How to Find a
From
Introduction:
Ask yourself a few questions before starting your search for a scholarship.
Initially, you should ask yourself how do you think you might qualify for a
scholarship. There are different scholarships, as mentioned above, and they are
suited for different aspects of the personality and for different people. How
do you want to qualify for a scholarship? Will it be on the basis of merit? Or
on the basis of sports? Or will it be on the basis of your artistic abilities
or your pressing financial troubles? Other than these reasons, you can be a
little creative and explore the different aspects of your personality. Do you
belong to a particular ethnic or religious group? What do you think your major
is going to be?
Once you have
asked yourself these questions and fully gauged your position, next comes the
step of going out and taking advantage of the various information resources
that are available to you. Go visit your college counselor, check out the local
library for more information, or talk to some relevant person in a community
you belong to.
It is a general
misconception amongst most people that scholarships are only reserved for
either students who have perfect grades or outstanding test scores or for
students who have pressing financial troubles and cannot afford college
otherwise. As mentioned before, this is a very big misconception, in fact, 90
percent of private scholarships are not concerned with grades whatsoever, and
80 percent of these scholarships do not ask for any proof of income.
Your first step should
be to fill out the FAFSA (previously mentioned, scroll up for more
information). The FAFSA is easily available online or you can get it at any
college office. You should send your form as soon as you can because these
forms are entertained on the basis of first come, first served.
One thing to keep
in mind through the whole process is that you can never apply for enough
scholarships. So do not only depend on FAFSA, take full advantage of other
resources available to you. The local library has directories of scholarships
that can prove to be very helpful in these situations.
Preparing in
Advance:
You should prepare in advance for your scholarship hunt because it maximizes
your chances of getting a scholarship. There are a few things you will have to do
in order to start your preparation in advance.
A lot of people
believe that scholarship committees look for people who have a well rounded
background. Well, if truth be told, if every had a well rounded background,
college life would be kind of dull, wouldn’t it? In the eyes of the scholarship
committees, it is better to excel at one thing. We are not asking you to leave
everything else, be well rounded and have different activities but concentrate
on one single activity that you are passionate about and the activity you can
take up as a hobby. Scholarship committee members can easily distinguish which
activities are genuine hobbies and which have been undertaken merely for the
sake of credentials.
Scholarships
concentrate on diversity, therefore, it is very important that you take up a
single hobby and go deeply into it. It increases your chances of getting a
scholarship. Of course, you should explore a lot of different options but stick
to the one thing you feel most passionately about. And remember, where
scholarship committees are concerned, quality is indeed much more important
than quantity.
Start practicing
as early as possible for your admissions tests. Buy preparation books in
advance, and sit down and study hard. These books usually have self-test papers
or past papers at the end. Take those tests and see how you fare. Recognize
your weaknesses and try to eliminate them. Recognize your strengths and build
upon them.
There are some
scholarship committees that let you apply for the same scholarship twice, for
instance, once in your senior year and the second time when you are a first
year graduate student. As the saying goes, if at first you don’t succeed: try,
try, and try again. Well, if you get rejected from these scholarships once,
most of them allow you to have a look at the reviewer’s comments. If they allow
that, then ask for a copy of the reviewer’s comments and see why you failed.
The comments are usually very specific. Try to improve yourself with the help
of these comments and apply again next year and chances are, you will win the
scholarship.
We can now move on
and tackle the difficult task of looking for scholarships on the Internet.
Finding Scholarships on the Internet:
Finding scholarships on the Internet can be a very difficult task. There is
just so much information out there that sometimes you get carried away by the
false promises some websites provide you with. There are so many scholarship
search engines out there, it is a mind boggling task to figure out which one
you should select and which one will work best for you. There are a lot of
questions that will be popping up in your mind. For instance which qualities
should you look for in any search engine or should you used a free search
engine or a fee based one. Well, we will provide you with a few basic
instructions that will assist you in finding the right search engine, and
ultimately lead you to the right scholarship.
