelings and sensibilities, responding only to primary urges and emotionally charged reactions that are usually unwise. Much of the adult society in America deny that their teenaged charges have emotional depth or good sense when it comes to sex, drugs, crime or any sense of how to make their way in the world, let alone hold a job and have responsibility even for themselves. There might be some veracity in that, given that any group of individuals tends to rise no higher than the expectations society puts on them. But the more objective reality is that many of these young people if not most of them are capable of making more mature judgements and commonsense decisions than they are given credit for. The almost manic desire in American society to keep them in the role of dependent children in need of nurturing and guidance is somewhat perverse and may, in the long-run, be counter-productive.

I think I have answered a similar question before. For those who have gone through AAP Meter: Interactive Manifesto Tracker, this might be redundant, however even that website isn’t been kept up to date.The following promises have been fulfilled:Delhi Janlokpal Bill: It is passed and now with the MHA for approval.Citizen’s Charter Bill: It is now passed and now with the MHA for approval.Local Governance: The mapping of 3500 Mohallas done and Rs 350 Crore allocated.Citizen’s Local Area Development Fund: As mentioned in (3), money allocated.Electricity Bill reduced by half.Free Lifeline WaterAbolishment of Mixed Use Water Category: “As per the revised policy, if mixed-land use involves activities which do not use water in its process undertaken, it will now be placed in the Domestic Category”.Water From Munak Canal: Yeah done, with 2 water treatment plants started as well, and the water from the flood plains to be used as well soon.Fine On Disposal Of Construction Debris: Yeah done.Higher Education Guarantee Scheme - Done Delhi government rolls out education loan schemeTransparency in School Admissions: Yeah, there were attempts with Delhi government rejecting about 69 criteria, however Delhi HC stayed the ban on few criteria. Also, the Delhi government has asked all private schools to upload their admission criteria and details about selected students online.Increased Spending on Education and Healthcare: This, plus huge progress in the state of healthcare and education with about 10 new schools, 8000 new classrooms coming up. Also, 105 new mohalla clinics and 20 odd upgraded polyclincs have come up as well.No FDI in Retail. ~ Yeah, done.Better policy for E-Rickshaws - A law was actually passed in the LS, however the add on from Delhi government is it would give subsidy of Rs 15,000.Freehold Of Resettlement Colonies ~ Delhi government in the budget resolved in the DUSIB that original allottees and their legal heirs will get freehold rights at the rate of Rs.10,000 per square metre and all others at the rate of Rs.50,000 per square metre.Justice For Victims Of Anti-Sikh 1984 Carnage: Attempted, but rolled over by the Central government. Just a day before the SIT on the 1984 Sikh riots was to be formed, the Union government did it. Although the Central government had announced relief of Rs 5 Lakh to the carnage victims, it was eventually distributed by the Delhi government. The total relief given by the Delhi government is of Rs 130 Crore.Loans to Scheduled Castes to Start Businesses: Now, no guarantors are needed for loans less than Rs. 50,000 is required for the SCs. PLUS, few universities have been given entrepreneurship funds which can be given to students (irrespective of the caste) to start their business.Promote Sport Culture: Pay and Play scheme started in Delhi government controlled stadiums.That’s 23% of promises fulfilled.And a considerate amount of work is being done on thesePiped Water: More colonies were added to pipeline supply in last 1 year than ever in the history of the Delhi Jal Board. 120 KM of water pipeline was laid.Crackdown of Water Mafia: DJB started to monitor the water tankers with GPS. 414 water tankers are now equipped with GPS. Of the 380 tankers that have been hired by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), 250 have GPS devices while the rest 130 will be phased out if not equipped with GPS devices by this summer.Revival of Yamuna: Yamuna Aarti started to increase awareness, along with that, Delhi govt to adopt Seechewal model for cleaning Yamuna: Kapil Mishra. And this was presented to Uma Bharti as well, who appreciated the plan Yamuna clean-up plan presented to Bharti. One machine worth Rs 6 Crore was also bought to clean out the surface of the river.New government schools - 8000 new classrooms and about 10 new schools would start soon. Plus read What are the 40+ schools that the AAP Government of NCT of Delhi has proposed to construct?Regulate Private School Fees - A team of CAs have been enrolled by the Delhi government which would look into the books of the schools. Also, all the schools which are built on the government land, were asked to not increase their fees, and they