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Did you know that…

➡️Scholarships aren’t just for low-income families
➡️Scholarships aren’t just for high school juniors and seniors
➡️Scholarships aren’t just for those going to college

Today we’ll be exploring these myths and more with Dave the Scholarship Coach, as he gives families inspiration for how and when to begin winning scholarships to set their kids up for success.

Plus: Dave has created a curated list of scholarships that are particularly applicable to Veritas families. You can download it for free here: https://www.scholarshipgps.com/veritas

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.

Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us Dave Peterson. Dave, welcome.

Dave Peterson:
Hi. Thank you so much for having me on. I've been looking forward to this ever since we connected.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, that's great. We are excited to have you on. You are, of course, the founder of Scholarship GPS. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. But before we get into that and how you can help our students and anyone listening with college scholarships, tell us a little bit about yourself, your family, your education, your career.

Dave Peterson:
Sure. So, I’m a husband, been married to my wife for 28 years. We are college sweethearts. We met at Florida State University, where she was studying speech pathology, and I was getting my degree in economics and political science.

Marlin Detweiler:
I have a friend who would love that! He thinks there is only one university in Florida.

Dave Peterson:
Well, unfortunately, this year, football-wise, that one university would not be Florida State. But last year was a great year to be a Seminole. Not so much this year. We have one son. Our son just graduated from Grove City College in Pennsylvania. And he is just recently engaged to be getting married this spring to a wonderful Christian gal.

And he's currently living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has his first job. He is also an economist. I shouldn't say also, because although I got my degree in economics, I never practiced. But he is a practicing, full-fledged economist working in public policy. So, graduated debt-free. And that's kind of the origin story for my business, Scholarship GPS.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, that's wonderful. So when did you found this organization called Scholarship GPS? When was it founded? And I can assume this, but I don't know this. Tell us what the letters are intended for.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah. So GPS is a play on Global Positioning System. Basically, you know, the thing in your car or on your phone that gives you directions to get where you want to go. And so Scholarship GPS, the tagline is “your directions to a debt-free college degree.” So, yeah, I founded the business about four years ago now.

And I got into it because, like many Americans, when my son hit high school and I realized college was not too far down the road, I needed to think about how we were going to pay for this. And when I looked at the numbers, I was shocked at how expensive college had gotten from the time I graduated until it was going to be time for my son to go, and quickly realized we did not have enough money saved to get him through debt-free.

So I started to learn about scholarships, and was fortunate that he had some early success, which was motivating for our whole family. And by the time he graduated high school, he had accumulated over $50,000 in private scholarships. So this does not include anything that he got from the college he went to. And so a lot of friends and family asked us, how did you guys do this?

So for about a year after we got him off to Grove City College, I worked with some friends and family and realized that this is not necessarily unique to my son, that students who will put in some time and effort and follow some general guidelines can have success with scholarships. So that was the impetus for the business, and have been doing this professionally for 3 or 4 years now.

Marlin Detweiler:
Okay. That's wonderful. What was your career before that?

Dave Peterson:
I worked in the corrugated box industry. Believe it or not, actually.

Marlin Detweiler:
I could see how those were related. Yeah.

Dave Peterson:
Oh, sure. Absolutely. Yep. My father-in-law invented a part that goes on the machines that make the boxes. And so he built a business around selling that part, which eventually grew to a few other parts as well as a service business. So I was kind of an office manager, marketing manager, sales manager, kind of jack of all trades.

Twice they took me into a plant to work on the box machines, and they said, you need to go back to the office.

Marlin Detweiler:
Oh, that's funny. I think that's a little bit overstated, but I do understand the principle.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah. Yep. I'm not a handyman in any sense of the word.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, in simple terms, with Scholarship GPS, what is it that you target for your clientele? What is a win for your clientele?

Dave Peterson:
Well, our mission is to help students graduate debt-free while also helping the parents not drain their life savings in the process. Now, a win is going to vary depending on the student, depending on the family's goals. But just helping them get as close as they can to a debt-free degree is really our mission.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, that's wonderful. One of the things I checked on this with our headmaster just before connecting on this recording with you, and most recently for us, our full-time students at Veritas Scholars Academy, our online school, average across all students an average of $40,000 a year in scholarships.

Dave Peterson:
That is phenomenal.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, we're very encouraged by that number. I am very thankful for the team that has helped make that a reality. But I suspect that most of that is coming directly from the institutions to which they apply. Ultimately, we're dealing with the presidential scholarship or some other scholarship that's issued by the school, but you're dealing in a completely different category, as I understand it.

