Steps to Maximize Your Scholarship Search

Scholarship season is right around the corner. While you can find scholarships throughout the year, the peak of scholarship season is from November/December through February/March. So, now is the time to get organized, and make a plan to launch your scholarship search process. Though many parts of the college process must be completed independently by students, organizing a scholarship plan is a great place for families to support their students.

Read on for a few great tips from our College Affordability Specialist:

Before you get started, you’ll want to consider these elements to maximize your scholarship search process.

1. 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.

  • Utilizing tools like the Federal Student Aid Estimator can give you a helpful starting place to understand how colleges will understand your family’s ability to contribute to your educational costs.
  • Net Price Calculators are available for any college and will provide a rough estimate of the anticipated costs for your family at the specific college.

(Note: these can sometimes be tricky to find. In your browser search: “Name of College” AND “Net Price Calculator” to find these tools on college’s websites)

2. Prioritize Institutional Scholarships First:

We 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, some as soon as November 1.

Now is the time to search for these opportunities on your colleges’ websites and identify what steps you will need to take to apply. These institutional scholarships may have additional applications and essays.

3. 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, consider creating an email or folder within your email specifically for your scholarship search, and have a tracking system to see your progress.

  • Organizing scholarship requirements, deadlines, and priorities is a great place for families to support students so that students can focus their effort in crafting strong scholarship essays and applications.

4. 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 and application completion is truly a marathon, not a sprint. Families can support students by prioritizing deadlines and organizing a reasonable timeline for submission goals.

5. 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 by all of the different types of scholarships that are out there. In general, the more local or specific the scholarship opportunity is, the better your chances are of receiving an award.

6. Get Comfortable with Rejection:

Rejection is inevitable in your scholarship search. Merit scholarships can be as competitive or even more competitive than college admissions. As noted, you will likely need to apply for many scholarships to increase your chances, so normalize rejection, anticipate hearing some “nos,” and keep an optimistic attitude about what opportunities may lie ahead.

Interested in learning more tips like these or have questions you’d like to explore? Register for our upcoming Live Online College Affordability Workshops here

These present an ideal opportunity to connect directly with our College Affordability Specialist to get your questions answered

Sign up for a FREE 20-minute phone call or online video meeting now so we can learn about your family’s college admissions needs and how we can provide support.

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