It's never too early to start looking for money. A site like fastweb matches you up to things you are eligible for, so if you are only a 9th grade student, it will only give you relevant scholarships. However, the most critical for younger students, in my opinion, is putting themselves in a good position to be a good candidate later on. In other words, start on community service, part-time employment, mock interviewing, practice essays where you sell yourself, etc. The other key piece that goes with that is documentation. Many scholarships want to know everything you've done the past four years. To sit there your senior year and try to come up with everything is not wise. Keep track as you go. Just keep an excel file or word document and add to it periodically. Just a list with dates is sufficient-- something you can refer back to when asked to list all of these activities and accomplishments. Also, if you do something significant during an early year, it would be wise to have the sponsor of that event, or someone close to that event, write a letter on your behalf at that time. Again, asking someone to write about what you did three years ago is not wise-- the letter will not have the same strength. Get the recommendation while your accomplishment is fresh.
Our trouble is that they only allow a letter from a teacher, one from a pastor, and a third one from someone else other than a relative. We actually have two teacher letters, one from a retired teacher who teaches homeschool English classes. Rachael took Grammar/Composition, Speech, and Research from him; the other is from my dear friend Cindy who has known her since she was a baby, and has done her evaluations for me over the years. She also wanted one from the guy who has been her soccer coach for the last four years; she really does take a leadership role on the team, and this coach has seen her grow into that. But this is also her 6th year working with Sparkies in AWANA. That is another role the adult director has seen her "grow into". This year, they put her charge of planning/running the games. So we can only use one of the two teachers, and only one from either her coach or the Sparkies leader. Plus, since AWANA is not with our church, her pastor doesn't really know what she's doing there.
