Expert: Jennifer Olomon - 1/14/2001

Question
First of all, thank you for taking the time to help on this site! I'm not sure that you can help me, but I'm taking a chance that you can point me in some direction.

Because I don't know how much to tell you, I'm including an overview which is probably more than you really need (or care to) know. But something here might trigger an idea.

My son is a Junior in high school, a member of the school band, plays Alto Sax. He attends a 5A school in the Dallas area (2000+ students) and is a 3-time All State Musician. Obviously, there were several steps along the way each year to get to that step (All Region, All Area) for which he was 1st chair every time for the last 3 years.

He has made All Region Jazz Band for the last two years. Each year, he has been awarded Outstanding Musician from his band directors. He was Drum Major this year and will be head Drum Major next year.

Additionally, he is also a 3-year member of the Varsity golf team and is currently the #1 player on the team. Shots in the low 80's and upper 70's consistently and has shot Par in a competition once.

His GPA is 4.8 (takes some pre-college level courses). He was the Junior class representative for Homecoming King this year. Throughout his school years, he has been chosen for various honors (citizen of the year several years, student representative chosen to interview Assistant Principal applicants, DARE representative for his school, Blue Ribbon Committee student representative).

Although he loves music, he doesn't want to make it a career. He would love to play pro golf but doesn't think there's such a thing as a "Golf Major". He's considering pre-law for a major and music as a minor and of course, playing golf in college as well. The pre-law idea is simply because it offers a good basis for whatever he really decides later on.

He would like a warm weather school and we're surmising it's easier/best to stay in Texas (our home State).

I went to the Baylor website and looked at the scholarship area but had no idea where to begin once I got there! We're so new to this I don't even know what a fellowship is!

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you!

Answer
http://www.baylor.edu/~finaid/2001info.pdf  is a link to a document that gives a brief overview of some of the scholarships available at Baylor, and how to contact the specific departments (like music, pre-law, athletic) to see if they have their own scholarships to apply for.  It also mentions other types of assistance, like loans and grants.

Your best bet would be to actually contact the financial aid/scholarship office of Baylor via telephone or mail, and they would assign an advisor to help discuss his options.  This way, they can explain all your options to you, make sure you have the proper paperwork, and they can clear up any confusing issues for you.  As a side note, they're all very nice people over there, and they always tried their best to help me out when I needed their advice, so I'm sure they'll be happy to help.

There are also places online to look for independent scholarships, like fastweb.com.  Any bookstore would have tons of books about financial aid and scholarships as well (although it's been my experience that a lot of those are out of date before they're even printed, so doing it online, like via fastweb.com, is a lot easier).  

It sounds like your son is a wonderfully gifted young man, and I'm sure Baylor would love to have him come and join the family. :)

Jen Olomon