Caveat Emptor or Buyer Beware 16: Submit Applications Punctually

Saturdays we share a tip or caution to facilitate getting scholarships or avoiding problems

Susan sought scholarships. She started looking for them during her sophomore year of high school. She completed the profiles on three search engines. They indicated that she qualified for more than 570 scholarships and contests. She cleared the marginal ones, the surveys, and the contests. That left only 120. Unfortunately, she stopped doing anything and didn’t start applying until the last semester of her senior year. As a result, she only had 35 left on her list. The deadlines had passed on all the others.

Scholarship Application Deadlines

All scholarships list a date or deadline after which they no longer accept applications. You must apply by the deadline date. Remember the following concepts as you think of applying. Some scholarships:

• List the results from search engines by the deadline dates making it easier to remember when to apply
• Accept applications only once a year
• Accept applications multiple times a year and require a new application for each time
• Only award scholarships to students in certain years of school
• Close their web site once the deadline date passes
• Award their money on a first come, first serve basis with no deadline date

Don’t Wait Until the Last Moment

We find many people procrastinate applying for scholarships. They wait until their senior year to start applying for scholarships. You could miss earning tens of thousands of dollars by procrastinating the year you apply. For example, we have discovered more than:

• 85 scholarships that only award to sophomores in high school
• 212 scholarships that only award to juniors in high school
• 1,000s of scholarships that only award to seniors in high school

You may need money earlier than you anticipated. Most students recognize they must pay tuition at the beginning of the semester. They fail to anticipate additional costs such as housing deposits, lab fees, books, travel costs, furnishing apartments. They lack the money when they need it because they procrastinated applying when they should have applied.

Tuesday we describe the grants available to veterans and family of Iraq and Afghanistan