The Frisco Education Foundation, or FEF, scholarship application window opens on Friday and closes Dec. 21, giving seniors a three week time period to apply for financial aid through the district.

“We have found that whether it’s three weeks or three months that the applicants pretty much have the same trend in when they decide to submit it and complete it and start their application,” FEF Director Allison Miller said in a previous interview with Wingspan. “So three weeks gives them a solid deadline with a time commitment, kind of rallying them to get the application done.”

With only three weeks to apply, students can feel anxious about completing everything by the deadline.

“I knew about the three week window from previous years and from previous seniors and I feel like it’s not ample time to put together a really nice application,” senior Alex Lopez said. “Also, it’s such a short period of time that students can’t put their best foot forward when they’re doing these applications because there’s not enough time.”

While some students find the three week application window intimidating, senior Brogan Gunia believes that it can help motivate students to avoid procrastination in completing their applications.

“I kind of like the three week window because it motivates you to get it done faster and it forces you to not procrastinate,” senior Brogan Gunia said. “I hope to get scholarships and it’s just helpful to have another application under your belt because that helps you later on as you go through college.”

Despite the short window of time to apply, the scholarships recognize students’ hard work throughout their high school careers with a financial reward.

“I think the scholarships offered are great,” Lopez said. “Even though it’s a short amount of time, it gives students the opportunity to earn money for what they have done these past four years and I think it’s really smart of Frisco ISD to really encourage it.”

The scholarship ultimately helps students who will help shape the future of Frisco later on in their lives.

“It’s our hope that our scholarship recipients will come back to our community to live, to work, to play, to give back, to pay it forward,” Miller said. “We have had several scholarship recipients who have actually sent it checks to fund scholarships for future students.”