How can I,(a 5-year sober in AA, striving for knowledge, working, 33
year-old, single mom of one 13 year-old daughter)...... qualify for an
available full paid scholarship to any university of my choice/or
not(possibly Los Angeles,CA or Portland, OR), in any field of my
choice(possibly homeopathic medicine or a science professor)?

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Request for Question Clarification by siliconsamurai-ga on 19 Jan 2006 13:58 PST

Would you accept a list of scholarship sites which you can search for
scholarships which you could apply for?

Otherwise you should just check with the schools you are interested in
to see if they offer scholarships to adults (some do.)

Good luck.

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Request for Question Clarification by politicalguru-ga on 18 Feb 2006 05:12 PST

Dear Happy Destiny, 

I've found this list of scholaships possible (not all of them full
time, but you get the point):
FINANCIAL AIDS FOR SINGLE MOTHERS 
<http://www.singlemom.com/CAREER/financialaid.htm> 

Were you thinking of lists of scholarships like these? If you were
(and you're still interested in an answer), please know that your
question is about to expire. However, you can re-post it and state
that this is what you're looking for. There are more scholarships out
there, though I haven't found those rich millionaires with
drug-addicted children yet :-(

What kind of a field is "science professor"?

You realize that would probably require a PHD in science, then years
at a university earning tenure?

You ask about how you could "qualify" you don't qualify, you are what
you are, what you need to do is find a scholarship which the committee
would award to you - I should warn you that there are few full
scholarships for adults (or even youngsters) but you may be able to
get one or more partial scholarships.

I have located a number of adult scholarship/grant sites and special
information pages for adults returning to school.

Yes, I realize that I am not as smart of you of course, but I will be
& that is why I need help.

I'm sure you'll do fine, but you still haven't answered my question
about whether or not you would accept the list of adult scholarship
sites as an answer so I have no idea what you want and I'll leave this
to some other researcher.

I see this may have been your first visit here so I'll try to help.

When a researcher asks for clarification, as I did, it means they are
prepared to provide an answer which they believe is what you really
need even if it isn't exactly what you asked.

You do not need to accept this answer but while a request is pending
the other researchers will probably not tackle the question because
they want to see what you want.

If you reject the offer then others will try to answer your question.

In this instance, you ask how you would "qualify" for a scholarship
but I don't understand what that means since you "qualify" by fitting
the requirements of a particular scholarship. What you really need in
my opinion is to find a scholarship or grant for someone in your
situation and then apply for it.

At this point you need to answer my request for clarification by
accepting my offer to answer or rejecting my offer and explaining a
bit more about exactly what you want to get here as an answer.

You will not be charged for these clarifications.

Since I don't know any way to help you qualify for scholarships in
general, I presume you need to find a list of scholarships or grants
you can apply for but that is up to you to decide.

If not, you need to let other researchers know just what you do want.

Best of luck.

Yes, this is my first experience with Google answers and I appreciate
your patience. I am looking for a specialized adult scholarship that
might possibly fit someone in my situation.  By situation I mean,
someone who has turned their life around from drugs and alcohol, or
being a single mom.  Maybe there is a company out there with a CEO
that had a son/daughter die from drug addiction and so every year, he
offers a full scholarship to a sober member of society that has turned
his/her life around. Or maybe there is a foundation that offers a full
adult scholarship for a single mom. Or a specialized scholarship
relating to Homeopathic Medicine? I would prefer to see if there are
any scholarship awards for the above and if not I would accept a list
of adult scholarship/grant sites.

Here are some thoughts. I'm working on a PhD at Cornell, and as most
people in my program and field I plan on pursuing an academic carreer
(ie, becoming a professor). To my knowledge, most PhD programs in
pretty much any field at any decent university are fully funded. This
means that if you are admitted into one such program, your tuition
will be fully waived and you'll be given a reasonable stipend to live
on for the 5 or so years that it'll take you to get your degree. So
you don't need a scholarship from a corporation, or need to get loans,
or anything like that to get a PhD; you just need to get in. The
problem, of course, is to get admitted: admissions to these programs
tend to be highly selective (mine, for instance, receives something
like 350 applications every year, and admits only 5 or 6 people) and
are made almost solely on grounds of academic quality. So in order to
get into grad school, you first need to get an undergraduate degree
and do very well in it (have a good GPA, get good GRE scores, get
involved in your professors' research and get good letters of rec from
them, etc).

Now as far as I know, everyone who gets into college is elegible for
financial aid, so that might be an option (it's a route that the *a
lot* of people take, including single parents). On the other hand,
there are at least a couple of ways to get into a good university for
college, without having to pay much. Many good universities offer
merit-based as well as need-based scholarships, or a combination of
scholarship money and financial aid (you might ask your google answers
researcher to get you a list of these). An alternative is to go to a
community college for a couple of years, do well, and then apply for a
transfer to a university. This way even if you end up using only
financial aid and loans, you'll end up paying half of what you'd have
had to pay otherwise.

Good luck!

Anji - I doubt that incormation would be much help to the questioner.

Far more practical would be to simply begin taking courses online from
a reputable school such as Harvard but I suspect if she wanted to go
that route she wouldn't be looking for a full scholarship - she
doesn't want financial aid (loans), she wants a grant and will have to
find one for herself, but we can offer research about where she should
apply. What she is actually asking for, a full scholarship for an
adult, based on her recovery, simply doesn't exist which is why there
haven't been any offers to answer other than to supply lists of adult
scholarships she can apply for.

Thank you angi for your positive and uplifting comments and
suggestions.  I will put your notes in my hard copy filing system for
when I apply for grad school.

I suppose I am looking for a simple answer to be able to quit my job
and go back to school full-time and still manage to care for my
teenage daughter.  But there is no simple answer.  I have found it
very difficult to work f/t and go to school p/t and still be available
for her.

I will keep searching for a way to be financially able to do that, but
it may take until she is finished with highschool, which is only 4
years away.  In the meantime I can probably afford take at least one
Saturday class per semester.

Thanks agian.

happy, you can certainly apply for several adult scholarships right
now, just don't expect a FULL scholarship and you will have to do the
work of applying for all of them.

politicalguru-ga I don't mind you answering if she will accept your
answer - feel free, but what you offer is what I have been offering
her since she first posted the question so I doubt it will satisfy
her. Reading all the comments she seems to be looking ONLY for a full
scholarship for single mothers who have overcome drug addiction and
not just scholarships or grants for adults which is why I dropped the
question.

I have no idea why she wants to restrict herself to such a small
number of possible financial aid chances but that appears to be her
intention.

Best of luck Happy - what politicalguru (and I) have offered is all
you are going to find here so you should probably accept
politicalguru's offer.