<p>I was wondering what sites people found helpful for finding scholarships and if anyone had any tips regarding searching for scholarships. Thanks!</p>
<p>Scholarship sites are largely a waste of time. The ones listed are usually for only frosh year, for small amounts, and hard to get. </p>
<p>If you need help paying for college, then you need awards for ALL FOUR YEARS. The best ones are given by the colleges themselves, so look for colleges that award for YOUR stats.</p>
<p>I see that you are considering attending UWash as an OOS student. UWash doesn’t award much/any merit money. </p>
<p>If your parents won’t pay for nearly all costs, it is highly unlikely you would get enough in scholarships to make the school affordable. </p>
<p>After going through the whole process, I really agree with mom2collegekids that applying to external scholarships is a waste of time (your mileage may vary though). I checked out books from library with indexes of scholarships in US. I found several of time my D was eligible to. We also learned from my D’s HS there are local scholarships. My D applies to several of these external scholarships and she did get 2 of them at the end. They are indeed in very small amount (compare with the internal one from school) and non-renewable. In addition, since she goes to a need met school that offer her a grant to fill the gap between scholarships and EFC, any external scholarship would just decrease the amount of grant. At the end, we did not gain anything other than a couple lines to add to my D’s resume.
If you really want to try, Fastweb is one of the popular site that you may find scholarship informations.</p>
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We also learned from my D’s HS there are local scholarships. My D applies to several of these external scholarships and she did get 2 of them at the end. They are indeed in very small amount (compare with the internal one from school) and non-renewable. </p>
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<p>Right. More likely, a top student is going to get the local ones…but as you said, they are often small and only for one year. Certainly not enough to put much of a dent as an OOS UWash student…and what do you do after Year One???</p>
<p>I wish my kid would listen - her HS keeps telling them to go on fastweb etc etc. Ugh.</p>
<p>I disagree that the small, one year scholarships aren’t worth it. They can pay for books, for a lot of the first year costs of dorm stuff, for some fees. What do you do for years 2-4? Find scholarships in your department, major, borrow the additional $1000 allowed on Stafford. When I was searching for scholarships for my kids, I found one that my daughter couldn’t apply for because she wasn’t (isn’t) 18. Guess what, next year she’ll be 18, so she can apply.</p>
<p>I agree that it isn’t worth spending a disproportionate amount of time on these scholarships, but if it is a copy of your resume (or moving info onto an app) and writing a 250 word statement, do it. If it is something you otherwise enjoy like drawing a poster or creating a video, submit it.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids is going to a ‘meets full needs’ school, so every dollar helps. Even if they don’t get the ‘freshman only’ money replaced for sophomore year, it’s still money we didn’t have to spend this year.</p>
<p>I agree with many of the above comments. The vast majority of aid comes from the college. Look for a college that will offer you merit aid or need based aid that will make it affordable, or that has an affordable sticker price. </p>
<p>Treat the other scholarships as a way to reduce your debt, but not as a way to make an unaffordable college into an affordable one. It is worth a few hours to search for competitive scholarships and to enter some of the scholarship contests, but don’t get your hopes up too high. </p>
<p>If anyone wants money up front for a scholarship application, that tells you it is a con.</p>
<p>The easiest scholarships to win are often local scholarships, including ones from local civic clubs and from your high school. However, they typically are only for a few hundred dollars and only for one year. Sometimes these local scholarships have few applicants. Go on websites of other nearby high schools to look for regional scholarships that your own high school may not know about. Schmooze your teachers and guidance counselors, who will likely pick the winners of the high school scholarships. However, most schools like to spread the money around among many students. </p>
<p>The main scholarship websites are useful for organizing the various scholarships and for highlighting deadlines. However, the ones featured on those websites also typically are overloaded with applicants.</p>
<p>If you fit into an unusual category that is in demand, you may find yourself eligible for larger scholarships. For example, African-American women who want to study engineering may find targeted scholarships. </p>
<p>In addition, many states offer college grants directly to middle income students. Some are need-based and some are merit-based. Many states do not allow these grants to be used at out of state colleges, or greatly reduce the amount of the grants for an out of state college. Find out if are eligible, and if it is a large amount, it may cause you to limit your search to an in-state college. </p>
<p>From earlier posts, it appears that the OP is looking for scholarships to help pay for a pricey OOS public that will give no aid and unlikely any merit. </p>
<p>Sure, local or outside scholarships for one year only help pay for books and such.</p>
<p>However, we want the OP to understand that he/she won’t be able to cobble together enough 3rd party scholarships to pay for UWash unless not much is needed (because parents will be paying for most/all of the $40k to go there. </p>
<p>We don’t want to mislead a young person into thinking that by applying to a bunch of these fastweb-type scholarships that somehow $100k+ will be gathered.</p>
<p>The OP has exactly two post, this one and one about the weather in Washington. How is one to know how much she’s looking for in scholarships?</p>
<p>^
The OP is looking at an OOS school that offers virtually no scholarships to OOS students. She is now asking for hints on where to find scholarships. It’s probably not a bad idea to warn the OP that scholarships from outside sources will generally only cover freshman year. If the OP’s parent is willing to be full pay, fine, but we haven’t seen that yet.</p>
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<p>Right…but they probably won’t even “cover”" freshman year. More likely, if any are received, they will only make a small dent in the costs.</p>
<p>The OP needs to clarify his/her situation. He/she needs to ask the parents how much they will pay each year. </p>