Tips for Applying

Finding Scholarships

One of the most important parts of the scholarship process is searching for and identifying appropriate scholarships to meet your needs. There are thousands of scholarships available to students through Internet searches and scholarship guides, but no one student will ever qualify for all of them. For this reason, a well-defined scholarship search can be invaluable to students looking for some extra money to fund their education, research proposal, or community service project.

The most efficient way to find a scholarship is to use a good, reliable scholarship search engine. Most internet searches are free and unlike scholarship guides that simply list awards, even when they are sorted by subject matter, the internet can help you filter out awards for which you simply don't qualify. This means finding scholarships that are best suited to who you are, both as a student and a person.

Choosing Scholarships

As a student with limited amounts of time, you should be selective in choosing the scholarships for which you spend the time to prepare an application. As mentioned above, there are many scholarships out there, many of which you could potentially apply. There are two questions you should ask yourself when choosing which scholarships are worth your time:

What are the scholarship awarding committees seeking?

The answer to this question should always be, “Me!” Before applying for a scholarship, make sure that you are the type of person or student that the foundation is seeking. You should be the ideal candidate for any award that you apply. For any scholarship, even the small ones, there will be a number of students applying that are the ideal candidate, so it is important to know beforehand whether you meet the scholarship requirements.

What does it mean to be the ideal candidate? First, your demographic and academic information should match their scholarship requirements. If they want music majors, obviously a biology major should look to other scholarships. Second, what you expect to do with the award should match what the foundation expects of its winners. Check to see what the funding supports-possibilities include education, travel, conference attendance, etc.

What are some of the scholarship expectations?

Many scholarships ask their applicants to accomplish many things before even considering the application. If you are applying for the Rhodes Scholarship, an internationally recognized scholarship for study in the United Kingdom, it is an expectation.

Obtaining Scholarships

Different foundations utilize different means to publize their scholarship applications. Luckily, many scholarships now have their own website where you can download the application and any other necessary documents relatively quickly. Foundations employ a variety of ways of obtaining their applications, this may mean calling their phone number and leaving a mailing address, filling in a form on their website, or even mailing in a request.

Regardless of how the foundation expects you to obtain their application, the most important thing is to obtain the application as early as possible. Leave yourself an ample amount of time to complete the application and obtain all the necessary documentation, such as letters of recommendation and transcripts. Also, some scholarship foundations actually have request deadlines. If you do not request the application before the set date, you will not be able to apply.

Read through the application.

Once you obtain the application, the most important thing is to read through it! The application and the information that comes with it will include essential information for the entire application process. A good idea is to read through the entire application, and make a list of requirements on a separate piece of paper. This should then be attached to the application. Since most applications list each of the requirements separately, it will be nice to have a list on the same page.