obliged.Ramp Up Government Schools to Provide Quality Education: For the first time of the history of Delhi, the result of government schools was better than that of private schools. Friends and families in Delhi tell that kids of their maids are very happy with the teaching now. Summer School camp was a huge success. The teachers and principles are being sent to IIMs/Harvard/Cambridge for training to become mentors who would train other fellow teachers.Expand Health Care - 105 new mohalla clinics, 20 upgraded polyclinics, addition of 100s of beds in existing hospitals and better quality ensured.Quality Drugs For All At Affordable Price: This is rather done. After saving about 350 Crore in the flyover projects, this money was diverted for guaranteed free medicines.Effective Last Mile Connectivity: Ah, the e-rickshaw policy is helping over here.Governance On The Mobile Phone: A large number mobile apps have been started including DVAT M SEWA app, water bill app (more at Arjun Gulyani's answer to How much progress did Delhi Government made in M-Governance? )Delhi's Villages To Receive Special Attention: Well, farmers did get a hefty compensation this year around. New schools, WiFi etc are in progress.Single Window Clearance: India’s ease of business ranking improved because of this. DIPP lists AAP govt steps in ease of doing biz achievements. The single window clearance in the entertainment sector also got featured Delhi is finally gig-friendly with single-window clearance. Just yesterday was Delhi building bylaws revised after 33 years! And this is going to be a single window law as well.Starting business In One Week: The DVAT M SEWA app mentioned above is a huge step towards that. VAT registration and TIN number registration is now also done on same-day basis.Lowest VAT Regime: No, not yet. Although VAT was cut drastically (Delhi Budget 2016: Govt set to cut VAT, and your bills as well), it is still high in few other commodities.Simplifying VAT Rules: Yeah, again that mobile app. Plus of course a DS-1 form which complicated things was taken back.Delhi Skill Mission: A new ITI has come up. For higher education, the government has become a gurantor for loans upto Rs 10 Lakh.Reducing Pollution: Two Odd Even drives, closure of 2 power plants, banning trucks till 11PM, planting 15 Lakh trees, and more details at Amit Sinha's answer to What are the long term steps the AAP led Delhi government has taken for combating pollution?Large Scale Expansion in Bus Services: 25 new electric buses are undergoing trial and by year end 3000 normal buses would be added to the fleet.Setting Up A Network Of Water Kiosks: This has started too - Draw water from ATMs for 30 paise under Delhi Jal Board’s new initiative, however I guess not a lot of people are using it.CCTVs in Public Spaces and Buses: This was finally declared yesterday, as the Swaraj fund would be used to start installing CCTVs CCTVs to be put up soonAdequate Street Lighting: WIP!WiFi: The most glamorous promise, but only few DTC buses, some part of Burari and Dilli Haat have WiFi. Pretty slow progress, if you ask me … Update [June 24th, 2016] ~ By December 2016, East Delhi would get 1000 WiFi hotspots. The Delhi PWD is laying the optical fiber network for that ~ Delhi Govt to Set up 1,000 Free WiFi Hotspot Zones by End of 2016.Create 8 Lakh Jobs: Although there were a couple of job fairs, most of the job regulated initiatives are stuck in technical matters. However hopefully encouragement to private sector would help Delhi with time.Fair Arrangement for Auto Drivers: Plans for stands held up due to unavailability of land. Government plans to issue 5,500 new auto permits, but recently, more than 900 letters of intent were scrapped and three transport department officials were suspended after allegations of corruptionRegularization And Transformation Of Unauthorized Colonies: The AAP government has relaxed the regularisation policy and has waived off the penalty/regularisation charges from unauthorised colonies of F, G and H category (90 per cent of unauthorised colonies in Delhi fall in these categories). Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has connected eight new unauthorised colonies. Now, 205 of 1105 unauthorised colonies have piped water connection The government has approved a budget of Rs 800 crore for development work such as roads, street lights and storm water drainsTaking Care Of Our Senior Citizens: For the 1,10,000 pension applications that had been stuck, re-verification camps were conducted in the months of April, May and June and about 70K came. Now such camps would be held at Mohalla Sabha level with inputs from community members. 38 new recreational centers for the elderly are being planned.Controlling Price Rise: e-ration card was introduced. 5.5 lakh people availed benefit. 