How Our Class of 2026 Earned over $11 million

When we start working with families sometime in sophomore or junior year of high school, the question of scholarships usually comes up as an afterthought. After the applications are in, the thinking goes, THEN I’ll apply for scholarships.

This is backwards.

Scholarship applications are part and parcel of the college application process. When you apply to colleges, you apply for their scholarships.

While applying to college isn’t rocket science, it is more complex than when parents applied. Most students applying to college today make this big mistake: They miss scholarship deadlines and requirements.

My team and I realized that this is where we could offer the most support, so we shifted our methods to prioritize money.

First, when we help a student build their college list, we make sure there are a few options where, based on historical data, our students can qualify for institutional scholarships. Some families choose to prioritize selective, need-aid only schools, and that’s up to them. We always think it’s a good idea to have some offers with money on the table.

Next, we spend several days together as a team making sure we’ve mapped out a crystal clear game plan for each student, noting the schools where they are eligible for scholarships, the additional requirements for those scholarships, and the early deadlines students need to hit to qualify. We advise our students to apply two weeks prior to the college admission deadline (paying close attention to early application deadlines) if they want to be competitive for scholarships. This ensures students have a buffer to complete any additional requirements.

Finally, we create an essay-by-essay task list and timeline for students to complete all of the necessary steps for both admissions and scholarships. These two things cannot be separated.

In the end, 35 of our students earned at least one scholarship from a college they were admitted to, totaling over $11 million in merit scholarship offers. This included 3 full-ride scholarships. This excludes private, third-party scholarships, which are usually small fry compared to awards that come directly from colleges.

Hooray!! This is a BIG win.

What Students Get the Big Bucks?

Scholarship recipients are engineering majors and linguistics majors, male and female (though the girls fared better this year), from rural towns and big cities. They tend to be passionate about something — or a few things — and serious about their studies.

The average GPA for a scholarship winner was 3.8, and the average SAT was 1420.

While I don’t typically push families to pay for test prep for the SAT or ACT just to get into more elite colleges, it may make sense to hire a private tutor for a few hours if it can mean the difference between discounted tuition and a full-priced one.

Take, for example, the University of Alabama, where a perfect ACT or SAT score (36 and 1600, respectively) automatically earns you a full tuition scholarship plus some added perks, like a study-abroad stipend. Or the University of Nevada, Reno, where a one-point difference on the ACT can equal an additional $4,000.

For college-bound students, it doesn’t get much busier than it is right now with AP Tests, Finals, and confirming summer activities! You may also be considering taking one more SAT or ACT with the goal of bumping your score as high as possible before college application season is in full swing. If you are planning a last SAT or ACT, it may be a perfect time to work with a tutor that can help you identify key topics and material to focus on, key ways to study, and also, key test-taking tips. Did you know there are highly valuable strategies to use during your actual test session?

At Throughline Guidance, our students have used both Spokes on a Wheel and Pivot Tutors for extra support. The tutors at both of these companies are experts in their subject areas and themselves have earned top scores on both the SAT and ACT. If there is a time to reach for an additional resource to guide you through the coming weeks, now may be it!