The first thing
you should look for in a scholarship search engine is that it should have a
sophisticated matching technology. One of the most important features in any
scholarship search engine is its matching technology. It should enable you to
enter all of your personal information and then match you up with a scholarship
that you are suitable for. Due to this, the time you spend looking for a
scholarship will be cut down and you can spend that time working on your
scholarship application.
Try to avoid the
search engines that only ask for a few things and do not go very much into
detail about your personal information because these scholarship search engines
usually return hundreds of scholarships and you have to look through them and
find the ones that you are eligible to apply for. This results in wasting a lot
of precious time that you cannot afford to waste. The ideal service will be
very easy to use, very user friendly, and it will have thorough profile pages
that will enable you to find scholarships that match your profile very closely.
Another thing to
keep in mind at all times is to find a scholarship engine that provides up to
date and accurate information about the scholarships available. You wouldn’t
want to stumble upon a scholarship that seems perfect for you and go through
all of its details and then find out that it is outdated and no more available.
It is very disappointing and also it can waste a lot of precious time. Find a
service that offers scholarship information regarding the current academic
year. An outdated service will only result in you stumbling upon broken links,
out dated contact lists and discontinued programs.
You should read
through the search engine’s privacy policy thoroughly before providing any
personal information. You need to provide scholarship search engines your
personal information so they can find a scholarship match best suited for you
but several websites make money out of selling this personal information to
third parties so they can use it for advertising purposes. Therefore, be
extremely cautious with providing your personal information and do NOT provide
personal information to any scholarship search engine unless they have clearly
stated privacy policies on how they intend to make use of the information. You
could definitely do without your email box flooded with spam and unwanted
solicitations.
The last thing,
while finding the search engine that is right for you, is to make sure that
this service is set up to save you as much time as possible. It should save
your information so that each time you go to the search engine, you do not have
to type in your personal information over and over again. It should also have
necessary tools available to edit and update your profile according to the
changes in your academics and achievements. A search engine that provides you
all this and more will save you a lot of time and frustration and therefore,
will be the ideal choice.
Making your Search Effective:
As mentioned before, the quest of finding scholarships can be a very tedious.
You can, however, make your search more effective if you keep a few things in
mind.
The first and
foremost thing is to start your search as soon as possible. The earlier you
start, the more time you will have to follow up on different scholarship leads.
In addition to that, many scholarships have very early deadlines, if you start
applying for scholarships in January you will end up missing more than half
scholarship deadlines. Another thing is to start searching for scholarships at
an early age. Though most people are unaware of it, there are many scholarships
available for students in their junior year. However, students tend to start
searching for scholarships in their senior year when they are getting ready to
go to college.
Remember, you have
nothing to lose when you are applying. Plus, you won’t win unless you apply.
Chances of winning a scholarship are always very low even if you are a very
exceptional student, this is because a lot of students apply for scholarships
each year and the competition is very tough. That is why, to increase your
chances of success, apply to as many scholarships as you find yourself eligible
for. It is, however, a bad idea to apply for scholarships whose criteria you do
not meet. It is simply a waste of time because the scholarship committees
already have more than enough students applying who are well within their
requirements that they do not even bother giving a second thought to students
who are not meeting their criteria. You will only be wasting your precious time
which you can utilize in working hard for applying for scholarships whose
criteria you do meet.
Another thing to
keep in mind while searching for a scholarship is to apply to as many awards as
you possibly can. You should go ahead and apply to all of the scholarship
programs you are eligible for, no matter how small or insignificant the sum
might seem. Every little penny helps and if you get a scholarship, it adds a
line to your resume and it may even help you get more scholarships. Students do
not usually apply for scholarships that offer a small amount of money and
therefore, the competition is less and you have a better chance of winning
these scholarships. If you win several of these, they can add up to a
significantly large amount. As mentioned before, the use of up to date
information is very crucial while searching for a scholarship. If you are
buying a book that lists scholarship, check its copyright date to make sure
that it is from the current academic year. This is because hundreds of
scholarships are discontinued and several new ones pop up each year. If you are
looking on the Internet, check how frequently the website is updated.