Talk to us a little bit about the role that you play, and not yet on the role that you play, but rather the scholarships that you help people acquire.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah. So that is an important distinction. I categorize scholarships or financial aid more broadly into three buckets. First would be need-based aid. This is where students and families fill out their FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. I don't help with that at all; you would want to talk to a financial advisor about how you can structure your family finances to qualify for that, if that's even possible. So that's bucket number one.

Marlin Detweiler:
Number two, you make a very good distinction by saying how you can structure your finances. It is truly amazing what counts against you and what doesn't. There is a strategy in that. I understand that's not today's conversation, but it's worth noting.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah, it is, especially if you're a middle to upper-income family. It's worth a conversation with somebody who knows about that world. Absolutely. The second category of scholarships are merit-based scholarships, and this is where I think the number you threw out of $40,000 a year most likely comes from. These are going to be scholarships offered from the colleges themselves.

They're based on merit, based on the student's proven abilities, either academically, artistically, or athletically. When you hear about the star quarterback from the high school who gets a full-ride scholarship, that's a merit scholarship. Likewise, the bright student who gets $40,000 a year to attend college, that's a merit scholarship as well.

I don't help too much with those because those are based on the things the student has on their resume and transcript. I'm not a teacher or a coach, at least not an academic or athletic coach. But the third category is where I focus my efforts with the students I work with.

That is through private scholarships, scholarships offered by businesses and philanthropic organizations. These range from big multinationals like Coca-Cola, a very well-known scholarship. You recently had on Amity Schlase from the Coolidge Foundation. They have a fantastic scholarship for high school juniors. It's a full-ride scholarship. Highly recommend that one.

Marlin Detweiler:
And that’s to the college of the student's choice.

Dave Peterson:
Exactly, any accredited college in the country. What a great prize to win. I think we'll talk a little bit more about some of the other reasons Veritas students should be applying for scholarships. Those are the types of scholarships I help families with, whether it's helping them find scholarships, helping them understand which ones best fit the student.

Then helping with things like the applications and essays. Now, I do not write the student's essay; that would be completely unethical. But I'm here as a sounding board to bounce ideas off of. I help with editing, everything from spelling and grammar to suggesting great achievements the student should include. So that's the type of work that I do.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. I want to make sure that everyone's clear. You charge for your services and have varying rates depending on the service. It's probably best for us not to quote them here, because this might be seen a year or two from now, where that's no longer true. But I can tell you from what you've told me, they are eminently reasonable, and any single scholarship accomplished by someone will pay for itself many times over for what you do charge.

Dave Peterson:
That was my goal in the way I priced my services. I have a range of programs that I offer, one that's very hands-off for me because it's an online course. I've shared all of the knowledge I've gained over about the last seven or eight years about scholarships, put it into a series of short videos that both students and parents can watch, and learn just about everything I would tell them without knowing them personally. So I priced that, and then...

Marlin Detweiler:
Does that provide them direct information for scholarship application?

Dave Peterson:
It provides direct information on how and where to find scholarships, how to know which ones are a good match for the student, and tips on essays and applications. So it's really detailed but not personalized. I really priced it in a way that, like you said, just one even small scholarship win will drastically more than pay for that.

Beyond that, I have personalized one-on-one services where I'm doing the essay editing, coaching, and going out and finding scholarships on the student's behalf. Those prices, because take up a lot of time and effort on my end, I price them accordingly.

Marlin Detweiler:
So yeah. Scholarship coaching is a term that you used. That would involve effective techniques for filling out applications and probably strategic discussion points when they’re in-person interviews and that sort of thing. It's really, probably, I mean, these kinds of things become very personal fairly quickly, but what are some general principles that make students successful at getting this third category of scholarships that you've referred to?

Dave Peterson:
Yeah. Great question. So I think one of the keys, I sometimes refer to this as the secret sauce of winning scholarships, is what I call the student's personal narrative, which is built around the five pillars, five pillars being academics, extracurriculars, volunteering, work or employment experience, and leadership. Now, I want to be clear, that's not a checklist.

The student doesn't have to have something to check off in every one of those categories. It's great if they do. Those are just different ways that students can demonstrate their interests and abilities. What's really critical is that they have a story pulling from those categories about who they are and where they're going. Students can certainly win scholarships without this, but to have repeatable success, I have found that students who have that story and then learn how to craft it through essays or other projects tend to have more success. So that's really, like I said, it's kind of the secret sauce.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, I was just reminded of something from my high school. I went to a public high school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And I was fortunate enough to get a golf scholarship. And there was a scholarship opportunity. The former president of a local bank serving the market where my high school was did not have any heirs.

