Senior Scholarship Binder Setup

As a senior high school student, I have extra to-do lists that involve prepping for college and filling out scholarships and stuff like that. I don’t know about you, but in terms of scholarships I have to create a binder for a lot of them and I figured that while I make mine I will take you through all the things that I feel will be great to put in your binder. Depending on the scholarship you are applying for it may ask you to write some type of essay like why are you deserving of that scholarship or about a specific topic they give you. In this post, I will go through my senior scholarship binder setup and layout.

Brainstorm

I don’t know what sort of required items you may have in your scholarship binder but a great thing to do before getting into all of it is to brainstorm by grades. For instance, I’m only focusing on high school for the most part so I made a full brainstorm from freshman year to my now senior year on all the academics and extracurricular things I accomplished each year.

I would like to clarify that I’m not following any specific rules when making this binder and I’m just putting everything that I think would be great to put in and in any case, I can modify it to the scholarships I’m applying to.

Tools and Supplies

To set up this whole binder I will be using a three-ring binder, page sleeves, and a scanning app to make a digital binder. Also, the pack of page sleeves that I linked is the big one because that’s the one that I have as I have had to set up multiple binders throughout the years for my classes. I may also use cardstock to make the dividors and a little bit a scrapbook paper to decorate here and there.

The scanning app that I’m using is Adobe Scan and it works perfectly fine for what I’m using it for and has a bunch of features that I haven’t delved into yet.

And, to make the digital binder, I’m using Microsoft Word because is the one that I’m most used to. I’ll be adding the essays and stuff in Word with a copy of the PDFs.

Sections

Personal

In the personal tab, I will be putting the required essays about me, my plans for the future or why do I think I deserve the scholarship which is often requested when turning in your binder.

I will also put in this section my resume and any recommendation letters from my teachers.

Academics

Next is my academics section in which I will put my college board results and any other major test result I have. For instance, in Puerto Rico, we take a test called META-PR and everyone is supposed to take it every few grades that I don’t remember aside from eleventh grade last year so I will be putting those test results here.

If you have been accepted to a college or university or institute you could also put it here.

Clubs

In this section, I will be putting all the things regarding the clubs and student organizations I’m part of. I will put myself to the task of finding the diplomas that say that I’m part of the organizations and putting it here.

I’m also thinking of creating a little essay all about my experience in each organization and club.

Contests/ Awards

I will probably put this section next to the academics one. In this section, I will put every little contest medal and award I’ve received throughout the years. Now is when the yearly brainstorm I made earlier comes in handy since I will be dividing the awards and winnings in grades because I feel it make it more organized and easier to go through.

Artistic

This section is very specific to me and to whoever is part of an artistic club and hosts activities in their school. If you do sports or any other niche related activity like robotic competitions you could make a whole section in your binder dedicated to it.

If you would like to talk more about it you could also make an essay in this section about the activities you have been part of and your experience in them.

Miscellaneous

There are always things that don’t fit in a specific section when talking about anything so I made a miscellaneous tab to put things that don’t fit in the other sections yet they don’t require a whole section to be made about each and every one of them.

In my case, I will be putting things that have come up randomly and things like the community hours that I made. I’m putting these just as an extra because I already have the documents and they don’t hurt.

I hope that you found this blog post helpful and that you get all the scholarships you apply for to get the education you need to fulfill your dreams. If you are interested in more fun content like this, make sure to subscribe to my weekly newsletter and to check out my social media.

Be Yourself, Be Happy, Be Human.
Lots of Love, Patrick