You are most likely familiar with college scholarship search sites – but there’s many other resources available that you may not have realized. My College Guide has a list of sources to turn to when you need to find free money for college. As with many parts of the college process, it’s a good idea to get started before the very last minute (trust us, Senior year in high school can be hectic enough as it is!).
JKönig / jennifer könig
High School Guidance Counselor – Your high school guidance counselor may be one of several important resources that you may have overlooked! The fact is, many (if not most) high school guidance counselors have listings of state and local scholarships. These tend to be less competitive and can help you on your way to finding free money to pay for college! Meet with your counselor to see if s/he has one so you can get started searching!
Scholarship Search Sites – The world wide web is home to thousands upon thousands of scholarships and there is no easier way to find them than by logging in to a scholarship search site! Know how to tell a scholarship scam from the real deal and you will soon realize that there are scholarships for any student, from the skateboarder to the ballet dancer. Plug in your ethnicity, your intended major, your hobbies, interests, and talents, and see what scholarship listings you can find and apply, apply, apply.
Google, Yahoo, Bing – Put these search engines to work! Combine your hobbies or intended major into a search engine and see what sort of scholarships you can find. For example, type in phrases like “Hispanic college scholarship” or “unusual scholarships” or “photography scholarship 2010” and you might be surprised at what pops up. It can at least direct you to the scholarship database that contains the prize (since there are a lot of them out there!).
The FAFSA – You may be tired of hearing it and you may think that you don’t even need to bother filling out one more form because your parents’ make too much money, however, you just never know what completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid will get you. Besides that, many colleges and universities use the numbers from the FAFSA to match you up with their own institution-specific scholarships and filling out the FAFSA is normally a requirement in order to get the aid.
callumscott2 / Callum Scott
Books and Magazine – A visit to the library may just be in order. There are giant books at your local library that are just chock full of scholarship goodness. You might even come across the occasional magazine with scholarship info inside. While you can probably find most of them on the internet, it’s a nice break from
College Website – Know where you would like to go? While you should apply to more than one college, take a look at your prospective schools website. There is usually a dedicated page of scholarships for students. If you can’t find it, give your adviser a call and ask if a list of scholarships can be sent your way — though some colleges and universities do include this (or even a link to it) in their information packet.
