Many here probably wonder about First Scholarships. Are they real? I’ve been involved in First for six years and have seen one scholarship award at an event.
Today would have been the second time I would have been present at an event that awarded a scholarship. The truly awesome aspect is that one of the people getting the scholarship was a member of our team.
FIRST scholarships are real – there’s about 200 scholarship providers and about $80 million in available scholarships. Although not all of them are directly awarded at an official event, here’s a comprehensive, up-to-date list of all scholarships: https://www.firstinspires.org/scholarships.
Congratulations to your students! Always nice to hear of students being rewarded for their involvement in FIRST
I’ve always assumed the reason we never hear about scholarships being awarded at events is that the timelines don’t usually match up. Most seniors still have acceptances trickling in, few have committed and gotten financial aid packages yet. And the times I’ve had students get scholarships from sponsors, they were announced at the team end of the year party, well after the season ended.
Generally speaking, they aren’t physically awarded at an event. The recipient simply receives a letter or email notifying them they’ve been awarded the scholarship.
The reason these scholarships are awarded at an event is the event is held at the University. Exception being this years postponement of events. This is great press for the University and First.
At every event the scholarships are mentioned and a short video is played. It is inspiring to see a First team member receive recognition and the scholarship in front of their piers.
I don’t think many of the Universities providing scholarships actually host First competitions, In Michigan it is probably only GVSU and Kettering. There may be more but I’m not aware of them.
Seeing that none of these actually go through FIRST, I’d much prefer if they were called “FIRST partner scholarships” or something. Scholarships through a school suck if you have financial aide as the school just gives the scholarship to themselves and your expected contribution is the same.
