• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

SLA Media

SLAMedia is a publication of the news for the Science Leadership Academy community. Writers come from the student body in 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. We work in unison to create a functioning paper with biweekly postings on a variety of events.

  • News
  • Features
  • Sports
  • A&E
  • Op/Ed
  • Multimedia
  • About

App Review: Scholly

March 23, 2015 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Leah Kelly

Staff Writer

scholly-thumb

In February on ABC’s hit TV show Shark Tank, Drexel student Christopher Gray successfully presented the sharks with a new app that he made entitled Scholly. He then provided every senior at SLA with a copy of the app.

Scholly is a scholarship database application where students seeking financial help for college or graduate school  input different pieces information about themselves such as gender, grade level, GPA, race and major, and then the database matches them with hundreds of scholarships that they are eligible for. The app is currently $0.99.

While this sounds like a wonderful idea, there have been many criticisms of the app online. Even though it has decent reviews and 4 stars on the iTunes store, customers on Google Play have been less than satisfied with Scholly. There are a few major complaints including a particular major not being listed, outdated scholarships being listed and little to no options for undergraduate or graduate students.

Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 12.31.10 PM

Since the entire SLA class of 2015 has access to the app, we’ve had a unique opportunity to check out its strengths and weaknesses. In my opinion, this app and idea is nothing special or original. There are a bunch of other free websites and apps that do exactly what Scholly does and they do not match you with faulty scholarships, as Scholly also does.

For example, yesterday I checked my new scholarship matches online with Scholly and I saw that I was matched with a scholarship entitled “Oh, the Places You’ll go! College Scholarship” and it was a full ride. I excitedly clicked on the link to bring me to the website, and it turns out that the scholarship has not been offered for the past two years.

Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 12.30.35 PM

Scholly matched me with another scholarship that they claimed was still open for entry: the Dr. Pepper Tuition Giveaway. When I saw that it was for $100,000, I was really excited to get started on my application. I clicked on the website to view more information and on the homepage, it said “Dr. Pepper is awarding over $1,000,000 in tuition. Entries are closed.”

I am not the only who has been having trouble with this app. Senior Lisa Kang also remarked, “I don’t like Scholly at all, it doesn’t work. It makes you put in information about yourself and then give you scholarships that you’re not eligible for.”

“I looked at it once and gave up. I still use Fastweb,” said Senior Alaina Silverman. Fastweb is one of the most common scholarship search engines used by SLA students and students nationwide. It is almost identical to Scholly in the way that students input information and are in turn provided with lists of scholarships that they eligible for.

When asked how often she uses Scholly, Kang responded, “I was on it the first day that they [the founders of Scholly] gave it to us and then I was on it one more time, but that’s it. I don’t plan on revisiting it because I can just use Fastweb.”

Kang also shared her ideas for improvement: “They need to do a better job with matching students to scholarships- don’t list scholarships they’re not eligible for. It’s not helpful and makes this whole process more frustrating!”

“And make it more visually appealing,” Silverman added with a smirk.

Filed Under: A&E, Uncategorized

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

* Copy This Password *

* Type Or Paste Password Here *

101,361 Spam Comments Blocked so far by Spam Free Wordpress

Primary Sidebar

FacebookInstagramTwitter Snapchat

Features

New Teacher Profile: Alexis Clancy

Braylon Dunlap Staff Writer As many people know, there are a few new additions to SLA’s staff this year with a brand new member being History Teacher Alexis Clancy. If you’re in her advisory or African American history class you may have already met her but there are some other interesting things about Ms. Clancy […]

New Teacher Profile: Mercedes Broughton-Garcia

By Maya Smelser Staff Writer SLA recently welcomed Spanish teacher Mercedes Broughton-Garcia, or Ms. Garcia to her students. After spending 7 years as a science teacher next door at Ben Franklin High School, she is transitioning to life at SLA. Background & Family Life “That’s a loaded question,” Ms. Garcia replied when asked where she […]

Wardrobe of SLA

By Harper Leary Staff Writer Philadelphia is a diverse city, and the student population of Science Leadership Academy reflects that fact— not just with their identities, but also with their fashion choices. If you walk down the hallways of SLA, your head will turn every which way to get a glimpse of all the different […]

How the Pandemic has Changed Live Events

By Maya Smelser & Anouk Ghosh-Poulshock Staff Writers Everyone remembers their first concert. But when the pandemic hit, many tours were canceled or rescheduled. There was a hiatus from live music as people adjusted to their new lives– so many teens missed out on their early concert experiences..  In the past few months, however, concerts […]

How Are SLA Students Are Dealing With Their Last Quarter?

Leticia Desouza Staff Writer After a long yet quick year at SLA, students from different grades have experienced many new things they weren’t able to experience during the 2020-2021 online academic year. After almost 10 months of being back in school, students have encountered difficulties and new experiences that further molded how the rest of […]

Copyright © 2023 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in