Your Personal Guide To Scholarships!

College is expensive; there is no way around it. We can’t all have a 4.0 GPA with perfect grades and participate in every single club under the blue sky, and that’s okay. That is the purpose of scholarships! There is a scholarship for just about anything – for being a certain race, for having 4 or more siblings, even for just signing up to a scholarship website! Since there are so many, though, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to find the right ones. The following is a list of ways to find scholarships, and what to do once you have found them.

1. SIGN UP FOR SCHOLARSHIP WEBSITES – These are a few websites that will help you out with finding scholarships. They do send emails VERY frequently though, so I would suggest creating an email specifically for college applications and scholarships only, to make it a little easier to search through. An appropriate email would be something like your name, or your first initial and last name. “[email protected]” is not going to cut it, sorry!
   1. FASTWEB – https://www.fastweb.com/registration/step_1
   2. SCHOLARSHIP POINTS – https://www.scholarshippoints.com/win5/
   3. CAPPEX – https://www.cappex.com/page/account/createStudent.jsp
   4. SCHOLARSHIPS – https://www.scholarships.com/scholarship-search
2. KEEP UP WITH THE SCHOLARSHIPS YOU APPLY FOR – You have to keep up with the scholarships you have applied for;  it will be easier to see if you won or if someone else won the scholarship. I suggest having a bullet list. Write down the name of the scholarship you applied for, the date you applied for it, and the date they announce the winner. Try to keep them all together and keep it somewhere you can check on it daily. You could take a picture of it and make it your wallpaper on your phone! (This works anytime you have a lot on your plate, that way you can’t turn on your phone without being reminded of what you have to do.)
3. ASK TEACHERS FOR HELP – Chances are, one of your scholarships requires an essay, and writing essays may not be your strength. Find a nice teacher that would be willing to review your essay before you submit, but don’t wait until the last minute to do so. Teachers have things to do, too. You cannot give them an essay to review and tell them you need it tomorrow, give it to them as early as possible, it will give them time to review it properly, and give you time to fix or improve anything they may have pointed out.
4. CHECK OUT SCHOLARSHIPS FOR SPECIFIC SCHOOLS – A lot of colleges and universities have scholarships meant specifically for students planning on attending their college, so make sure to check those out as well when you’re browsing the page of your dream school. Ask your admissions counselor for scholarships specific to a school or major.
5. DO. NOT. STRESS. – I know, it takes a lot of time and patience to get through this, but stressing never helps anything. Stay focused on your goal and don’t let anything keep you from achieving it!