And so he gave his wealth to his scholarship fund. That literally got to a point where they couldn't give enough of it away based on the standards of the will. So the will had to be, the program had to be modified. It was originally just for young men. Back in the 70s, at this point, that amount of money per year was quintupled.

And women were added to it. And I remember very distinctly a personal interview with the current bank president and the people around. I don't know if it was a school board or bank board, but all they wanted to talk about was golf. They didn't care about anything else. It was a personal thing for them. It was great. I was going to get the money just like everybody else that applied.

If we had more of that, it would be wonderful. But that was a very unique situation. Have you ever heard of anything like that?

Dave Peterson:
Well, I can't think of the name of it, but I think I'm actually familiar with that scholarship because I worked with, actually two students, a boy and a girl.

Marlin Detweiler:
I think it was the Kishman Scholarship.

Dave Peterson:
Oh, no, that's definitely not it then. But, okay, so another Pennsylvania scholarship related to golf that I worked with students on.

Marlin Detweiler:
This wasn't related to golf. They just wanted to talk about golf.

Dave Peterson:
Oh, they just wanted to talk about golf! Okay.

Marlin Detweiler:
The Scholarship had nothing to do with it. I just had to be a breathing male at the time.

Dave Peterson:
Okay.

Marlin Detweiler:
Now you can be a breathing male or female.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah. Well, that does illustrate a point, though, in that, I don't know the exact number because I have heard different numbers from different sources, but I think at a low end there's something like $100 million in scholarship funds that go unclaimed every year.

Marlin Detweiler:
Oh, my.

Dave Peterson:
If you watch the documentary that the Dave Ramsey organization put out a couple of years ago, they give a much larger number, and they quote the U.S. Department of Education. So I'll take them at their word. But let's just say it's $100 million. That's a lot of money floating out there that's going unclaimed.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, it sure is. And that's what you're here to help people like Veritas Scholars Academy students do.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah, yeah!

Marlin Detweiler:
So you've provided the coaching, you provide help with essays and applications and of course, Scholarship GPS, the flagship course that you have, that's entirely asynchronous online.

Dave Peterson:
Correct. Exactly. One other thing that I do, or I use two other things, is that I do have a daily newsletter. It's free, goes out every day, weekdays. I feature a different scholarship opportunity. Of course, some that I feature would be a match for your student, and some won't, because it's just, you know, random.

On weekends, I feature what I call weekend scholarships, which are quick and easy, like 30 seconds to two minutes to enter. No essay, but they are legitimate in that they do pick winners. And then on Sundays I have interviews with guests from the broader education space. So SAT experts, college admissions advisors, people like that. And then I repackage all of that in a weekly podcast called the Scholarship GPS Podcast, also available for free.

Marlin Detweiler:
Good. Yeah. So people can go to your website by googling Scholarship GPS. I think you came up as the first result there.

Dave Peterson:
That's encouraging.

Marlin Detweiler:
That would help, too, I'm sure. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about some of the myths that people have around scholarships. I mentioned the scholarship that was available at my high school. I remember one of my friends, who was the son of a doctor, did not allow his son to apply for it because he thought that it was a need-based form, technically financial aid, I guess. Which is the catch-all category scholarship.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah. Yep. So that is one of the myths out there: scholarships are only for people of lower income or lower means, and that's absolutely not the case. In fact, speaking private scholarship wise, the vast majority of scholarships don't know or don't even ask about your financial situation. So that's definitely one myth that hopefully will be busted through this, that no matter your financial situation, there are scholarships your student is eligible for.

Marlin Detweiler:
So when we talk about scholarship in terms of just thinking organizationally, scholarship would have merit-based and financial aid underneath that, as two different categories of scholarship.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah. And I do use the word scholarship a little bit loosely because it includes things like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Voice of Democracy contest, technically not a scholarship, but I consider it one. I mean, a student wins $35,000 before their 18th birthday; that should be used for college or maybe setting them up for a business, but it shouldn't be used to buy a car, in my opinion.

Marlin Detweiler:
That's understandable. One of the things I was curious about, like these misunderstandings, is what other scholarship myths might exist out there. How can you help us understand a world that we don't deal with much, a whole lot better?

Dave Peterson:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think a big one for your listeners is going to be that homeschoolers... I realize Veritas is kind of a hybrid program.

Marlin Detweiler:
We are what you want us to be.

