ISBN: 978-1-880463-25-3 | Publication: 2024 | Pages 384 • $29.95

Whether transferring to an HBCU or entering as a first-year freshman, which school or program is the right fit for your educational and career aspirations? Which schools are the right fit for your financial needs? Which schools are the right fit for your unique situation and circumstances? These are only some of the many questions to be asked and answered in identifying the schools that are the right fit for earning a 4-year degree to enter into the workforce or in preparation for attending graduate school, nursing school, dental school, medical school, or law school.

This book provides guidance across 5 areas:

  1. Identifying scholarship opportunities (institutional, corporate, and private).
  2. Expanding your understanding of the range of opportunities available through an HBCU and into the workplace, or in preparation for graduate school, nursing school, dental school, medical school, or law school.
  3. Identifying schools that not only have your major, but have relationships with employers in your career field.
  4. Expanding your understanding of the concept of “body of work” and its role in maximizing your scholarship, internship, research, and graduate school opportunities.
  5. Expanding your financial literacy in understanding college costs, risks of losing a scholarship, and burden of assuming student loan debt that may take your entire working life to repay. 

The guidance being provided in each of these 5 areas will prove invaluable for the student who is looking beyond being offered admission to identifying scholarships, being a competitive candidate for internships, developing networks with HBCU alumni throughout the public and private sectors, and taking advantage of the many partnerships between the United Negro College Fund, Thurgood Marshall College Fund, and hundreds of companies offering scholarship, mentorship, and employment opportunities. While attending an HBCU can provide a welcoming space and enriching “Black Experience,” it can also serve as a launching pad for graduate school, nursing school, dental school, medical school, law school, and employment opportunities that can only come from attending an HBCU.

Knowing the plethora of opportunities available to HBCU students, the forward thinking student will look beyond getting admitted and begin building the type a résumé or curriculum vitae that will make them a competitive candidate for these opportunities.

What’s in the book:

  • Why choose an HBCU?
    • Opportunities not available elsewhere
    • Unique career opportunities
    • Unique scholarship opportunities
    • Unique employment opportunities
    • Top employers of HBCU students
  • What it means to develop a “body of work” and how to do it
  • Identifying the right pre-application support
  • Self-assessment and setting goals
  • What it means to have a “high quality package”
  • Sample recommendation letters
  • How to develop the right scholarship, leadership, and service profile to land big scholarships
  • Developing a “hook” and knowing your “bfand”
  • How to research colleges
  • How to research scholarshps
  • How to align your major with your personality, temperament, gifts, talents, and interests
  • Why you must consider your future job before you enter college
  • Why you must avoid the student loan trap
  • How to create a high quality personal statement and write winning essays

Filled with examples of real students and their college and scholarship outcomes.