Q.: Please send me information on the Scholarship Frenzy scholarship as soon as possible. Thank you!!

A.: The scholarship application is up at: www.scholarshipfrenzy.com/services/scholarships.jsp.

Q.: Please provide me with information on the scholarship that you offer (frenzy?). I could not find it on the website.

Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

A.: The scholarship application is up on the web at: www.scholarshipfrenzy.com/services/scholarships.jsp

Q.: I am interested in applying for your scholarship, however, I could not find a deadline date for either the the ScholarshipFrenzy or the IntotheBest Scholarships. Is there a page where they are posted? Please let me know.

A.: Great! Check out: www.scholarshipfrenzy.com/services/scholarships.jsp. Then click "Apply" and follow the link to "Scholarship Details" The deadline is Dec. 15, 2004. So you have some time to do research and polish your nomination.

Q.: I am 23 and going to attend law school in the fall of 2004. Could you please email me any/all information that would be required for me to apply for any scholarships offered by Scholarship Frenzy that I am qualified for. I am particularly interested in any graduate and/or law school scholarships that may be offered. Thanks very much for your help.

A.: You may apply for the Scholarship Frenzy Scholarship. The application is at: www.scholarshipfrenzy.com/services/scholarships.jsp. Click on the Apply button. Then read the scholarship details. You are also eligible for the open category for the free will scholarship at: www.intothebest.com/services/scholarships.jsp.

Q.: I am trying to find scholarships to assist with my college education. I have been accepted at San Diego State University and I have to have financial assistance.

A.: Congratulations: I know a fine graduate of San Diego State. Check out the scholarship at ScholarshipFrenzy.com and then look at IntotheBest.com and FastWeb.com. Also, do research to find smaller scholarships at your high school or in your community that aren't advertised nationally and look for money from your college for academic performance.

Q.: I received the following message from one of our high school parents. Any information about the password you are asking for on your site would be appreciated. Also, if this is a password to use within your site when would a student use the password again? One of the scholarships I found through FastWeb called "Free Will And Responsibility" leads into a website entitled IntotheBest. The site has required fields that must be entered, including an E-mail address, which makes sense. What surprises me is there is a required field (marked by an asterisk) for my E-Mail password; why would they require that? That certainly does not seem appropriate.

A.: Thanks for writing. The password is something the student makes up. It is encrypted and stored in a database in encrypted form. In the future, if IntotheBest or Scholarship Frenzy adds the functionality, students may be able to use the password they create to login to a personalized account where they would be able to say modify their essay or monitor their progress on reading the list of Books To Read Before College. I hope that clears it up, if you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Q.: I am a senior in high school looking for ways to finance my college education. Can you tell me more about the Scholarship Frenzy and how I can apply?

A.: Scholarship Frenzy is only for college students, but the deadline is December 15, 2004, so you can apply in the fall. Details are online at: www.scholarshipfrenzy.com/services/scholarships.jsp Click "apply" and then "scholarship details" in the upper right hand corner.

Q.: I have truly been inspired by your words and experiences, I applied for the college level Free-Will Scholarship and I am interested in the Scholarship Frenzy Contest. Are you still accepting applications?

A.: Great. We are still accepting applications.

Q.: I will be attending an ivy league college this fall focusing on communications. I am an elite athlete in figure skating and am looking for financial help towards my college education. If you have any information pertaining to this it will be greatly appreciated. Thank you and look forward in hearing from you.

Congratulations on getting into an ivy league college. Which one will you be attending?

Depending on your family's financial situation and the school you attend, there are possibilities for federal grants and college scholarships based on financial need from the college.

For example, Princeton changed the financial aid scholarship amounts in 1998 so that students would graduate without loans. I think that Yale and Harvard changed their aid package in order to compete with Princeton. Check with your school's financial aid office for more details.

Since you are an elite athlete, there are more interesting opportunities. Check with the NCAA rules and see if you could set up a foundation to accept sponsorships and let the foundation pay for your educational expenses as well. If you have questions about foundations, contact Roey Diefendorf Jr. at (516) 759-3900, Diefendorf Capital and 3 Dimensional Wealth.

For an example of how some of my clients are selling sponsorships to pay for their training expenses, check out: Gary Hall Jr. and The Race Club.

Ask Sarah Hughes. She is at Yale.

See if there are any scholarships created by professional ice-skaters for people like you.

You can apply for the ScholarshipFrenzy.com scholarship (once you are in college in the fall), the IntotheBest.com scholarship for high school seniors, and the Free Will Scholarship at IntotheBest.com for high school seniors.

IntotheBest.com and ScholarshipFrenzy.com have more information about finding scholarships. http://www.scholarshipfrenzy.com/financing/financing.jsp

Or download the IntotheBest College Guide for free to read the financing chapter. IntotheBest College Guide

Q. I don't understand, can you please explain to me how the scholarship works?

A. The point of the competition is to get people to think about what makes for great productivity and great client service. Learning about great companies helps us to manage our own lives better as well.

One of the goals is to make students think differently about their jobs after college. To generalize, most people at Princeton only want to apply to the same 5 companies: McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, Booz Allen Hamilton.

If students start thinking that there are other companies out there that do innovative things and will allow them to grow professionally, then maybe they will apply to smaller businesses that create more of the jobs anyway. According to Hector V. Barreto of the Small Business Administration, small businesses create three out of four new jobs.1

By offering the scholarship, students will submit information on interesting companies and then Scholarship Frenzy will post (after approval is given by the companies), the information about the companies, creating a portfolio of small businesses that positively impact the community.

Here are a few examples:

Thomas Stanley, the author of "The Millionaire Next Door" and "Networking with the Affluent" says that the best way to network with the affluent is to help them improve the revenue of their companies. One way to do that is to help them market their companies. The Scholarship Frenzy scholarship provides an opportunity for students to take initiative and help outstanding companies gain recognition for their work.

Seth Godin, author of "Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable" (New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller), suggests that businesses that are the same as everyone else are boring, but businesses that do things differently attract attention. I got the idea from a combination of the Business of the Year Award Program run by the Huntington Chamber of Commerce, http://www.huntingtonchamber.com/files/application.pdf, and the Bull Market 2004 Companies That Can Help You Make Things Happen program put on by Seth Godin and Fast Company Magazine, http://www.sethgodin.com/bull/application.asp.

The difference is that Scholarship Frenzy is offering a scholarship instead of just collecting entries and planning to publish the top 500 in a book, like Seth Godin, or selling sponsorships and $195 tickets to the awards Gala like the Huntington Chamber of Commerce.

Examples of leaders who think differently: Michael Dell changed the way we buy computers. Jeff Bezos changed the way we buy books. Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx created overnight shipping.

There are 2 things that differentiate companies, marketing and innovation. The Scholarship Frenzy scholarship enables students to nominate innovative companies and hopes to provide a new marketing channel for them.

1. Barreto, Hector V. “From beginners to BIGSHOTS: Welcome.” American City Business Journals 17-19 Sept. 2003, American City Business Journals.