Call Me Katie or Catherine?

July 13, 2010

It’s a good day for an odd question. Judge Josh, first allow me to indulge in some brief flattery: I love that your humor amplifies the impressions that your insights leave on me in my scholarship pursuits! Oh…go on. Now to the context of my inquiry: I’ll be going away to college (first in my [...]

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Should You Risk a Lower GPA For More Outside Activities?

July 12, 2010

Meg Hey there Josh, I’m here to fret about my GPA (shocking, yes?) No! I’m about to begin my third year in college and I’ve maintained a pretty decent GPA. After three semesters, I was carried a 3.9. Agreed, that is exceedingly decent. In my fourth semester however, my school work became slightly less of [...]

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Abandon Your Passions For Boredom & Safety?

July 9, 2010

Rachel’s the kind of girl I started this site for — someone who’s getting rotten advice from the people close to her. And so, loyal fans, today I spring into action on her and your behalf. Behalves. Whatever. Hi Josh, This fall, I’m going to be a Junior in college. My declared major at present [...]

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Should You Keep Your Religion To Yourself?

July 8, 2010

Of the 200+ scholarship help articles I’ve written in the last year or so, the one that’s gotten me the second-largest amount of hate mail is the one about thrusting your politics and religion upon scholarship judges. (It’s a distant second, mind you — the top spot is still held solidly by the admittedly inflammatory [...]

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Working For Money vs. Research & Learning

July 7, 2010

After you get past your freshman year of college and you’ve got a good handle on what kind of time demands your coursework is going to require, you may run into this extremely common dilemma about how you should spend your “free” (non-studying) time: Should I use my spare hours for academic pursuits/personal growth, or [...]

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Studying Abroad: A Waste of Time?

July 6, 2010

Ah, study abroad — that time-honored tradition of venturing to a faraway land to immerse oneself in its culture, history and tradition. Or, to hole up and get drunk with other Americans in between sleeping with mysterious, sexy foreigners without anyone back home knowing the better. In my experience, it can go either way. Which [...]

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Major Smackdown: English vs. Physical Therapy!

July 2, 2010

It’s a short one today — doing a favor to all you millennial types who have been writing in and saying, in one way or another, “WRITE SHORTER POSTS.” Today, you get your wish! Phoenicia writes today: Hi Judge Josh! Right now, I am a bit at a loss with what I wish to major [...]

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Nontraditional Students: Discriminated Against For Scholarships?

July 1, 2010

The most common question I get around here is also the toughest to answer. It’s some variation of this: “I seem to be doing everything right, but I’m not winning any scholarships. Why?” It’s hard to answer because, without access to each person’s scholarship application materials, it’s hard to say what kind of mistakes he/she [...]

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Can You Pull Pranks For a Living?

June 30, 2010

It’s a classic story: boy gets good grades in high school, boy gets full-ride scholarship to great engineering school, boy does well in engineering school, boy instead opts for a career of pulling practical jokes on people. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it 1,000 times. Here’s Ren: Hey Josh! I’ve really enjoyed reading [...]

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Changing Paths: From Chef to Computers

June 29, 2010

Isn’t it funny that the main reason you GO to college in the first place is to be exposed to all kinds of different choices — both in what you can study and what you want to pursue as a career — but you only get a short amount of time to experience those choices [...]

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$90K in Student Loans and a Passion For Nothing

June 28, 2010

If you’re a college or even a high school student, you have to have been locked away in a cage somewhere if you’ve never been given the advice to “follow your dreams” and/or “do what you love” or “find what you’re passionate about.” But what if you have no dreams, you don’t really love any [...]

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Flunked Courses: Turning Them Into a Plus

June 25, 2010

Sometimes you bust your hump in the classroom trying to keep your head above water in a class that’s kicking your ass, and despite your best efforts, you fail anyway. You’re vanquished. Defeated by (insert malevolent course here). That’s what happened to Meghan — twice. Even worse, one of the classes was required for her [...]

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Does It Really Matter Where You Get Your Master’s?

June 24, 2010

If you read this blog often, you’d probably think that I’m on the payroll of the American Association of Community Colleges, as strongly and often as I advocate for doing your first two years at a community college. That’s exactly what Nate did, and he’s kept his student loan debt down to $5,000. Now, he [...]

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$85,000 Pharmacy School vs. $250,000 Medical School

June 23, 2010

Student loan debt is a necessary evil. Problem is, once you understand that it’s a necessary evil, you’re sorta lulled into thinking about the “necessary” part and less about the “evil” part, and then you wake up one day asking yourself how you ended up owing the government somewhere around the GNP of Honduras. Unfortunately [...]

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Deserting An Expensive Dream & Moving Back Home

June 22, 2010

Hi Judge Josh, I love your website and read the articles almost every day. Not only are they fun to read, but they’re interesting and almost always relate directly to some part of my college questions. Thanks! If you have the time, I desperately need some advice (like everyone else): I’m graduating from USC in [...]

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Should You Ditch Grad School?

