Hey all, friendly academic queermo here, reminding YOU that you can apply for grants and scholarships to fund the expansion of your brain! Some of those grants and scholarships are made JUST FOR YOU. The Point Foundation is one of them!
The Point Foundation wants to help finance undergraduate education and graduate school for LGBTQ students. Candidates for Point Foundation financial assistance need to demonstrate academic excellence, leadership skills and community involvement. Attention to those who have lost financial assistance and social support due to coming out as LGBTQ is part of Point’s mission. And it’s not just financial stuff! Point also pairs you with a mentor AND recipients participate in both a leadership training and an individual community service project. After graduation, there’s a killer network of Point alums. If you’re enrolling in school for the 2017-2018 academic year, you’re eligible for the multiyear program. Your program must be based in the U.S. and you gotta be full-time, full-year. There are a few more eligibility requirements that you should take a look at to see if you fit.
Here’s the thing. You’ve gotta apply, like, now. The application is only open until January 30th at 11:59 pm. And I’ve watched some of y’all on social media feeds getting down about grants and scholarships. So I’m here to deliver some advice as well:
You can do this. And you should do it EVEN IF you’re all, “well I probably won’t get it.” Never underestimate yourself; don’t take yourself out of the running just because you aren’t feeling 100% confident! Nothing’s ever 100%, so don’t wait for 100% to do the thing! Even if you don’t get it, filling out these sorts of applications have often clarified for me the directions I want to pursue and projects I want to work on. Just the act of filling it out is going to get you thinking critically about what you want and what skills you have. It’s really useful to even have the practice filling out grant applications. For many of us, it’s a valuable and necessary skill that we will either bring to our own work or the work of teams we believe in. So apply!
Set yourself up for success by watching the FAQ video:
And check out their helpful tips and tricks series on Tumblr. They’re applicable whenever you’re communicating with an institution — “don’t forget to proofread,” for example, is always a good tip. “Make a motivational playlist” is also always a good tip.
