<p>Just yesterday, a very persuasive representative from Security National Life's Higher Education Division offered me the opportunity to personally match me to their private database of over 207,000 obscure scholarships. However, their minimum rate is $75/month. I'll be given the opportunity to fill out a questionnaire, and he will return on average 80pgs of scholarship money to submit one by one.</p>
<p>The representative mentioned that some of these scholarships go to people just for physical traits (i.e. hazel eyes)! Is this true?</p>
<p>I'm skeptical whether I should take his offer. It sounds great, but I've also remembered several articles in past years mentioning that students generally shouldn't be paying someone to secure the grants/scholarships because this can be done online for free. I need to give him an answer tomorrow; it's a good offer but I'm skeptical whether it's really necessary to pay an expert.</p>
<p>How reliable is SNL and is it generally worth paying these professionals?</p>
<p>Definitely sounds like a scam and I would not do it. Any legit scholarship does not require applicants to pay anything. The same is true for scholarship searches (although not necessarily for counselors who are working with kids to position them for institutional scholarships). Try fastweb first - you’ll get many pages of results, and yes some of them will be the weird ones.</p>
<p>I agree, sounds like a scam, buy “Paying for College Without Going Broke” Princeton Review for about 20 bucks. New one is coming out in October. Use your estimated income taxes for 2009 with the 2010 Edition. Calculate your own EFC’s and become an educated consumer. </p>
<p>The book will pay for itself and then some!</p>
<p>1) This is a scam, you should never have to pay for a list of scholarships, and usually those scholarships in the paid lists are the same ones you can find on FastWeb or some other free service. $75/month is outrageous. If you get it for let’s say from September until March, when most deadlines are over, that’s $525. That could pay for your books for first semester (or all your application fees!)</p>
<p>2) Even if it wasn’t, he doesn’t need an answer by tomorrow. He’s offering you a service and he wants YOUR money; when you are spending YOUR money, you get to decide when you give it to them. If you told him “I won’t give it to you tomorrow” and then came back two weeks later and decided you wanted it, they would sell it to you. They give you short time frames in an effort to make you think that you don’t have time to think, and then you make hasty decisions.</p>