2400 fair price shops will soon be equipped with PoS (Point of Sale) device. Delhi was the only state which had government shops selling onions at Rs 30/- when it was about 100 across India.Drug-Free Delhi: Not much that the state can do, however Anganwadis are being used to ensure that kids don’t fall into the drug abuse. In fact the anganwadis have been upgraded as well.Empowering The Disabled: A policy for the disabled - State Policy and Action Plan for People with Disabilities - had been prepared and put up on the govt website inviting suggestions. 20 hospitals in all districts of Delhi have been notified as Medical Authority for Issuance of Disability Certificate for general disabilityDignity To The Safai Karamchari: The government has started a process to regularise more than 50,000 employees working on contractual basis in its different departments (subjected to approval from LG, of course). Safai Karamchari have been treated as a Skilled Worker in the Minimum Wages Act.Caste Certificate Process Simplified: The process has been simplified by doing away with affidavits and now only self-affidavits are required. Also, certificates can now be availed online via e-ditsrict platformTransgender Community: Delhi government announced setting up district level screening committee that will issue certificate of being a transgender person.Public libraries: Government is renting rooms to create space for libraries and getting the infrastructure in place. East Delhi gets 10 ‘mohalla’ libraries. It is collaborating with NGOs and even asking books for donations and getting awesome response (A library for the homeless in Delhi)That’s about 47% of good progress on the promises given to the Delhiites.So, overall, 70% of promises are either done, or in good progress. Given that 80% of the AAP government’s tenure is remaining, the work on the other promises would be finished as well.Of course, Arvind Kejriwal is the most useless CM in Indian history, the most annoying politician, the most irritating Indian and the best joke to crack on ;-)Adding few electricity bills as in comments people are calling it a fake promise

Q. Is it really possible to get a scholarship in the 6th grade?A.You're never too young for scholarships!There are also ample opportunities for elementary and middle school students? Unfortunately, due to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), online scholarship search services are not available to students under the age of 13. These are some of the programs open for younger students.1. Kohl's Kids Who Care ProgramEach year, Kohl’s provides several prizes and scholarships to students (ages 6 through 18) who have volunteered within the past year. One winner at each store receives a $50 gift card and advances to the regional level, where he/she competes for a $1,000 scholarship. Ten regional winners will be selected to receive an additional $10,000 national award. Deadline: March 15.2. Nicholas A. Virgilio Memorial Haiku CompetitionStudents in grades 7 through 12 may compete in this creative writing contest. Students may submit up to three haikus, as long as the work has not been previously published or submitted in any other contest. Six winners will each receive $50. Deadline: March 25.3. “I Want to Go to College” Writing ContestThis contest is open to Nebraska seventh and eighth graders. Winners will receive a contribution to their state-sponsored 529 college savings plan, ranging between $500 and $2,000 each. Deadline: March 28.4. Doodle4GoogleAny student in elementary, middle, or high school may submit their artwork for consideration. Students simply need to take the Google name and turn it into something creative that reflects this year’s theme. National finalists will each receive a $5,000 scholarship. The Grand Prize winner will receive a $30,000 scholarship and his/her school will also receive a $50,000 technology grant. Deadline: March (TBA).5. The Gloria Barron Prize for Young HeroesEach year, the Barron Prize honors 25 outstanding students between the ages of 8 and 18. Students are recognized for their contributions to their community and the environment. The top 10 students will each receive a $5,000 scholarship. Deadline: April 15.6. The Healers Trilogy ContestStudents in grades 6 through 12 may submit a billboard, video, speech, essay, poem, song, or commercial based on Donna Labermeier’s book, The Healers, which is free to contestants. There are six scholarships, ranging in value from $500 to $2,500 each. Deadline: May 16.7. Courage in Student Journalism AwardsMiddle school and high school students who have exercised their First Amendment rights, despite difficulty or resistance, may be eligible to win a$5,000 scholarship through this contest sponsored by the Student Press Law Center, the Center for Scholastic Journalism at Kent State University, and the National Scholastic Press Association. Deadline: June 8.8. Patriot’s Pen Writing ContestThis program, sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), is open to students in grades 6 through 8. Students must submit an essay addressing this year’s topic, ‘Why I Appreciate America’s Veterans.” Prizes are given to the top 40 students, ranging between $500 and $5,000 each. Deadline: Nov. 1.9. Jif™ Most Creative Sandwich ContestEach fall, Jif™ sponsors a cooking contest for children between the