<p>I just finished a week-long program/trip/scholarship thing. There were 10 winners and we all got at least $2500, highest prize usually being $10,000. Trip was completely paid for; we were smack dab in the middle of DC and didn't need to spend a cent unless we were buying souvenirs or something. </p>
<p>9 of us heard about it from Fastweb. :)</p>
<p>I got the lowes scholarship (5k) and the coke scholarship (20k)...I'd say my time on fastweb was DEFINITELY worth it...just find ones that are more specific to students like you (ethnicity, activities, etc) and you'll have a better shot at it.</p>
<p>but don't be afraid to go for the big ones...it can make deciding between colleges a lot more interesting. =p</p>
<p>nope. i applied for so many spent so much time applying and won NOTHING.</p>
<p>he problem is FastWeb is that you have to "compete" with a lot of people to get the scholarship. It's still better to research scholarships that require you to "mail in" the application and essays. You have a better chance to get these since a great deal less of people want to go through the trouble of putting a stamp on an envelope.</p>
<p>Hope that helps</p>
<p>haha nice advise genevieve27, but I think that is very very true</p>
<p>Best Buy weighs many things into its selection criteria, not just your GPA and ACT score, so I wouldn't count on that money just yet.</p>
<p>We found fastweb to be useless in our scholarship searches for my now college sophomore. I will not waste any time, nor will my other daughter who is a senior in HS now and in the whole process of apps and searching for scholarships.
I can't see writing countless essays and taking any time away from rigorous studying.
I do agree with the other posters that local scholarships are the way to go.
I am hoping that daughter # 2 gets merit money from her college as we found with daughter # 1's school, unless you are a minority, don't bother.
i found the same to be true with most of fastweb's " scholarships" too.</p>
<p>Here are the problems with fastweb as I see it. They have many good and interesting scholarships, but first you have to click through the advertisements and the pop-ups. Then when you're finally in the site, you have to pick through the scholarships (and more advertisements). There are "scholarships" like "Win $2,500 - No Essay Required" which clearly doesn't require any scholarship, just referring your friends to fastweb. There are also "scholarships" like AdmissionFacts Student Scholarship which requires a minimum GPA of 2.0, "no essay or testing involved", so what kind of scholarship is that?</p>
<p>I have used some simple resources to find scholarships. Two books come to mind: The Ultimate Guide to Student Contests (it's still available, but pretty outdated). Also the The Scholarship Scouting Report: An Insider's Guide to America's Best Scholarships by Ben Kaplan is also pretty good, but again a few years old. </p>
<p>I also use a website [url=<a href="http://www.ScholarshipMentor.com%5DScholarshipMentor%5B/url">http://www.ScholarshipMentor.com]ScholarshipMentor[/url</a>] because they send a monthly email with a list of scholarships. I've found the scholarships to be serious scholarships, many worth applying for.</p>