How To Get Ahead This Scholarship Season

Scholarship season is right around the corner. While you can find scholarships throughout the entire year, the peak of scholarship season is from November/December through February/March. So, now is the time to get your scholarship search process started.

Before you get started, you’ll want to consider these essential elements of the scholarship search process.

Understand Your True Cost: Getting a good understanding of your cost of attendance is a good place to start. Knowing the true cost of attendance for the schools you are applying to will help guide your scholarship search.

Prioritize Institutional Scholarships First: I highly recommend that you start with the scholarships awarded by the schools you are applying to. This is because the awards can be higher and because they usually have early deadlines associated with them.

Have a Plan for Organization: Organizations can make or break your scholarship search. Make sure to have all of your scholarship materials in one place, create an email specifically for your scholarship search, and have a tracking system to see your progress.

Manage Your Time: You will likely need to apply for MANY scholarships, so managing your time and having a set schedule will help prevent burnout. Scholarship searching is truly a marathon, not a sprint.

Vary Your Search Locations and Types of Awards: Get creative with where you look for scholarships. Think about local organizations, scholarship books, even your high school guidance counselor’s office. Additionally, look for different types of awards. Maybe you enjoy writing essays, or you have a unique hobby or passion. You would be surprised about all of the different types of scholarships that are out there.

Accept Rejection: Rejection is inevitable in your scholarship search. As I mentioned before, you will likely need to apply for many scholarships to increase your chances, so try to stay optimistic and normalize rejection.

Jenna offers one-on-one college affordability support and an online scholarship course called “Scholarship School”. To sign up for individual support, click here.

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