Let's take a moment to sit back and give thanks for the internet. Before the availability of scholarship search engines, students were required to scour scholarship listings one by one, looking for opportunities. Today, the job of seeking scholarships is still a great deal of work but still so much simpler than in the not-so-distant past.
The best source of scholarship information is contained on the internet, through a variety of scholarship directory sites. We have described some of the most popular sites in this chapter. Our advice is, go through the search process in four or five websites. Then, make a combined list of scholarships. (Be sure to note which engine identified each scholarship.)
Scholarship Websites
This is a great site with lots of information available as well as a search function called FastWeb. FastWeb requires (free) registration and development of a profile. The site offers a number of advantages such as a tracker that reminds you when scholarships you are eligible for are due. The site also provides an e-mail notification service when jobs come up in your local area.
The major drawback of this site is the level of commercialism associated with navigation. When you click on a scholarship offering, you frequently go to a window that offers some sort of deal. You must click through the advertisement to get to the information you are seeking. The scholarship search results also contain advertising-like offers interspersed with scholarships. We didn't find the commercial aspect distracting enough to make the site not useful. One of the interesting scholarships we were matched with at FastWeb is The Presidential Freedom Award. Two students from every high school on the country can be awarded $1,000 ($500 from the scholarship fund, $500 must be matched by the school or through the school's fundraising efforts). The primary eligibility criterion is 100 hours of community service. It's worth finding out if your school knows about this scholarship. It may not be hard for them to find a community match for the $500 and $1,000 can pay for a semester of books.
The Peterson site is sponsored by Thomson Publications, a major publisher of educational materials. There is a strong grants search engine that you must register (for free) to use. They were not all possibilities but in each case, it was reasonably clear why the scholarship was on the list.
Our personal favorite scholarship from this search is one titled, "Stuck at the Prom" sponsored by the Duck Brand duct tape company. The contest is open to residents of the United States and Canada. You must be 14 years or older and attend a high school prom in the spring. Participants must adorn themselves in stylishly "sticky" fashions made from duct tape. You must enter as a couple. There are three awards available, ranging from $500 to $2,500.
This very popular website has a strong search engine that contains an excellent representation of scholarships. However, one of the best reasons to use this site is the tremendous amount of resource information written by the site founder, Laura DiFiore. Ms. DiFiore has had a lot of experience as a judge and she provides marvelous insight into the process.
Sponsored by the Junior Achievement organization. This site's search engine boast a database of more than 8,000 private scholarship programs that offers over $35 million from more than 150,000 scholarship awards. However, we found the profile complicated to use (everything requires a code that has to be looked up) and found that the scholarship info was sparse, requiring a trip to the scholarship website before making a preliminary decision about appropriateness.
This interesting site offers a free search after registration and profile development. The search results include an indication of the value of the scholarship, maximum awarded, due date and relevance to your situation as well as a way to select offerings that are placed in a "my scholarships" folder.
Our profile matched with a "Got Milk?" scholarship of $7,500 sponsored by The National Dairy Council. The scholarship is based on athletic excellence (35%); Academic Achievement (35%); Leadership (15%); Citizenship/Community Service (10%), and the "Milk Experience" essay submitted with the original online application (5%).
The essay contest question is:
Read the linked New York Times Magazine article written by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Develop an argument that rejects OR defends the claims the authors make about sweatshops. Your essay--which should be longer than 600 words, but no more than 2500 words--may touch on any the themes the authors raise in the article. Your essay may also address any other examples/relevant issues or ideas that you think the authors have neglected. First Prize: $5,000, Second Prize: $2,500, Third Prize: $1,500, Honorable Mention: Four prizes of $250 each. Prizes will be awarded for the best essays as judged by staff members at aWorldConnected.org and our distinguished panel of judges.
This site, sponsored by The Princeton Review, provides a free search engine (registration and profile required). Our test returned the highest number of responses, 383, to our student profile but many turned out to be non-relevant and it was unclear how our profile had been matched to them. This site also offers a personal folder that includes a number of organizing tools as well as a registration service that matches you to schools.
Written Resources
Scholarship Directories
There are many excellent compendiums of scholarship information available in bookstores. You may not be inclined to purchase one of these books, preferring to conduct your search on-line, but we suggest that you either purchase a good, comprehensive resource or locate a resource in your school or local library that you can use. Why? Even though search engines are excellent, they are inherently limited by the search words that are used. There's great value in systematically or even casually looking through printed listings for scholarships that the search engines might not have picked up on your behalf.
Guidance Office Postings
Your high school guidance office will get dozens of postings for scholarships throughout the year. They will be posted on a bulletin board or available in a binder in the office. This is a great place to look for local scholarships that may not have been picked up by the major directories.
Local Newspapers
Search your local newspapers archives for scholarship announcements and awards.
Web Search Engines
Use your personal assessment form as a guide to doing internet searches, such as "chess and scholarships".
Warning! Finding Opportunities is Time Consuming!
Plan to spend at least 50-60 hours searching the web, entering profiles into databases, reading scholarship directories and searching newspaper archives. There's really no way around this time commitment. Each of these sources of scholarships is very good but if you want to be comprehensive, uses many techniques for identifying scholarships.
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