Applying for scholarships with great success; knowing ahead of time

I volunteered to teach small classes of college students how to apply for scholarships in community college. The unfortunate component is that the key points that scholarship committees are looking for you can’t just can’t get instantly. My thoughts are the timing needs to be earlier. Student loans are not getting any easier to pay off. All kinds of money in scholarships a lot of times doesn’t even get claimed. But by the time students get to college is almost a little too late to be writing the winning application because most of them are not ready. Community involvement, volunteer time, the winners of the bulk of these applications are the ones who come prepared participating in a few clubs or sports. Because the clubs and sports automatically incorporate giving back to the community. That is the difference between the students winning scholarships and the ones that may have better luck next year. How to get this information to the next generation just a little bit earlier is key.