How Teens Actually Find Scholarships, Competitions, and Internships: What I Learned Surveying My Students
The bell just rang for after-school dismissal last month, and I was shoving a stack of schedule change forms into my filing cabinet when Mia, an 11th grader I’d worked with on course selection, knocked softly on my counseling office door. She leaned against the frame, twisting the strap of her backpack, and said she needed a summer pre-med internship, and she had no clue where to start looking.
I was actually in the middle of putting together a student survey for the state education association on exactly this topic: how students 14 and older find scholarships, competitions, and internships. I’d gotten approval to distribute it to 120 students across all four grade levels at our suburban public high school, and I’d spent lunch that week passing out paper copies with a promise of a free candy bar for anyone who turned it in filled out honestly.
I asked Mia the first question on my survey: where have you looked so far? She pulled out her phone and tapped TikTok, then said her lab partner mentioned a clinic position the previous week, but she lost the link. She hadn’t checked the school counseling website or the weekly newsletter I send out. When I asked why, she shrugged and said, “Those emails all look the same. I have 400 unread from school already. I just delete the ones that don’t have my name on them.”
That answer ended up being pretty representative of what the full survey told me. Out of 121 students who responded, only 17% had ever found an opportunity through a school website or official guidance email. 62% found their last opportunity through a friend, family member, or their coach or club leader in person. Another 21% found it on TikTok, Instagram, or Snapchat.
Javi, a senior I know who’s into mechanical engineering, wrote on his survey that he got his paid internship at a local manufacturing company last summer because his cousin posted about the opening on his Snapchat story. He never would have found it otherwise, because the company only posted the opening on their private Instagram for employees. Javi also noted that he hasn’t opened a single one of my monthly opportunity emails in two years.
A 14-year-old freshman who does ceramic art told me she got into a national youth art competition last spring because her art teacher posted the flier to her class Instagram story, not the school newsletter. The teacher added a 10-second clip saying she’d cover the $10 entry fee for any student who wanted to apply, and that she’d stay after class to help take photos of work. Eight kids from her class applied, and two got in. If she’d just put the flier on the school bulletin board, no one would have seen it.
I can’t tell you how many parents come to me frustrated, saying they spent whole weekends putting together spreadsheets of scholarships for their kid, and the kid never even opens the file. Last semester, a mom sat in that same chair Mia was in, close to frustration, saying she’d done all this research to help her son get a leg up for college, and he just ignored her. After reading through all these survey responses, it’s not that kids are lazy or unmotivated. It’s that the system parents and educators have been using to share opportunities doesn’t work anymore. It’s not where kids are looking.
The small changes that have started working for us, after seeing these results, don’t take a lot of extra time. For parents, instead of building a big spreadsheet of opportunities, just ask your kid to text two or three of their friends who have similar interests and ask what opportunities they’ve heard about lately. If you find an opportunity you think fits, send it as a single text with one line: “Saw this and thought of you. No pressure if it’s not your thing.” Don’t add a big speech about how this will get them into college. 70% of the students I surveyed said they ignore any opportunity that comes with a lot of pressure.
For teachers and counselors, instead of only posting opportunities to the school website or newsletter, post one or two a week to your class or department Instagram or Snapchat story. Add a specific line about when and where you can help with the application, like “I’ve got 20 minutes free after school on Thursday if anyone wants to work on this together.” Kids won’t usually ask for help if you just say “let me know if you need anything,” but a specific offer makes it much easier to follow up.
Mia ended up texting three of her pre-med friends while she sat in my office, and one sent her a link to that community clinic internship I’d actually emailed out three months earlier. She applied, got the spot, and told me last week she’s already getting to shadow doctors there and help check patients in for appointments.
We still have a lot of gaps to fill. Students who don’t have big friend groups or family connections in their field of interest still miss out on a lot of these unadvertised opportunities, and we’re still working on how to reach those kids more consistently. A lot of our first-generation students told me they’d never heard of a paid internship before their junior year, because no one in their family or friend group had experience with that kind of opportunity. This isn’t a perfect fix for that gap.
But this survey changed how I think about sharing opportunities, for good. It’s not about how many opportunities you can list on a website or cram into an email. It’s about meeting kids where they already are, and leaning on the networks they already trust. We’re still tweaking what works, but so far, it’s helped more kids find opportunities that fit them than any fancy website I ever maintained.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » How Teens Actually Find Scholarships, Competitions, and Internships: What I Learned Surveying My Students