Hi, I was wondering when would be the best time to apply for scholarships. I am currently a junior, and I have no idea when I should start applying, and when it is too late. Can someone please help? Thanks so much.
There are two basic groups of scholarships for which you can apply, as far as I’m concerned.
There are those scholarships that are awarded by the individual colleges to which you apply. You’ll typically be notified of them by the college’s Scholarships and Financial Aid (FA) office within, or in addition to, your freshman acceptance packet. Each school’s website will have instructions as to when and how to apply for these scholarships. So, you’ll apply to the school, and then you’ll consult their webpages to learn how and when to apply for that school’s scholarships. (Some schools don’t require a separate scholarship application. Instead, freshmen applicants are considered for all possible awards.)
And then there are independent scholarships. These are often much harder to come by. One can spend a lot of time researching them and applying for them, only to discover that they did not earn a single one. The exception to this, in our family’s experience, has been those that are awarded by the local community and school district. Applying for those has been time well spent.
So, in the second group, there are those independent scholarships like Best Buy, KFC, and tons of others (hard to come by), and there are those from your local community and school district (more likely).
Your high school guidance counselor’s office should have some information about what’s available in your school, district, and community.
The deadlines for all of these independent scholarships will vary but are generally in, say, October through March of one’s senior year of high school.
Good luck!
Many scholarships have a window for applications, and you must apply during that window. Some will start to be available to you this summer, so you are right to start thinking about it. You can make a list with the dates, the requirements, when you sent the application in, when the winner should be announced.
What is your situation?
Do you need scholarships to help pay for much/all of your 4 years of college?
The best awards come from the colleges that give them since they’re typically for all four years. Private awards are often small and only for frosh year.
As an aside, the Best Buy Scholarship has been discontinued and the KFC is not open only to employees. Just FYI.