Dave Peterson:
Exactly. But a lot of people think that homeschoolers cannot win scholarships, and that's absolutely untrue. Just like many scholarships or most scholarships don't ask your financial situation, most of them might ask what school you attend or if you are a homeschooler, but most of them are not only open to homeschoolers, they're very happy to have homeschoolers.

And in fact, one of the things I'd like to mention is that I've put together a free download of scholarships that I think would be really of interest to Veritas parents, students, and families. All they have to do is go to www. And unfortunately, you do have to do that. I'm working on that. I'm not a tech guy.

But go to https://www.scholarshipgps.com/veritas. It will ask you for your email address to be able to download it, but it's a document of about ten scholarships that I think not only are a great fit to win some money for college but could be incorporated into your curriculum, particularly around the types of issues that Veritas likes to emphasize like classical education.

Marlin Detweiler:
Mention that website again, because that's obviously a private website for people listening. Thank you for doing that.

Dave Peterson:
Absolutely.

Marlin Detweiler:
Let's say it again.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah. https://www.scholarshipgps.com/veritas

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, very good. I hope that people find that helpful. I'd love to get some feedback. Hopefully.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah, absolutely. There are some fantastic opportunities on that list, some of which my son has won, some of which students I've worked with have won. So definitely worth checking out.

Marlin Detweiler:
Very good. So, scholarships are not just for low-income families. We're not just talking about financial aid. There's this whole category of merit-based opportunities or other types of qualifications that we may not even be thinking about. What are some other myths that people may lose opportunity for believing?

Dave Peterson:
I think a big one is that scholarships are only for high school seniors or 12th-grade students. That is a critical error. There are lots of reasons that students should be applying for scholarships earlier than that. First of which is they might win one. But more importantly, the more scholarships a student applies for, the better they get at it.

It's just like anything, practice makes perfect. And by starting, well, believe it or not, there are scholarships for as young as grade school students.

Marlin Detweiler:
I'm glad you've raised this question. I was going to ask the question. How young is too young? What would a scholarship in grade school look like? I'm curious.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah, well, one that is, I don't know exactly when this episode of your show will come out, but roughly right about now is the Carson scholarship. That's a scholarship open to grades four through 11. So not even open to high school seniors. But early as fourth grade. Now, they judge a fourth grader differently than an 11th grader, and they award students of all ages.

I don't know what the breakdown is, but for a fourth grader, they're going to want to see a student who has a decent academic record. I think they use a kind of a unique grading scale. By their scale, they want to see at 3.75. How that translates, you'd have to look at their site.

But if your student's in that range, it's worth looking at. And they have an emphasis on community service. Now again, a fourth grader's community service is going to look very different than an 11th grader's, but they take that into consideration. So, that's just one example of a scholarship open to younger students. The VFW Auxiliary, the women's VFW, has an art contest for younger students, and it's always around a patriotic theme.

So again, most of these scholarships that are open to younger students are age appropriate. But it's never too young. But I would say by the time the student hits middle and high school age, I would like them to apply for at least a few scholarships a year. And then by junior year, it should really become part of the family's routine that scholarships are part of what we do as a family, just like you do your classes and maybe you have chores or whatever else.

So by senior year, you have that experience, you've built some essays that you can repurpose for other scholarships. And then the student is just going to be such a better applicant because I think where that myth of only being for seniors came from is that it's not only for seniors, but that is the largest year.

Students can continue to win scholarships into college. And my son applied for scholarships, continued to win them. And I encourage anybody I talk to to keep applying until you have enough money to pay for everything.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. So the junior year is kind of the peak for the home stretch, so to speak. Does it start in ninth or 10th grade? It starts to get serious because one of the things I know from being familiar with the Coolidge scholarship that you mentioned earlier is that there's considerable lead time. The process for that scholarship has almost got to be a full year from start to finish.

Dave Peterson:
Well, in theory, it would be, because to do well, a student is going to need to learn a lot about Calvin Coolidge. So I think that's going to require some reading. They provide a lot of great resources on their website about Calvin Coolidge, but I think a student should probably go a little bit deeper than that to do well. So, yes. In theory, this is probably close to a one-year process.

Marlin Detweiler:
Is that common?

Dave Peterson:
No, that's uncommon. And that's going to correspond with this being a full ride for four years. So this is going to take a little bit more than a $1,000 scholarship.

Marlin Detweiler:
This isn't a coin flip or writing a paragraph for $500,000.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah. So as parents and students become aware of these scholarships, even if they're not eligible today, they can kind of, you know, put them on a list and say, let's have this in the back of our mind, and let's incorporate Calvin Coolidge into our ninth grader's curriculum so that in 11th grade, they're a little more familiar.