ages of 6 and 12. Students must creative a main dish, side item, appetizer, or dessert using peanut butter as one of the ingredients. The contest typically opens in late August, so students can start working on their recipes now. One lucky winner will receive a $25,000 scholarship and four runners-up will each receive $4,000 for college. Deadline: November (TBA).10. Angela AwardFemale students in grades 5 through 8, who have an interest in science, may apply for this program. One winner will receive a $1,000 savings bond. Deadline: Nov. 30.11. Scholastic Art & Writing AwardsEach September, students in grades 7 through 12 can compete in 28 different categories, including, but not limited to: comic art, fashion, painting, photography, poetry, short story, journalism, and video games. More than $250,000 in scholarships is awarded annually. Deadline: Varies by region.It’s never too early to start searching and applying for scholarships. Keep an eye out in your local paper or parenting magazines for writing contests and other opportunities, and don’t forget to check out Google and Facebookpages that offer advice for parents of younger children. These forums often post photo and essay contests that can help build your child’s college nest egg.4 Scholarships to Apply to Before Senior Year (usnews.com)1. Best Buy @15: Best Buy Children's Foundation will award up to 1,200 scholarships of $1,000 each to students in grades 9-12 who are planning to attend college after high school. Scholarship recipients are selected based on academic achievement, volunteering efforts, and work experience.2. Kohl's Cares Scholarship Program: Kids ages 6 to 18 are eligible for the Kohl's Cares Scholarship Program—provided they have contributed to their community in a meaningful way in the past 12 months by performing volunteer service that helped a non-family member. Students must be nominated for this award, and nominators must be age 21 or older. Parents: Yes, you can nominate your own children for this award.[Find out more about turning your community service into college cash.]3. Raytheon Math Moves U: Raytheon has a middle school scholarship focused on students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades only, who submit an answer to the question, "How does math put the action in your passion?" Submissions may be multimedia or paper, and awards of $1,000 can be used for "camperships" at a science, technology, engineering, or math-related summer camp—or set aside for the students' freshman year of college.4. Discover Scholarship Program: The Discover Scholarship Program is aimed specifically at high school juniors who have at least a 2.75 cumulative GPA on a 4.0 scale for their 9th and 10th grades. Up to 10 scholarships of $25,000 are awarded each year and may be used for any type of post-high school education or training, certification, etc. at a two- or four-year school. The 2012 program year will open for applications in late 2011.Janine Fugate joined Scholarship America in 2002. She is an alumna of the College of Saint Benedict, Saint Joseph, Minn., and is currently pursuing a Master of Public Affairs at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Fugate is the recipient of numerous scholarships at both the undergraduate and graduate level.Committing to Play for a College, Then Starting 9th GradeHaley Berg, 15, at home with her sister in Celina, Tex. She accepted a soccer scholarship to Texas four years in advance. CreditCooper Neill for The New York TimesSANFORD, Fla. — Before Haley Berg was done with middle school, she had the numbers for 16 college soccer coaches programmed into the iPhone she protected with a Justin Bieber case.She was all of 14, but Hales, as her friends call her, was already weighing offers to attend the University of Colorado, Texas A&M and the University of Texas, free of charge.Haley is not a once-in-a-generation talent like LeBron James. She just happens to be a very good soccer player, and that is now valuable enough to set off a frenzy among college coaches, even when — or especially when — the athlete in question has not attended a day of high school. For Haley, the process ended last summer, a few weeks before ninth grade began, when she called the coach at Texas to accept her offer of a scholarship four years later.“When I started in seventh grade, I didn’t think they would talk to me that early,” Haley, now 15, said after a tournament late last month in Central Florida, where Texas coaches showed up to watch her juke past defenders, blond ponytail bouncing behind.