<p>I am curious to see if anyone has actually won scholarship money by applying to anything found on Fastweb. I have applied to three scholarships myself so far but honestly no one in my school has ever been succesful. Even my guidance councelor told me that she has never heard of anyone win anything. Depressing, huh? Well, if anyone did get anything, he or she would be on CC. Share your stories. :)</p>
<p>I applied for a few, didn't get anything.</p>
<p>same...i hear all these good things about fastweb...and all the scholarships seem really pointless/stupid/ridiculous.</p>
<p>I think it's better to go to your guidance office and look for some local scholarships...less people competing for those.</p>
<p>I was a finalist in a poetry contest I heard about from there this year, but I never made it to the final stage (basically, I was published, but never won $$)</p>
<p>i agree w/ mmkay lol</p>
<p>My D who is in 2nd year of college applied for the past 2 years for many, many on that site - never heard on any of them.</p>
<p>Ouch! No hope then.</p>
<p>Some of the scholarships are reputable- but I had already heard of them from other places before I got on Fastwebs. A lot of them did seem really strange and pointless. I applied for a few, but didn't get anything.</p>
<p>I found the following information on the FinAid site, <a href="http://www.finaid.org/scholarships/winning.phtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.finaid.org/scholarships/winning.phtml</a> It's a little out-of-date, but you can get the idea.</p>
<p>"... all scholarship sponsors receive more qualified applications than they have awards available. The most competitive scholarships have a selection ratio of 1 in 400. The least competitive awards have a selection ratio of 1 in 10. According to the 1999-2000 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, 6.9% of undergraduate students receive private sector scholarships, and the average amount received is $2,051. That means that your raw odds of winning a scholarship are 1 in 14.5."</p>
<p>Fastweb is notorious for advertising national programs with very little eligility distinction. When anyone can type 250-500 words into an online submission box and be considered, there's a lot of competition. </p>
<p>Again, the best bet is to aim for scholarships that are state based, or local, or based on the parents' employment (a lot of companies have a lot of GREAT financial aid programs for their employees' children & dependents.) Awards based on religious affiliation, racial background, and hobbies also help narrow down the field of competition.</p>
<p>I like ScholarshipExperts.com a lot better. It has less of the online, national, "anyone can enter" contests and more awards geared toward state and county residency, major, and intended school. Also, I didn't get awards I didn't qualify for in my search results. Fastweb, on the other hand, recommended that I apply for a women's engineering scholarship and a scholarship for students in New England. I'm a male from Florida who never even considered majoring in engineering, so suffice it to say, my Fastweb results were not particularly useful.</p>
<p>Before applying for a scholarship, try to find out if they have posted winners from the previous year anywhere on their site. Sometimes the last winners posted are from 2002 or 2003 which could make one suspicious. D applied to several on fastweb and even email them 6 months past the deadlines to see if the winners had been posted anywhere. Never did receive answers. The sites that do post winners often post the winning essays too, which gives you an idea of what they are looking for.</p>
<p>I just won a study abroad scholarship for $5000.</p>
<p>Congrats, TehRahk! Where are you going?</p>
<p>That is true.. I applied to the full ride study abroad in Germany my freshman year and I came out with like $3000 for a year program... but that was like 1/3 the cost so there was no way...
I have actually applied to a lot of stuff through there.. but I haven't won anything.. hopefully something with materialize this year since there is more stuff for seniors...</p>
<p>Thanks, the Dominican republic. It was either the DR or Spain. I don't want to travel to Europe just yet.</p>
<p>The only thing that I've ever won from fastweb was the horatio alger thingy. </p>
<p>Fastweb scholarships are usually almost impossible to win.</p>
<p>I haven't really had much luck from Fastweb yet. I applied to a scholarship a couple of months ago and I have yet to hear anything. I didn't even get a confirmation email, which makes me think I should just chalk it up to a loss.</p>
<p>A lot of the scholarships in my results don't even apply to me, including graduate ones. There is a cool Harry Potter one I'm applying for that I got from there, but it's one of the few that have actually sparked my interest.</p>
<p>I don't think that the scholarships listed on Fastweb are even worth applying for. They are almost impossible to win.</p>
<p>I applied to 10 scholarships through FastWeb last year, and didn’t get anything.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I got $1000 from a local scholarship. Local’s definitely the way to go.</p>