There are several
scholarship scams out there. You should be very careful not to become a victim
of such scams. It is not worth wasting your time with a scholarship that asks
you for an application fee. When applying for a proper scholarship, you will never
have to pay anymore than the cost of the postage. Scholarships that ask for
money merely recirculate the money collected from the application fees amongst
the selected students.
Another way to
increase your odds is to apply for less competitive scholarships. Less
competitive scholarships are those which are not listed in most of the
scholarship books or national databases. Because these scholarships are not
listed in many places, a lot of students are not aware of them and do not apply
for them and therefore, they are far lesser competitive. Scholarships of this
kind include scholarships offered by local religious organizations or ethnic
groups, local PTA association et cetera.
Less well known
institutions provide academic scholarships in order to attract talented
students. Therefore, you have a great chance of getting a scholarship at a
second or third tier institution. If you are going to a less well known
college, you shouldn’t think that you are making a compromise because the main
difference between less known and well known colleges is usually the quality of
students not the faculty members. It is a fact that
Last but not the
least, you should know the organization that is giving you a scholarship. If it
is a religious organization, then naturally they will expect you to be
spiritual, if it is a corporate company scholarship then you have to let them
know you are interested in business. If you have to go for a scholarship
interview, make sure you dress formally and arrive early. Also, it helps if you
check up on the details of the company that is interviewing you.
Win a Merit Scholarship! But HOW?
The primary objective of any merit scholarship is to reward a certain talent.
Typically merit scholarships tend to be awarded on the basis of academic merit
or athletic or artistic merit. Sometimes financial need is also considered, but
the primary objective is given much more consideration. In most of such cases,
the person (or organization) who is awarding the scholarship has a certain
criteria decided beforehand which they use to select the winners from the
qualified applicants. In order to win merit scholarships, one of the most
important things is to identify the criteria they are aiming for and then write
your application with reference to the criteria.
One thing you need
to realize is that different scholarships are developed for different purposes.
Each scholarship has a certain goal due to which it is developed. Some colleges
provide scholarships so that they can get a diversified body of students and so
they provide scholarships for females or under represented ethnic or religious
groups. Some scholarships are developed in the memory of someone who has passed
away and the goal of such scholarships is to retain the values that were
important to the person.
You should apply
only for those scholarships whose criteria you meet. As mentioned before, you
should not bother applying for a scholarship you are not eligible for or a
scholarship whose requirements you do not meet because it is an utter waste of
time. Scholarship sponsors always receive significantly more qualified
applications compared to the number of awards they are offering. In the most
competitive of these scholarships, the ratio is 1 in 400 and the least
competitive awards tend to have a ratio of 1 in 10.
Scholarships are
awarded for being excellent at something. You have to tailor your application
in such a way that it draws the attention of the scholarship sponsor towards
the talent that is your specialty. You also have to make sure that it is well
within the criteria that the scholarship sponsor is looking for. Sometimes the
criteria is clearly specified but the other times you have to analyze your
application from the sponsor’s point of view to judge its true quality.
Last but not the
least, you should keep in mind that the scholarship sponsor is not seeing you
personally and can only judge you from the quality and content of your
application. So you should ensure that all the relevant detail is provided and
that your application gives a perfect overview of who you are and what you
stand for.
Finding
Scholarships – A Brief Overview:
A few tips on how you can make your search for a scholarship effective are
given in a summarize form below:
·
Talk to your employer and see if there are any scholarships available
that you maybe eligible for
·
Fill out the FAFSA at the earliest convenience
·
Talk to your parents and ask them to ask their employer about any
possible scholarship that is available
·
The financial aid office at your school can prove to be an excellent
source of information on scholarships
· If
you belong to a religious group, try contacting them with reference to your
quest of looking for a scholarship
· If
your parents belong to a certain organization or community group, check with
them and request for a listing of scholarships they offer
· Search the Internet for information regarding scholarships suited for you