“Even the coaches told me, ‘Wow, we’re recruiting an eighth grader,’ ” she said.In today’s sports world, students are offered full scholarships before they have taken their first College Boards, or even the Preliminary SAT exams. Coaches at colleges large and small flock to watch 13- and 14-year-old girls who they hope will fill out their future rosters. This is happening despite N.C.A.A. rules that appear to explicitly prohibit it.The heated race to recruit ever younger players has drastically accelerated over the last five years, according to the coaches involved. It is generally traced back to the professionalization of college and youth sports, a shift that has transformed soccer and other recreational sports from after-school activities into regimens requiring strength coaches and managers.The practice has attracted little public notice, except when it has occasionally happened in football and in basketball. But a review of recruiting data and interviews with coaches indicate that it is actually occurring much more frequently in sports that never make a dime for their colleges.Early scouting has also become more prevalent in women’s sports than men’s, in part because girls mature sooner than boys. But coaches say it is also an unintended consequence of Title IX, the federal law that requires equal spending on men’s and women’s sports. Colleges have sharply increased the number of women’s sports scholarships they offer, leading to a growing number of coaches chasing talent pools that have not expanded as quickly. In soccer, for instance, there are 322 women’s soccer teams in the highest division, up from 82 in 1990. There are now 204 men’s soccer teams.“In women’s soccer, there are more scholarships than there are good players,” said Peter Albright, the coach at Richmond and a regular critic of early recruiting. “In men’s sports, it’s the opposite.”While women’s soccer is generally viewed as having led the way in early recruiting, lacrosse, volleyball and field hockey have been following and occasionally surpassing it, and other women’s and men’s sports are becoming involved each year when coaches realize a possibility of getting an edge.Precise numbers are difficult to come by, but an analysis done for by the National Collegiate Scouting Association, a company that consults with families on the recruiting process, shows that while only 5 percent of men’s basketball players and 4 percent of football players who use the company commit to colleges early — before the official recruiting process begins — the numbers are 36 percent in women’s lacrosse and 24 percent in women’s soccer.Berg at a recent tournament.CreditSarah Beth licksteen for The New York TimesAt universities with elite teams like North Carolina and Texas, the rosters are almost entirely filled by the time official recruiting begins.While the fierce competition for good female players encourages the pursuit of younger recruits, men’s soccer has retained a comparably relaxed rhythm — only 8 percent of N.C.S.A.’s male soccer athletes commit early.For girls and boys, the trend is gaining steam despite the unhappiness of many of the coaches and parents who are most heavily involved, many of whom worry about the psychological and physical toll it is taking on youngsters.“It’s detrimental to the whole development of the sport, and to the girls,” Haley’s future coach at Texas, Angela Kelly, said at the Florida tournament.The difficulty, according to Ms. Kelly and many other coaches, is that if they do not do it, other coaches will, and will snap up all of the best players. Many parents and girls say that committing early ensures they do not miss out on scholarship money.After the weekend in Florida, the coach at Virginia, Steve Swanson, said, “To me, it’s the singular biggest problem in college athletics.”The N.C.A.A. rules designed to prevent all of this indicate that coaches cannot call players until July after their junior year of high school. Players are not supposed to commit to a college until signing a letter of intent in the spring of their senior year.But these rules have enormous and widely understood loopholes. The easiest way for coaches to circumvent the rules is by contacting the students through their high school or club coaches. Once the students are alerted, they can reach out to the college coaches themselves with few limits on what they can talk about or how often they can call.Haley said she was having phone conversations with college coaches nearly every night during the eighth grade.‘It’s Killing All of Us’The early recruiting machine was on display during the Florida tournament, where Haley played alongside hundreds of other teenage girls at a sprawling complex of perfectly mowed fields.A Sunday afternoon game between 14-year-olds from Texas and Ohio drew coaches from Miami, Arizona, Texas and U.C.L.A. — the most recent Division I national champion. Milling among them was the most storied coach in women’s soccer, Anson Dorrance of North Carolina, who wore a dark hat and sunglasses that made him look like a poker player as he scanned the field.Mr. Dorrance, who has won 22 national championships as a coach, said he was spending his entire weekend focusing on the youngest girls at the tournament, those in the eighth and ninth grades. Mr. Dorrance is credited with being one of the first coaches to look at younger players, but he says he is not happy about the way the practice has evolved.Libby Bassett, an assistant at South Carolina, was among hundreds of college soccer coaches at a recent tournament in Sanford, Fla. Many were scouting eighth and ninth graders.CreditSarah Beth Glicksteen for The New York Times“It’s killing all of us,” he said.Mr. Dorrance’s biggest complaint is that he is increasingly making early offers to players who do not pan out years later.