Tips How To Get Scholarships For Criminal Justice Majors
You have decided on a major, and it’s criminal justice. You have even selected the collage that you are interested in attending. The question now is, how do you get in ? Fortunately, you can use a couple of simple tricks and tools to increase your odds of being accepted and can secure a scholarship for your criminal justice degree.
Getting a degree is, by and large, nearly considered a pre-requisite for any lucrative employment these days. However, the ability to get a degree is often dictated by the number of resources at your disposal. The cost of higher education is not cheap. For people seeking a degree in criminal justice, there is a solution, as there is an abundance of scholarships available for such students. How does one get their hands on these scholarships? There are several tips to take into account.
First, and perhaps most importantly, keep your criminal record clean. If you want to be accepted to a reputable criminal justice program, you should probably not have any felonies or serious misdemeanors in your past. While this is not a huge issue for all programs, it could put a black spot on your application for more selective and competitive programs. While avoiding drug use is probably a good piece of life advice, anyway, it is uniquely important when you want to get a degree pertaining to criminal activity. This is just something to consider.
Next, do what you can to make your background as impressive as possible. Does your high school offer any courses on criminal justice, criminal psychology, or public administration? Take them, and be sure to get good grades. This will tell the people reviewing your application that you are serious about a career in criminal justice and have taken steps to prepare. Amp up your extracurricular and volunteer work as well. Is there a volunteer police program in your community? Sign up. Can you work with the D.A.R.E. program in your area? Try it out. These are all things that will be impressive as people review your application.
You should also spend a good amount of time crafting a good personal statement. As you write it, make sure you keep in mind that the people who will be reading it have probably been reading generic essays about wanting to give back for days on end. Make yours unique. Tell a story about your life that is interesting and shows a proclivity for a criminal justice career. If you can present yourself as an engaging and charismatic candidate, you have a better chance of being accepted into a program.
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Finally, make sure you have excellent recommendations. For criminal justice programs, in particular, your character is often taken into consideration. Try to have one academic, one professional, and one personal recommendation letter was written for you. Go out of your way to ask people who you know very well and be good at writing letters. If you have a chance to get a community leader to write one for you, jump on it, especially if they work in the local government or, better yet, are on the police force. Recommendations will push you above and beyond the average applicants, so make sure you select your writers carefully.
First, make yourself someone that people want to give scholarships to. You are attempting to get a degree in criminal justice, so your application should have plenty of background that makes you seem like an ideal candidate. Volunteer to work for programs like D.A.R.E. Take criminal justice classes at your high school, if offered. Work for community action networks in the area. All of these things make you seem like the kind of promising student that organizations want to give money to.
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Moreover, it would be best if you reached out. These scholarships are not going to be thrown at you. You have to seek them out actively. Your community probably has a plethora of scholarships that are reserved for locals. Talk to your guidance counselor or a counselor at an adult outreach center to see what kinds of scholarships are available that you might be eligible for.
There are scholarships beyond your community, though. Talk to the admissions counselors at the criminal justice school you are applying to. They may have the need or merit-based scholarships that you could qualify for. These are not always scholarships made blatantly public on a school’s web page, so talking to the admissions counselor is critical.
Do not underestimate the usefulness of the internet, though. There are dozens of web sites online that have lists of scholarships specifically for criminal justice majors. On top of that, there are general scholarship web sites that will develop a list of possible scholarships based on the information you give them. One such example is www.fastweb.com. Log on, and see what scholarships are available to you.
However, the key in all of this is to be persistent. Whether you are talking to a guidance counselor, admissions counselor, or just searching the World Wide Web, new scholarships are becoming available all the time. Sites like Fastweb will send you notifications if a new scholarship has come up that you could apply to, but the other sources require you to search continuously. Don’t give up, even if you win one or two. If you are diligent, you may find that your tuition, books, and living expenses can be paid for with scholarships.
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The Availability of Criminal Justice Scholarships
Are you looking for a source of criminal justice scholarships? It’s an old problem. How do you get through college without going broke in the process or working all hours downtown to pay your way? Criminal justice scholarships are available for those studying law and for those who have already majored, terms vary from state to state and college to college. However, it has to be said that if you are applying for a scholarship, you need to be able to demonstrate a high degree of ability. This is not free money for sloths.
Many scholarships are provided by professional organizations such as the Chicago Police and Firefighter Training Academy, colleges offer some, yet wealthy and philanthropic individuals give others. In all cases, the purpose of a criminal justice scholarship is to furnish you fit for future employment with a career following the obtaining of a criminal justice degree.
So, where does one start? Without a doubt, the appropriate place to ask about availability of criminal justice scholarships is at the college where you intend to study or where you are already enrolled. You could also contact the appropriate state or national organization dealing with the particular discipline you want to study.
Criminal justice schools are usually a faculty within a larger university, and the financial administration officers will point a potential candidate in the right direction. But don’t wait until you start your degree – start searching even before you have applied to the top criminal justice schools or colleges on your list. You could even consider an online criminal justice degree. It should make no difference to your consideration for an award as long it is from a fully recognized and accredited college.
The best criminal justice schools will be thoroughly familiar with these processes, and the top schools will have it as so completely routine that an applicant should find the procedure seamless. Don’t be daunted by the prospects ahead of you. If you know in your heart that you are a worthy candidate for a scholarship – then go for it. If you are a little concerned about your merits based on purely academic grounds, then it may be a grant is the more suitable route for you. Again the colleges will be able to advise you thoroughly.
Research is always a good thing to do. Use all your contacts who may have some knowledge about the systems used by the criminal justice colleges. Some may have large endowments and be wealthier than others. While this will not necessarily affect the quality of the education you’ll receive, it would make sense to apply where your quest for financial assistance is more likely to be favourably heard. Rules and regulations always surround these things, and your circumstances will have to fit into these. If you are a mature student, it may be that it would be better for you to study for your criminal justice degree online. The choices available now are so much more excellent than they used to be. If you opt for that, you will still be linked to a law school or college, so it should always be possible to apply for help with the fees. Do not give up at the first refusal!
Another way to get a placement before you go to college. If, for example, you can persuade a legal firm to sponsor you through college, that could be a way through. It might be a grant or even a loan that you will eventually repay from your salary. There are so many different ways these things can be configured, and sometimes they require you, the student, to take the initiative.
