Funding College: Finding Scholarships

Scholarship season starts August 1st, are you ready? I am proud to share that I was able to complete both my bachelor’s and master’s degree without taking on any student loan debt, and I want you to do the same! The primary way I accomplished this was by applying for every scholarship I could find. This post highlights the best places to find scholarships.

One of the greatest mistakes I see high school students making when applying for scholarships is they find a few huge scholarships of $50k, focus all of their energy on those scholarships, and entirely ignore the dozens of smaller, local and lesser known scholarships. Working really hard on those huge scholarships is AWESOME but when it comes down to it, the more scholarships you apply to the more likely you are to be able to fund your education for free. Not to mention, some of those small scholarships are checks that go into YOUR bank account as opposed to your colleges bank account. This article goes over how to find scholarships available to you with an emphasis on places you might not think to look!

High school scholarship bulletins

The #1 place to start your scholarship search is your high school’s scholarship bulletin. These scholarships have been pre-screened to determine your eligibility and will heavily feature local scholarships that are reserved for students in your school, county, or state. This often means the applicant pool is smaller which increases your chances of being selected for an award. Your scholarship bulletin may be posted physically in your career guidance office, virtually on your high schools website, or virtually on your school districts website. A good scholarship bulletin does much of the heavy lifting for you by putting many scholarships in one place and including details on how to apply, when to apply, and how to determine eligibility.

Pro tip: Take a look at ALL of your local high schools scholarship bulletins! Sometimes other schools have different connections and as a result their bulletin will contain different information. I recommend spreading your search to every high school in your city and neighboring cities.

High school career guidance office

Another great place to continue your search is within your high schools career guidance office. Your high school guidance counselors are working hard to keep the scholarship bulletin up to date, but they are likely to have more information than what’s posted online. For example, if they only update the bulletin once a month and an organization just told them about a scholarship application that’s due next week, that one probably won’t make it onto the bulletin. Additionally, while most scholarship applications are virtual now, there are a few organizations that primarily do things on pen and paper. These folks may have dropped off twenty paper applications to the guidance office and called it a day. By stopping by the guidance office, you may have earlier or possibly exclusive access to some of these scholarships. And, as guidance counselors get to know you, they will think of you when new opportunities arrive!

Pro tip: Get to know your guidance counselor now, so that when scholarship season arrives you are the first student on their mind.

My high school guidance counselor Carol deserves a HUGE shout out for my success in finding scholarships. I visited Carol’s office every Friday before I headed out for the weekend to see if there were any new applications to pick up and she always had a stack of applications printed for me. She also would let me know of other opportunities she’d heard of that wouldn’t typically make it onto the scholarship bulletin such as essay contests with a cash prize. At my graduation ceremony, Carol was the one who read my biography as I was awarded a scholarship that I didn’t even know I had been nominated for (my suspicions are on Carol for the nomination as well!). Your guidance counselors entire job is to guide you and support you in reaching your goals. Make sure you know them and they know you!

College scholarship pages

Next up is the scholarship page on the website of the college or colleges you are applying for. All colleges should have a go-to place for scholarships that will connect with scholarships by area of study, areas of involvement such as athletics or music, and class standing (freshman, transfer, etc.). Most colleges will have what is called a “General Scholarship Application,” that you complete at the same time you apply for the college or after you have been accepted to the college. This collects all of your general information such as contact information, GPA, ACT/GRE scores, major, and activities. This automatically enters you into all available scholarships for which you meet the minimum criteria. After you complete the general scholarship application, it is important to re-enter the application to see which scholarships require additional components that were not covered in the general application, such as essay questions, a resume, or letters of reference. While ideally all scholarships should appear on this page, that is not always the case. That is why it is important to check your specific departments page, the pages of organizations you are affiliated with such as TRIO, and the newsletters sent out by the college.