“If you can’t make a decision on one or two looks, they go to your competitor, and they make an offer,” he said. “You are under this huge pressure to make a scholarship offer on their first visit.”The result has been a growing number of girls who come to play for him at North Carolina and end up sitting on the bench.“It’s killing the kids that go places and don’t play,” he said. “It’s killing the schools that have all the scholarships tied up in kids who can’t play at their level. It’s just, well, it’s actually rather destructive.”The organizer of the Florida event, the Elite Clubs National League, was set up a few years ago to help bring together the best girls’ soccer teams from around the country, largely for the sake of recruiters. At the recent event, in an Orlando suburb, an estimated 600 college coaches attended as 158 teams played on 17 fields over the course of three days.Scouts were given a hospitality tent as well as a special area next to the team benches, not accessible to parents, to set up their folding chairs. Nearly every youth club had a pamphlet — handed out by a parent during the games — with a head shot, academic records, soccer achievements and personal contact information for each player.While the older teams, for girls in their final two years of high school, drew crowds of recruiters, they were generally from smaller and less competitive universities. Coaches from colleges vying for national championships, like Mr. Dorrance, spent most of their weekend watching the youngest age group.Despite the rush, there is a growing desire among many coaching groups to push back. At a meeting of women’s lacrosse coaches in December, nearly every group session was dedicated to complaints about how quickly the trend was moving and discussions about how it might be reversed. In 2012, the Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches Association proposed rule changes to the N.C.A.A. to curtail early recruiting. But the N.C.A.A. declined to take them up, pointing to a moratorium on new recruiting rules. (At the same time, though, the N.C.A.A. passed new rules allowing unlimited texting and calls to basketball recruits at an earlier age.)Marc Stein's NewsletterHe's covered Jordan. He's covered Kobe. And LeBron vs. the Warriors. Go behind the N.B.A.'s curtain with the league's foremost expert.“The most frustrating piece is that we haven’t been able to get any traction with the N.C.A.A.,” said Dom Starsia, the men’s lacrosse coach at Virginia. “There’s a sense that the N.C.A.A. doesn’t want to address this topic at all.”In an interview, Steve Mallonee, the managing director of academic and membership affairs for the N.C.A.A., reiterated his organization’s moratorium on new recruiting rules. He said the new rules on texting and calling were allowed because they were a “presidential initiative.”Mr. Mallonee said the N.C.A.A. did not track early recruiting because it happened outside of official channels. He added that new rules trying to restrict the practice would be hard to enforce because of the unofficial nature of the commitments.“We are trying to be practical and realistic and not adopt a bunch of rules that are unenforceable and too difficult to monitor,” he said.Early CommitmentsThe National Collegiate Scouting Association helps athletes navigate the recruiting process. Here is the percentage of N.C.S.A. clients in each sport who received and accepted a scholarship offer before the official recruiting process began.Club Coaches in Key RoleThe early recruiting system has given significant power to club coaches, who serve as gatekeepers and agents for their players.One of the most outspoken critics of this process is Rory Dames, the coach of one of the most successful youth club teams, the Chicago Eclipse. In Florida, Mr. Dames kept a watchful eye on his players between games, at the pool at the Marriott where they were staying. As the 14- and 15-year-old girls went down the water slide, he listed the colleges that had called him to express interest in each one.“Notre Dame, North Carolina and Florida State have called about her,” he said as one ninth grader barreled down the slide.Another slid down behind her. “U.N.C., U.C.L.A. and I can’t even remember who else called me about her,” he said.Mr. Dames said that he kept a good relationship with those programs but that he generally refused to connect colleges with girls before their sophomore year in high school, when he thinks they are too young to be making decisions about what college to attend.Some colleges, though, do not take no for an answer and try to get to his players through team managers or other parents. After one such email was forwarded to him, Mr. Dames shot back his own message to the coach: “How you think this reflects positively on your university I would love to hear.”He did not hear back. Mr. Dames said that when his players wait, they find scholarship money is still available.Most club coaches, though, are more cooperative than Mr. Dames and view it as their job to help facilitate the process, even if they think it is happening too early.Michael O’Neill, the director of coaching at one of the top clubs in New Jersey, Players Development Academy, said that he and his staff helped set up phone calls so his players did not miss out on opportunities. They also tutor the players on handling the process.