Thanks to inheriting Dad's klutz gene, you're hardly the star of the basketball team. And, because you've spent countless nights on the court trying to defy genetics and improve your jump shot, your grades fall just short of honor-roll status. Under these circumstances, your chances of getting a sports or academic scholarship to college seem slim. So where does that leave you?

At the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna, everyone has something special about them. What you lack in athletic or scholastic talent can be made up in other ways...

1. If you've got the height of a basketball player but don't play killer hoops, you're still not out of the running for a scholarship. Males 6'2" or taller and females 5'10" or higher qualify for the Tall Clubs International Scholarship. Write an essay on "What Being Tall Means to Me," and vie for $1,000 at http://www.tall.org.

2. If you're bummed you missed out on a "Best Dressed" nomination in the yearbook, make up for it by entering the Duck Brand Duct Tape Stuck on Prom Contest. You and a date must attend prom wearing complete attire or accessories made from duct tape! First place winners get a $2,500 scholarship and a $2,500 cash prize goes to the school who hosted the prom. Go to http://www.ducktapeclub.com.

3. Remember how tiresome it was being a kindergarten lefty and using right-handed scissors? Well, all your suffering has finally paid off. Juniata College (Huntingdon, PA) offers up to $1,000 to two left-handed students each year. Call 814-641-3142.

4. Calling all...duck callers? Yes, the Chick and Sophie Major Memorial Duck Calling Contest awards a $1,500 scholarship to the winner. First runner-up gets $500, second runner-up gets $300, and third runner-up gets $200. Call 870-673-1602.

5. See? This scholarship stuff is as easy as pie. Apple, that is. First-prize winners of the Culinary Institute of America's (Hyde Park, NY) All-American Apple Pie Recipe Contest get a $25,000 scholarship to the school. Second and third prizes are $15,000 and $10,000 scholarships. Call 800-CULINARY.

6. You may want to reconsider your decision to dismiss applying to grandma's alma mater. Hood College's (Frederick, MD) Heritage Scholarship is awarded to freshman or transfer students with a parent or grandparent who attended Hood as an undergrad for at least one full year. If accepted, your first year of college will only cost what they paid their freshman year. That means if grandma only paid $300 for her first year back in 1941, so will you! Check out http://www.hood.edu for details.

7. So maybe Klingon doesn't count as a foreign language, but if you plan to study it at college (the Klingon language, that is), you can enter the Kor Memorial Scholarship given by the Klingon Language Institute. Familiarity with Klingon not required. Go to http://www.kli.org/scholarship/ for details.

8. Betcha' never thought you'd find a use for that paper your teacher loved on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Guess what? Here it is: The Ayn Rand Institute awards $10,000 to the first-prize winner in its annual essay contest on the novel. Go to http://www.aynrand.org/contests/. 

9. To avoid competition with David Letterman's Top 10 list, we'll offer Letterman's own scholarship the number 9 spot on our list. Ball State University in Muncie, IN offers the David Letterman Scholarship, which awards the first-place winner with $10,000 and is funded by the university's most famous alumnus. With no minimum GPA required, this scholarship is awarded based on outstanding creativity. Details are at http://www.bsu.edu/up/.