Local organizations with service missions

Many people may be surprised at just how many community organizations host their own scholarship. When I was in high school, I was the ONLY student who applied for a one-time scholarship of $1,000 at a local masonic lodge. That application took me about 30 minutes to fill out and it was a guaranteed win (even if I didn’t know it at the time). The reason that these scholarships are harder to find is they are often not widely advertised. They go out in their organization newsletter to reach the children and grandchildren of members, but it might not reach a high school counselor or a scholarship bulletin. Seek out organizations that have service missions in your community and see if they have any scholarships available. Here is a list of service organizations that commonly host scholarships.

Local banks and credit unions

Banks and credit unions deal with money all the time and that includes scholarship money! These organizations often have scholarships that are easy to apply to and typically have a short essay involved. There is typically one catch – many of these scholarships are reserved for members only. Fortunately, nearly all banks have the option for you to open a free account with a deposit of as little as $5.

Employer and Corporate Scholarships

Very similar to local organizations with service missions and financial institutions, your parents and grandparents may work for companies that offer scholarships or education benefits that can be used for your education. Ask your trusted adults to reach out to their organization for information on any available opportunities. These funds may or may not be exclusive to the relatives of employees. Here are a few notable organizations that offer scholarships.

As you can see, there is a consistent pattern of national organizations offering scholarships for family of employees and the general public. Time to start searching!

Religious Organizations

Many religious organizations such as churches, temples, and youth groups also offer scholarship funding for their members or the close relatives of members. If you are a member of a religious organization, reach out to see what opportunities are available to you. If you are not a member of a religious organization but have family members who are, find out what scholarships are available and make a serious effort to be involved in the organization for applying. The scholarship committee is always made up of members of the church, so it is to your benefit that they recognize your face and name. Consider volunteering for Sunday school, performing as a guest musician, serving food at an event, or other ways to get to know members of the organization.

Scholarship Databases

While I always recommend prioritizing your local scholarships, scholarship databases are a great way to locate national scholarships. The biggest challenge with these databases is narrowing down your search so that you aren’t sifting through irrelevant scholarships. The first way to do this is to completely and accurately fill out your scholarship profile. Your profile will consist of contact information, GPA, test scores, grade, area of study, and more. Having this profile filled out will filter out scholarships you do not qualify for.

Once your profile is complete, you can navigate the website a few different ways. Rather than going straight for the search bar, I recommend seeing if the website has a directory page which categorizes the scholarships by location, area of interest/involvement, gender, financial need, and more. For example, if you are a student that plays in band, you can search specifically for music and band scholarships. You can see a selection of the directory from Scholarships.com below.

Pro Tip: NEVER pay to enter a scholarship competition. Scholarships are FREE and should have no cost to you as the student.

Again, I highly recommend prioritizing your local scholarships first as the applicant pool will be smaller, but if you are ready to dive into the world of scholarship databases, here are some that are considered credible:

• Scholarship.com
• FastWeb.com
• CollegeScholarships.com
• Niche.com
• GoingMerry.com
• Cappex.com
• MeritAid.com
• CollegeAnswer.com
• BigFuture.CollegeBoard.com

Broad Searches

Broad searches, or entering key words on search engines like google or safari, typically take the most work and provide the least fruit. If you let yourself, you can scroll through pages for HOURS and find very few scholarships you actually qualify for. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a shot, however! It just means that this type of search should be low on your priority list and you need to have a strategy going into it. If you’ve already applied for all of your local scholarships and are done with the databases, here are a few tips for a broad search.

When I type “scholarship” into google, I get 378,000,000 results. If I spent just two seconds reading the headline and description of each result, it would take me over 23 years to accomplish. For this reason, it’s important to identify ways that you can narrow down your search by eligibility criteria. Use key words related to your identity, interests, and life experiences to narrow down your searches by a few decades! Here are some common eligibility criteria for scholarships.

Here are some examples for how these key word searches could look:

• Scholarships for choir students
• Scholarships for engineering majors
• Scholarships for military veterans
• Scholarships for single-parents
• Scholarships for First-Generation students
• Scholarships for non-traditional students
• LGQTB Scholarships
• Wrestling Scholarships
• Orchestra Scholarships
• Colorado Scholarships
• St. Louis County Scholarships
• Welding Scholarships

Thanks for stopping by my blog today, and good luck on your scholarship search!