When should I start applying for scholarships?

<p>I am a rising senior and I have not begun doing any research on scholarships. When do people apply for most of them? I got 235 on my PSAT last year, so I will be a part of the national merit competition, which I think starts in October.</p>

<p>Check with your school guidance department. They should have a list of scholarships that are available to students in your area. My kid has several local scholarships and the deadline for applications are early spring.</p>

<p>From your previous posts it looks like you will need a substantial amount of either need based FA and/or merit scholarships. If that’s the case, you are better off applying to schools that offer good merit aid for NM Finalists and and/other merit scholarships than on outside scholarships which tend to be for smaller amounts (usually less than 1k) and often are only for 1 year.</p>

<p>Have you checked out the NM subforum and the thread that has a compilation of schools that offer NM scholarships? For other institutional merit aid, you need to find schools where your grades and test scores put you in at least the top 10% of the applicant pool, so this generally means match and safety schools.</p>

<p>When to apply depends on the scholarship and the school, that information is on the college website.</p>