<p>How and when to search and apply for them? Before or after (or simultaneously with) completing college applications? There are so many scholarship-searching sites out there - which are the most reliable/convenient ... and rewarding? :) What kind of outside scholarships are the most generous/realistic to get for good students - based on their merits only (grades, test scores, academic/creative achievements etc.)? How to search and apply for those?</p>
<p>So far, all of this is "greek" for us and it's time for my D to start college apps ... Any advice on the subj?</p>
<p>D actually did most of her local scholarship applications after applying for school. She applied all EA, so by November, those were all done and in. Took a break until after the holidays, and then began in earnest. The only exception were the larger national ones such as Best Buy, Walmart, etc. which tend to have earlier fall deadlines, so check those out. We actually did miss a few because the deadlines had passed. The local scholarships (Rotary, Lions, alumni, etc) all tend to have spring deadlines. I made it my "job" to search these out, and was a regular visitor at the GC's office in my school, as she was in hers. I also managed the deadlines and mailings - her responsibility was the essays and applications and such. We also invested in the Kaplan book of scholarships - well worth the investment as we found some that we had never heard of before. All in all, she applied for around 40, and although some were a long-shot because of our financial situation (high-end EFC), she did really well on those based on community service and academics, not so well on those based primarily on need. Bottom line, she has accumulated just under $10K for this year, and there are a few more that she should be hearing from in the next few weeks. It was alot of work, but because she got no FA from any of the schools, it has made a huge difference in what she had to borrow this year (just a Stafford Loan). Although we pretty much thought it had ended, just yesterday she got a personal call from the mayor of our city, telling her that she had been chosen to receive one of four community-service scholarships that were being awarded. Nice surprise, to say the least. Next up, starting to search for those that are for college students - not high school seniors. Good luck!</p>
<p>There were scholarships available for seniors due at the beginning of September. I found the best method of searching for available scholarships was to use the websites of other high schools within our state. My daughter also won $10,000 for her freshman year and a total of $30,000 for all four years. The money completely covered her loans and work study for her freshman year of college. These were merit scholarships. We did not have to provide income for any. She applied to 37 scholarships through her senior year of high school. Good luck!</p>
<p>Just a tip for someone starting out - take a blank calendar page for each month starting in Sept and thru the school year. As soon as you find a scholarship that you feels applies to you, write pertinent info on the calendar about it - name, date due, etc. That will help you keep on track. Also, you can write on the calendar any dates that scholarship say they will be awarded.</p>
<p>While it does seem the majority were due after the 1st of the year, there were a few due starting in September, so don't bypass those either.</p>
<p>I use a Google calendar to keep track of all of my deadlines. You can set it up to send you an e-mail say a week before the deadline, two days before the deadline, one day before the deadline, etc. I'm a perfectionist, so I have trouble using a regular calendar. With my google calendar, I can edit the information as it becomes updated, etc. </p>
<p>Start early, We missed a few ideadlines n Fall, because of the burden of getting the college applications out. Researching and downloading the scholarhip applications or links for on-line applications is a job a mom/dad can do. The student can put together an activity and awards list (like a resume) - might have it already from college apps. and write the essays - don't re-invent the wheel, my D 'tweeked' and re-wrote parts of her three college application essays for scholarhip essays. After writing in sections for the first 5-10 scholarship apps - the wording of certain answers started to repeat. So save the applications and re-use material. Applying to a dozen or more can be a lot of work. </p>
<p><strong><em>If you create a user ID & password on sites like fastweb - * Use and e-mail address you don't mind being spammed ** or better yet - set up a new one on hotmail, yahoo, google etc just for searching scholarhips. *</em></strong></p>
<p>We just bought one scholarship book & also went to Barnes & noble, sat at a table for a few hours and wrote down some other promising websites. </p>
<p>It's a huge amout of work....but even a few thousand $ of free money is worth it.</p>
<p>Oh yeah - forgot, our biggest disappointment was to discover that the outside scholarships - do not affect the expected financial contribution (EFC) that uncle sam says parents should be able to contribute to college (from the FASFA). If you get a lot of outside scholarship money, the student can avoid loans and work study (a good thing), but an excess of outside money and the school will decrease the amount of need based grant money given the student. Merit money from the school isn't affected.</p>