“You almost have to,” Mr. O’Neill said. “If you don’t, you can get left behind.”Once the colleges manage to connect with a player, they have to deal with the prohibition on making a formal scholarship offer before a player’s final year of high school. But there is now a well-evolved process that is informal but considered essentially binding by all sides. Most sports have popular websites where commitments are tallied, and coaches can keep up with who is on and off the market.Either side can make a different decision after an informal commitment, but this happens infrequently because players are expected to stop talking with coaches from other programs and can lose offers if they are spotted shopping around. For their part, coaches usually stop recruiting other players.“You play this goofy game of musical chairs,” said Alfred Yen, a law professor at Boston College who has written a scholarly article on the topic and also saw it up close when his son was being recruited to play soccer. “Only in this game, if you are sitting in a chair, someone can pull it out from under you.”Girls from the Players Development Academy, a New Jersey club, at the three-day event.CreditSarah Beth Glicksteen for The New York TimesMr. Yen said that colleges withdrew their offers to two boys his son played with, one of whom ended up in junior college and the other at a significantly less prestigious university. Other players who made early decisions went to colleges where they were unhappy, leading them to transfer.The process can be particularly tricky for universities with high academic standards.Ivy League colleges, which generally have the toughest standards for admission, generally avoid recruiting high school freshmen, but the programs do not stay out of the process altogether, according to coaches at the colleges, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the topic.Two Ivy League coaches said they were generally able to look at players with a grade-point average above 3.7 and a score above 2,000 on the College Boards — out of 2,400 — much lower than the standard for nonathlete applicants. Ivy League coaches can put their recruits on a list of preferred candidates given to admissions officers, who in turn help the process along by telling coaches in the summer after an athlete’s junior year whether the player is likely to be admitted — months before other applicants find out.Fearing a Toll on MindsAt the Florida tournament, many players said they had given up all other recreational sports in middle school to play soccer year round.A growing body of academic studies has suggested that this sort of specialization can take a toll on young bodies, leading to higher rates of injury.For many parents, though, the biggest worry is the psychological pressure falling on adolescents, who are often ill equipped to determine what they will want to study in college, and where.These issues were evident on the last morning of the Florida event, on the sidelines of a game involving the Dallas Sting. Scott Lewis, the father of a high school sophomore, said his daughter switched to play for the Sting before this season because her old team was not helping steer the recruiting process enough. He watched scholarship offers snapped up by girls on other teams, he said.“Is it a little bit sick? Yeah,” he said. “You are a little young to do this, but if you don’t, the other kids are going to.”A parent standing next to Mr. Lewis, Tami McKeon, said, “It’s caused this downward spiral for everybody.” The spiral is moving much faster, she said, than when her older daughter went through the recruiting process three years ago.Ms. McKeon’s younger daughter, Kyla, was one of four players on the Sting who committed to colleges last season as freshmen. Kyla spent almost 30 minutes a day writing emails to coaches and setting up phone calls. The coaches at two programs wanted to talk every week to track her progress. Throughout the year, Kyla said, she “would have these little breakdowns.”“You are making this big life decision when you are a freshman in high school,” she said. “You know what you want in a week, but it’s hard to predict what you’ll want in four years.”Kyla said that when she told Arkansas that she was accepting its offer, she was happy about her choice, but it was as if a burden had been lifted from her.“I love just being done with it,” she said.A version of this article appears in print on January 27, 2014, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Committing to Play for a College, Then Starting 9th Grade. