Help Me Find Outside Scholarships!

Paying for College
1

I am looking for outside scholarships, no matter how much they are. But it is hard to find good ones! I’ve tried a lot of different online search platforms, but most of the scholarships seem ridiculous because they just want you to sign up for an email list or something. The no essay ones seem like a hoax because why would they even give you money, and the chances seem tiny to win. Where can I find legit scholarships that aren’t impossible to get?

Or if you have any specific scholarships in mind, here’s my info:
Woman interested in Product Management. Majoring in business and maybe also computer science. I run my school’s coffee shop, I have a 4.0, 33 on ACT after one try, I’m a junior, and have advanced proficiency in Spanish.

2

Are there any through your high school? Community? Workplace? Most merit awards come from the colleges themselves.

3 Likes
3

Visit your high school guidance office and see what they have. Our school has a long list of local scholarships available. And then pay attention this year who gets them. Because even though they may prefer a football player, sometimes it goes to the tennis player who doesn’t even know the rules of football. (This happened my son’s year.) Some scholarships also say merit based, but when you look at the recipients, it pretty apparent need based is a huge factor. (I.e. the recipients didn’t even take honors classes) This can help figure out which ones to target and spend your time, because they are time consuming.

Also pay attention to any award announcements in your local paper. My area had one for $5000 that was not well publicized. I only knew about it for younger S because his brother had won it and we got lucky someone told him about it two weeks before it was due. When younger S applied, there were only 3 applications.

If your high school doesn’t have a list, check local places like your credit unions, service/veteran/social organization (Kiwanis, wednesday club, american legion, VFW, etc)

3 Likes
4

Agree with the previous posters-local area scholarships are easier to have a chance, but you must remember that these are usually one time only, they are very, small, and they usually are not repeated annually. So, the following year, you would have to find more funding from somewhere.

  1. Our local high school had limited scholarships, but they were there. (Our Athletic Foundation award was $2K. The library scholarship was ~$250.)
  2. The Kiwanis give one out. (~$200)
  3. Our county Ford dealers give out a car and a scholarship (uber competitive, must be a resident and licensed, and is need-based).
  4. The local Credit Unions have applications for the children of members. ($100-$300)
  5. SWE-Society for Women Engineers has some great ones but is major-specific to engineering. There’s some shadowing involved.
  6. The AFL-CIO has a local one.
  7. The Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts have several.
  8. My children got ~$1000 from Dad’s corporate company. It was competitive and they were required to attach a copy of their acceptance letters of where they had committed.
  9. Starbucks, McDonalds and local businesses have their own versions.
    It’s going to take a lot of legwork and lots of transcripts/essays/EC’s to apply and there is no guarantee that you will receive one. The amounts are minimal and they will reduce any grants or funding that you receive from the college.
1 Like
5

So…you are a high school junior. The BEST scholarships will be ones awarded to you by colleges to which you are accepted…so start looking for colleges where your stats will garner significant merit aid guaranteed.

With your stats, you will do well scholarship wise at University of Alabama, University of New Mexico, Arizona State, University of Arizona…guaranteed.

@tsbna44

2 Likes
6

Also, I am aware that the most scholarships will come from the college themself, but I am looking for outside scholarships to add to that.

7

Agree with the others who suggest looking in your local community. Our HS has a list in the guidance office for everything from local businesses, Chamber of Commerce, employment unions, Elks/VFW/Rotary, as well as some given by academic departments within the school. While they are generally not for thousands of dollars, the competition for them is smaller because it doesn’t draw from the whole country.

Of course, if you need $25K to make the college affordable for you, odds are that you won’t get that from local scholarships.

1 Like
8

How much scholarship money do you need? What can your family pay annually for your college costs?

Will you be receiving need based aid as well?

1 Like
9

OP - Be aware that some schools will not allow scholarships to stack so if you get outside awards, they may reduce your financial aid.

3 Likes
10

I believe that schools do allow outside merit awards to be added to school based merit awards.

Need based aid, however, will be reduced at a lot of places starting with the self help portions of the aid (loans, work study). And these outside scholarships must be reported to your colleges.

Re: local scholarships…definitely apply for those…but most are one time awards only and are not renewable for subsequent years. But every penny counts!

3 Likes
11

and add to that parent’s employers - my company gave my son $1K and daughter $2K.

The local ones that are small are most likely but still not likely.

The national ones impossible.

12

@Thumper is correct - if you need to go to college for cheap, then you need to apply to colleges that can get you there.

Relying on scholarships from the community - if you’re extremely lucky, you’d pick up a $500-2K…but that’s it. And that’s if you’re extremely lucky.

If one has need, then applying to meets needs colleges makes sense.

If one doesn’t have need (as determined by each school individually) but the family is unable or unwilling to pay for colleges, then you go where the is auto merit - so you are guaranteed a scholarship. You certainly apply to one or two of these - just in case. Then you apply to other schools that could get you there - they may or may not.

@thumper mentions some great ones. Basically, you want to apply to schools where you’ll stand out.

Other schools that could get down (but like $30-35K) ish are U of SC, Miami of Ohio, and then FSU where you’d likely get an out of state waiver. Mississippi State also will give you an amount on its calculator and is cheap.

Don’t forget, these schools all have Honors Colleges - and they are loaded with super smart kids.

You can also take a “swing” at big money scholarships like the Johnson at W&L or Frederick Douglas at American…but those are swings. As long as you do the auto merit talked about above, then you can pick the rest of the list at schools that “may” meet my price. They may or may not. W&L is very aggressive - but my daughter was accepted with nothing…so she’s at a school where she has a scholarship that is $3K more than her tuition.

Here is info on three auto merit mentioned above.

At Arizona (at least this year), your tuition would be $3k-ish.

At Bama and UAH, very low as well.

Out-of-State Freshman Scholarships – Scholarships | The University of Alabama (ua.edu)

UAH - Admission & Aid - Freshman Out-of-State Academic Scholarships

2022-2023 Incoming First-Year and Transfer Tuition Scholarship Awards | Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid (arizona.edu)

13

The above posters are correct that if you get need based aid from the colleges, it’s generally not stackable and basically a waste of time. My older kid turned down Duke because of this. Their need based aid wasn’t affordable to us and there wasn’t a good way to bring it down enough

It’s also true that most of the local ones are one time awards, but not all. And the amounts seem to vary a lot by locality. Our local ones tend to be in the $1000-5000 range.

Mine got between $10,000-15000 for the first year with between $3000-6000 renewable. My older S had really high stats, but my younger one did better overall. We knew which ones to target better. And he also did have some good leadership activities and is a very good essay writer.

It is a good idea to make sure the college is affordable on its own. And then the scholarships are a bonus

1 Like
14

check out Coke scholarship , Elks scholarship , PMI scholarship