June 21, 2010

Let’s get all contrarian from the outset today, shall we? Graduate school can be a great idea that expands your knowledge and opens up your career prospects. It can also be a lousy one that multiplies your student loan debt and walls you off from career opportunities that arise while you’re toiling away on your [...]

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Does a Poor Family = Poor Prospects?

June 18, 2010

Paying for college can be a bitch for anyone, but it’s especially challenging when your family’s broke. Even if you are lucky enough to be the beneficiary of your college financial aid office’s largesse, there’s still an EFC involved if you don’t get a full ride, and even a couple thousand bucks can be far [...]

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37, Divorced & Turning It All Around With College

June 17, 2010

Yesterday we featured a younger student, Stephanie, who thought she might be too old for campus life at the ripe old age of 22. Today we feature Leeja, who, at 37, is ready to dive in. Hi Josh, I’m 37 years old and have a son who will be a high school senior in the [...]

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Is 22 Too Old To Fit In On Campus?

June 16, 2010

Hi there! I just started reading your blogs and I’m now convinced you’re the perfect person to talk to about my situation! Perfection is a high bar to clear, Steph, but I will give it my level best. I read you’re getting a lot more e-mails than before (Congrats!) so I’m hoping you get around [...]

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What Should Amber Do With Her Life?

June 15, 2010

Welcome back, friends. Long time, no speak. I was in hibernation yesterday from five long days at my advertising show in Orlando, and now I’m rested and ready to pummel you with advice until kingdom come. Ready, go. Hi Josh, I’ve read your book and I enjoy your blog very much. Thanks for the work [...]

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I Need Your Help: A Little Link Love?

June 11, 2010

Hello again, all. I’m going to make it short and sweet today with a little user-participation experiment that I need your help with. Here’s the problem, although it’s one of those good problems to have. As you know, every day I take one of your emails and turn it into a blog post where I [...]

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When Are “Name” Schools Worth the Price Tag?

June 10, 2010

Greetings to you all from sunny Orlando, where I’m spending the next few days at the American Advertising Federation national conference surrounded by hundreds of very sharp college students (much like yourself, dear reader) from around the country who are competing in the National Student Advertising Competition. I’m also surrounded by obnoxiously thick, hot, wet [...]

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Sex Therapy vs. Doggy Hotel: Aisha’s Quandary

June 9, 2010

Hello, amigos. Today’s post comes to you from the cramped little airport cubicle pictured below at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, where I am currently laid up for a couple hours on my way to Orlando to sit in on the National Student Advertising Competition. I had to get up so damn early to fly that when [...]

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Is Boise State Too Small to Produce a Rhodes Scholar?

June 8, 2010

Hola, friends. Today, a small change from the usual talk of late about saving money and such. Stephen is a high-achieving guy from Idaho who’s considering taking a shot at big-time scholarship programs like Rhodes and Fulbright. Has he got what it takes to crack the most prestigious gigs in the world? Hey. I’ve just [...]

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Is Embry-Riddle the Real Deal?

June 7, 2010

Hello again, everyone. Today’s post is gonna be short and sweet, because my heart is heavy today. In a few hours, I have to say goodbye to one of my best pals — my black Lab, Velvet. She’s nearly 17, and after many great years with my family, she’s being put to sleep this morning. [...]

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Free School Near Abusive Parents vs. Expensive School Far Away

June 4, 2010

If you’re a veteran visitor to this site, you know I get a lot of “Choice 1 vs. Choice 2″ emails, where the writer asks me which of two options I think is smarter. This one has a twist, though — there are abusive parents in the mix. Because of that, even though he/she didn’t [...]

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Doctor or Lawyer? Josiah the ICU Guy Needs Help.

June 3, 2010

I had an uncle who was a college professor in Arizona, and he was a champion of low-income, low-SES (socioeconomic status) students. He used to advocate really, really hard for almost all students to go to college. He believed that, above all else, college provided students with CHOICES that they would not otherwise get. Not [...]

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Can You Get More Financial Aid If You’re In Debt?

June 2, 2010

Hi, everybody. As you probably know, this site started out as a site about scholarships and how to get them, but has slowly morphed into an advice site about all things related to college, money, jobs, and occasionally even bigger issues like what you should do with your life and how to be happy. I’m [...]

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Should Breanna Join Some Clubs & Go To China?

June 1, 2010

Welcome back, m’friends. We talk a lot around these parts about extracurricular activities (although we haven’t in a while). And when we do, we’re almost exclusively referring to high school students and the extracurricular activities in which they participate in order to shine up their resume for both the admissions and financial aid offices at [...]

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Free Tuition U. vs. Living With Dad at Engineering School

May 28, 2010

I recently graduated from high school.  I was a decent student and graduated with highest distinction (basically equivilant to valedictorian). I’m going to assume for our purposes that it’s more like top 5% of Kacie’s class, rather than valedictorian. Valedictorian is pretty cut-and-dried — it’s the highest-ranking person in the class. The Univ of Nebraska [...]

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