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe10 Great Ways to Win a College Scholarship (cbsnews.com)Last Updated Jan 31, 2011 11:29 AM ESTEvery year organizations award more than 1.5 million private college scholarships to students that are worth in excess of $3.5 billion.Want to increase your chances of winning some of this college scholarship money? Here are 10 ways to increase the odds that you'll win a scholarship for college students.1. Give the scholarship sponsor what it wants.A scholarship application often contains the sponsor's scholarship selection criteria, but dig deeper. Research the scholarship sponsor on the web. Look for the organization's mission statement, which you'll often find in the "About Us" section of its website.2. Get involved with your community.Students who volunteer enjoy a huge advantage with scholarship sponsors, says Marianne Ragins, who was featured on the cover of Parade Magazine in 1991, one of the most popular issues in the magazine's history, after winning more than $400,000 in college scholarships. Ragins, who conducts presentations on winning scholarships, says scholarship sponsors are looking for a long-time commitment to volunteering. This bias towards volunteering makes sense since many scholarship providers are nonprofits committed to helping others.3. Look professional.Google your name to make sure that you have a professional online presence, advises Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of FastWeb and the author of the new book Secrets to Winning a Scholarship. Remove any inappropriate material from Facebook. And don't use a risqué email account. Keep it boring.4. Use a scholarship search engine.Using scholarship search engines will make your job easier. Here are some to check out:FastwebKaarme.comScholarships.comCollege BoardCOLLEGEData5. Don't ignore the optional questions.When supplying your background on scholarship search engines, answer the optional questions. Addressing these questions can generate about twice as many scholarship matches, Kantrowitz says.6. Learn more about scholarship odds.Read this post from CollegeStats.org: Which College Scholarships are Easy to Get? We Have the Data.7. Apply to every eligible scholarship.It's a numbers game and even among the most accomplished students, luck is a factor. Don't ignore the small stuff. Some scholarships worth $1,000 or less may only have 15 or 20 students applying, Ragins says.8. Look for essay contests.Students can be lazy and many will skip scholarship contests that require an essay. Applying for these scholarships could increase your odds of success.9. Be passionate.When you're writing a scholarship essay let your personal voice come through. Include lots of details in your essay that helps reveal who you are. It's usually a good idea to focus on a problem and how you solved it or overcame adversity.10. Think local.Ask your high school guidance counselors about local scholarships. Also check bulletin boards at libraries and outside financial aid offices. Local scholarships are going to be easier to win than regional and national ones.More on CBS MoneyWatch: 10 Most Prestigious Scholarships in America,How Rare Are Full-Ride Scholarships? Lynn O'Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also writes for TheCollegeSolutionBlog.Scholarships for college students image by Johnny Vulkan. CC 2.0.© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.10 Easy Scholarships - College GreenlightNicholas A. Virgilio Memorial Haiku CompetitionThis competition is for students in grades 7 through 12 who are enrolled in school as of September 2014. To enter, applicants must submit up to three haiku poems. All haiku must be previously unpublished, original work, and not entered in any other contest or submitted elsewhere for publication.Odenza Marketing Group ScholarshipTo apply for this scholarship, applicants must submit two small essays, one related to travel, and the other on why they deserve a scholarship.ERCA Community Contribution ScholarshipThis scholarship is for high school students who are legal residents of the United States. To qualify for this scholarship, applicants must have recognized a need or problem in their community, have determined a way to address this need or solve the problem, have developed an action plan, and have worked to put the action plan in place so as to address the need or solve the problem. The action plan must be a unique project developed by the student, not a project developed by an established group of which the student is a member.Potential Magazine Countdown to College ChampionshipThis scholarship is for college-bound teens. Upon signing up for Potential Magazine’s free weekly eNewsletter, students will be entered to win an $1,000 scholarship.National Achievement Scholarship ProgramThis scholarship is for African American high school students. To apply for this scholarship, applicants must complete the PSAT/NMSQT exam and indicate on the test answer sheet that they wish to compete for the Achievement Scholarship.Elizabeth ChereskinHow I Became a Straight-A Student By Following These 7 Rules