how do you find scholarships?

Paying for College
1

<p>I have been searching a little and noticed that some of you land yourself upon amazing scholarships. I can't help but feel like I want that too!
The only problem is that I can't find them. My only source of scholarships is fastweb. I don't know how it happens, but most of the scholarships they have for me are ones I am not even qualified to apply too.
What do you use?
I read that the best thing is to look for local scholarships - I searched over the internet but couldn't find such!! Ahhh... where should I look?
I might want to mention that I am going to be a junior (most scholarships are only for seniors or people already in college!!) so that is a problem... but I want to get a little ahead of the game because, knowing myself, I will be very stressed out senior year.</p>

<p>I will reallyyy appreciate help.</p>

2

<p>i primarily used fastweb and my counselor. the counseling office was an amazing source of scholarship information. just befriend a counselor and establish a working relationship. ask them if they have any information on scholarships. frequent the office, and look out for bulletins. local organizations (i.e. rotary) usually have scholarships. talk to seniors who are applying, so you can have an idea of what they're doing. that way, you'll be a head of the game come senior year. junior year--you shouldn't really worry about scholarships. just keep up your grades, remain involved, and start planning.</p>

3

<p>If you are GOING to be a junior, look up Discover Tribute (or Tribune ?) award which is exclusively for juniors. Then, I would tell you to start writing essays...
A) Accomplishments (write a long, solid paragraph each group: community service, sports, extra curriculars, leadership roles, and awards)
B) Future career plans/goals/college major
C) A moving experience that has changed your life or the way you think about things (I belive this is the most important essay of all)
D) Problem(s) that you have overcome - shows character develpoment
E) The general question: Why do you believe you deserve this scholarship</p>

<p>To get started, write each one of these essays. Concentrate on about 500 words per essay. Edit, re-edit, and re-re-edt them. You want each one to have depth, to show personality, to make the scholarship comittee feel like instead of reading a paper, they are exploring your mind - they feel what you feel, and connect with you by your essays.</p>

<p>Think about it this way: if you were super rich and had a lot of money to give away, wouldnt you want to give it to an intellegent, caring, and compassionate person - you must prove to them that YOU exhibit all of these qualities - the trick is that you must do it in an essay and you must sound personable to distinguish you from the crowd of other applicants.</p>

<p>Now, for the scholarship search: The short way ( you might get a few leads here and there) continue using fastweb, makeing sure to keep your profile (the tool they use to match you with scholarships ) up to date and go to other college scholarship sites - google "free scholarship search" and see what comes up</p>

<p>The long (but very beneficial way) google particular things such as "hispanic scholarships" or "soccer scholarships" and be prepared to pick through literally hundreds of websites - its like a needle in a haystack to find the good ones, but remember if theyre hard to find, the applicant pool will be smaller and your chances greater. </p>

<p>Here it is in a nutshell: the summer before your junior year, make a database of potential scholarships for your senior year. Make sure you have columns for "Name of scholarships" , "Category" (ex: hispanic, soccer, general merit, general need, etc.), "Amount" , "Deadline" (is this postmark or a due-by-this-date deadline?) and "Contact Info" (i.e. website, phone number, address, etc.)
Make sure to alphabetize your list because it can get very, very long.</p>

<p>Next step: make sure they are for you: use that contact info to make sure you qualify for them - do you have to demonstrate need? do you need at least a 3.0? , etc.</p>

<p>Now that you have narrowed down your list to maybe 20-30 scholarships that you possibly could be eligible for, wait till the beginning of your senior year (Many national scholarships have deadlines in October or November because there are rounds for applicants to go through) to start applying. In the meanwhile, this year, your junior year, work on making yourself SHINE through community service, leadership, grades, etc because 90% of the information that scholarship comittees will look at will be your junior year, as you cannot list many activites from your senior year when you are applying because it will not be over with yet. </p>

<p>I hope all of that information helps you out!</p>

4

<p>Sites like Fastweb do not include the biggest source of merit scholarships: those given by colleges themselves. </p>

<p>To find those: do a google search using your combined math and verbal score with the words SAT merit scholarship. Example: 1300 SAT merit scholarship or 1200 SAT merit scholarship
Do not put quotes around the search term.</p>

<p>This will turn up a list of specific colleges that offer merit scholarships for people with SATs at or above that range. It also works if you use a specific GPA, i.e. 3.5 GPA merit scholarship</p>