Summer after junior year in high school is a great time for you to start looking and applying for scholarships. Why? You’ll get more for your efforts.
It’s not something most applicants are aware of until they start applying, but finding and applying to scholarships is very similar to the process of applying to college. And you’re supposed to do this at the same time that you’re trying to get your college applications done. While you’re still doing college research and haven’t started writing essays yet, it’s helpful to put some of your time toward scholarship applications. Many scholarships will require an essay or at least a short paragraph answering a specific prompt. These can help you brainstorm essay topics for your personal statement and supplemental essays that you’ll need to write later on, so it’s good to get some practice early on in the summer and consolidate your ideas.
To get you started, here are 5 tips that can help you find the scholarships you need:
1. Talk to Your Parents & Assess Your Financial Need
Before you start applying for scholarships, it’s important to first understand how much scholarship money you need. While it’s never really hurts to get as much scholarship money as you can, you also don’t want to spend too much of your time on it when you’ve already hit your goal.
Talk to your parents and assess your financial need. Be realistic about where you’re applying and how that cost will vary. If you’re applying in-state, the tuition is going to be much less than if you applied out-of-state or to a private university. If you are looking to apply a range of schools, then this will help you have a framework of how much you should get in external scholarships.
2. Meet with your Counselor
Talk to your counselor about your financial needs and inquire about scholarships you might qualify for. Counselors will be the best resource for you when it comes to local scholarships that aren’t as well known. They will also more likely be specific to you. In addition, you can also inquire about any merit-based scholarships that you might qualify for. Some do not require a counselor’s nomination, while some do, so be sure to ask and at least get on your counselor’s radar!
3. Look at Your Extracurricular Resume
You’ll be surprised by the type of scholarships that are out there. There’s the Vegetarian Resource Group Scholarship, which is offered to students who promote vegetarianism at their school, or Clowns of America International Scholarship, which is offered to students who are part of programs that are centered around family entertainment educational programs. Whatever student organization you’re apart of, you should do research to see if any scholarships are offered for students who have been involved.
Additionally, you can also look up scholarships related to your ethnicity, heritage, religion, and home country. There are also a lot of organizations that support American students who come from different cultural backgrounds, so don’t miss out on those either!
4. Be Organized
Much like college applications, scholarships can be a lot to handle simply because of the volume of scholarships. Whether it’s a spreadsheet or document, keep a record of the scholarships you have already applied to and the ones you want to apply to. Write down the scholarship deadline and the date you submitted the scholarships. This way you can always follow up with the organization after the scholarship deadline has passed to see if the results have been announced.
It might also be wise create a separate email account, specifically for scholarships. You’ll get a lot of confirmation and follow up emails, and you may not want that to be mixed in with the other emails you have. Just remember to check it once in awhile!
5. Take Advantage of Scholarship Resources
Apart from your counselor, there are a lot of scholarship online resources. There are scholarship search engines you can utilize: Scholarships.com, Unigo, FastWeb, Scholarship Owl, and Scholly. You will be able to filter based on your demographics and search by keywords as well.
Now that you’re through these tips, it’s time for you to start searching for those scholarships! Need some more scholarship advice? Check out our blog for more advice about applying to scholarships from our College Admits.
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