"Special" services

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I apply through alot of special ed "services" areas for mainly scholorships but ive worked with them throughout highschool and whatnot and ive found to my extreme annoyance that they like to applaude you for the most simplistic of things at times (my college one wanted to give me a freaking award and post my picture in a paper for getting a $500 general education scholorship) does anyone else find this excessive? anyone understand the actions here? is this typical?

I do not have any specific knowledge about scholarships or things having to do with special ed, but what I do know about is public relations.

Reading your words, what I see may be going on here is that whoever is funding these scholarships is, at least in part, exchanging money (the scholarship) for p.r. coverage (which they want for any of a variety of practical reasons). If this is true, then from the perspective of the donor, the amount of the scholarship is irrelevant and so is (I'm sorry) the person who actually receives the money; the aim would be to get the picture and the story in the paper so the donor gets public credit for their generosity (one example of a possible motivation).

Celebrities and wannabe celebrities are often told by the p.r. firms they retain that they need to become spokespersons for some cause which will get them favorable, targeted publicity. One of the things p.r. firms do for the money they are paid is to act as a matchmaker between the "right" celebrities and the "right" causes so that both parties achieve their goals (whatever these may be).

I don't think this has anything personally to do with you. The picture and the story in the paper is the "price" YOU are "paying" for receiving the scholarship money (or another way of looking at it is: you're trading a picture and a story for scholarship money).

This is my take, anyway.

i didnt do the picture thing it was an optional thing, also the scholorship is put out by my college. i mainly remarking here as to why they would go to such an extreme response to getting the silly thing (all i did was fill out a form) and i guess p.r. is likely i never really considered it like that.

Next time, go ahead and do it; I guess they feel they deserve it for giving you the scholarship. Anyway, $500 isn't small peanuts even if it isn't a full ride.

But yeah, I know what you mean. I got SO much "OMG you are amazing" for learning to drive. As in, the thing most people do when they're nine years younger than me. I know they mean well, and most of them are genuinely happy for me; but... well, it's kind of patronizing, like they never expected you to do whatever they're praising you for.

exactly

I didnt understand the concept of going through high school all for a day when you walk down the runway at your graduation and get handed a diploma. I'd rather just complete it then have them mail a diploma to me... its called apathy.

^Haha, same here.

I have trouble relating to the feeling of showing an achievement.

I didn't see the point of having a high school graduation ceremony either. I just skipped out on mine; I had the option since I was the only kid graduating that year. The entire school had something like fifteen students, so that was more likely than not to happen.

unfortunately I could not skip out on my high school graduation, there were only 3 of us and I lived next door. I was so happy to get out of there.

As for the scholarship picture, that's a common thing. I've seen the local university do stories in the paper for smaller amounts. It's all PR.

Well, did they actually list it as a "special ed/special needs" scholarship? Because I know that sometimes, they'll just do that for all scholarships (for the purpose of PR for the donating organization). If they're only doing it for your's, then it would come off as patronizing.

Or, they're doing it for a "Oh, look how generous and inclusive we are, we even let "special" people in at our college".