But the one thing I would say where it's not a year-long process is that they don't open up the application a full year in advance. And I can't remember offhand when they open it. It's enough time that the student will be able to look at the essay prompts. They change every year. So as soon as it opens, that's when you want to kick things into gear on working with it.

Marlin Detweiler:
Are there other scholarships that would be of a similar ilk where they're both substantial and lengthy?

Dave Peterson:
Yeah, there's one called the Brian Cameron Foundation Scholarship. This one is not full ride, but it's full tuition at any college of your choice for four years. So, a very lengthy process is expected. Room and board would still be on you to figure out how to pay for, but they'll cover tuition at any college the student chooses.

That one opens, usually January to February, and they kind of have two deadlines. They have an early deadline, which is usually, if I remember right, around mid-May, and then they'll have a later deadline. Depending on how many applications they have remaining, they only accept, I can't remember if it's 4 or 5,000 total. But once they hit that, it's closed. And this year it closed well before the start of the student's senior year.

Marlin Detweiler:
Okay. Interesting. I hadn't thought about the idea that getting overwhelmed by applications could be a burden on the benefactor and limit the distribution. That's interesting. Now, one of the things I saw on your website is that scholarships like we're talking about are not just for college-bound students, right? Talk about that.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah. Well, let's use the VFW scholarship, their Voice of Democracy scholarship. In some cases, if the student's going to trade school or technical school, they would be able to use those funds. Now, I don't know, at the grand prize level, if the VFW would just write a check.

I don't believe so. I'd have to check on that. But there are some scholarships where if a student's not doing any higher education, maybe they're going to go straight into the workforce. It could still be an extra source of income because they pay the student directly. One example would be the Stossel in the Classroom contest.

They have both a video and an essay contest, and they pay the student directly with no caveat of how those funds are used. So, I think the top prize is $2,500. And it's the student's money to use however they and their parents see fit. So, yeah, you don't have to have a college-bound student. Trade and technical school can also be paid for with lots of scholarships.

Of course, read the fine print, and it's usually not that fine. Sure, they're usually pretty clear on what you can use the funds for. And especially note those ones that will send you a check directly.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Well, this has been fascinating because, like many things, when we don't do it every day, we can't possibly gain expertise by experience. We have to learn from others. And so what you provide is a real shortcut for people to learn how to get the financial assistance through scholarships that will help them have their student finish college without debt, and be able to really not be strapped by it.

And thankfully, it's in a whole different category than a simple category of debt forgiveness, which means somebody else pays it.

Dave Peterson:
Exactly, exactly.

Marlin Detweiler:
A political conversation, but it's a reality that debet doesn't go away. It just gets transferred. But in this situation, we're talking about money that's come from sources of benevolence for the purpose that it's being expended. And we should be thankful for it and welcome it in our lives when we have the opportunities.

Dave Peterson:
We absolutely should. It was a blessing for our family. Like I said, my son just graduated from college this past spring and we ended up spending only $1,500 out of pocket for his entire degree. Everything else was covered by scholarships.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, I have two questions about a Grove City graduate first. All right. Is he an engineer?

Dave Peterson:
No, no, he's an economist.

Marlin Detweiler:
Okay. And you're it being in economics, right? You said that earlier. And that would be another significant degree. Of course, engineering is a big degree there. The second one is because I know this about Grove City. Also, did he find his spouse?

Dave Peterson:
Well, he is engaged, but he did not meet her at Grove City. She went to another Christian school, not even in the same state. They met at an economics conference. It was definitely providential how they met.

Marlin Detweiler:
That's great. Yeah, it is known so much, as you probably know, for being a place for a lot of spouses. I mean, I can't tell you how many people I've met that are married to Grove City graduates as Grove City graduates.

Dave Peterson:
Yeah, yeah. There's a joke, and I won't get the wording right since I wasn't the student, but it's, you know, some students are there to get their marriage degree or something like that. But it is a fantastic school. And I know we're not here to plug colleges, but I will put in a plug for Grove City College. It was a blessing for our family.

Marlin Detweiler:
I had a lot of graduates from our online school go there. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. This is really insightful. I hope people will contact you by finding you at Scholarship GPS, a unique enough name that there won't be many other hits. You'll be easy to find. And I'm sure that the small amount of money they might invest in your services will pay great rewards. Thank you very much.

Dave Peterson:
Thank you so much for having me on. This was great. I really enjoyed it.

Marlin Detweiler:
Thank you, folks. Thanks again for joining us. The Veritas Vox, The Voice and Class for Christian Education. We look forward to seeing you next time!