When a student thinks of applying for scholarships, they often can be discouraged by the amount of fierce competition involved in winning one. Unless you are Harvard material; in that case, many awards will essentially have your name written on them. But for the rest of us less-than-brilliant students who have simply done well in school and the community, here is a quick guide to finding scholarships that you will have a considerable chance of winning.
Your first step in the search for attainable scholarships is to research ones available at your school.
The advantage of applying for scholarships offered by your school is that you will only be in competition with other students at your school instead of students across in the nation; by doing this, you reduce your competition by a ridiculous amount and will have much better chances of winning an award. Both high school seniors and college students should go to their school’s scholarship center (in person or online) and get a list of all scholarships available. From this list apply for every scholarship that you are eligible for, and especially the ones that specifically match your major or activities (i.e. if you are an electrical engineering major, apply for all of the electrical engineering scholarships). Instead of competing against thousands of students nationally, your application will only be compared to a small number of other students at your school (most likely less than one hundred). Have good grades and write and outstanding essay, and there’s a good chance that many scholarships offered through the school will be yours.
Next, research scholarships offered by specific companies or only in certain regions.
Scholarships available only to a certain major (ex: an engineering company will probably only offer scholarships to engineering students are great to pursue, as once again, your competition will be highly reduced (only competing against other students in your major). Some companies offer, say 1,000 scholarships, and design the program so that a certain number of students from your city (if the company has a branch within the city) are guaranteed to win the scholarship (some that do this include Walmart, McDonalds, and Best Buy). Once again, this is to your advantage, as you are now only competing against the students in your city that bother to apply. So, go online and research scholarships offered by various corporations and stores; chances are, you have a good chance of winning one.
Look into government scholarships.
These are often offered to students at each school, meaning you will only be competing against the other students in your school. One popular government scholarship for high school seniors is the Robert C. Byrd Scholarship. Two students from every school (selection based on class rank, SAT scores, etc.) will receive this scholarship, which is worth $1,500 each year in college. For scholarships like this, go to your high school or college scholarship center and ask!
Here’s what NOT to do in searching for scholarships.
Try to avoid (or apply for last) scholarships where you submit an essay online to a program that you found through a search engine. These ones are available to all students across the nation, and are thus extremely competitive. The same goes for scholarships amounting above $10,000. Yes, it would be great to receive one of those, but remember that every other student like yourself is thinking the same thing. And there are definitely tens of thousands thinking that.
So overall, focus on localized scholarships that will be less competitive, and you will greatly increase your chances of winning one. Also, apply for as many as possible! Applying for 30 different scholarships might seem like a lot, but in the end if you win even one it will be worth it. Spending 30 hours on applications and winning $1,000 still equates to being paid over $30 per hour. Well, good luck and happy scholarship hunting!
Dec 30, 2008
