Tips to Get Money for College 13: Prioritize Your Application Process

Saturdays we share tips or cautions to facilitate getting scholarships or avoid problems

Jenny received scholarships to cover tuition from four different colleges. Of course, she could only use the money from the school she decided to attend. She also received a scholarship gift of a laptop from a well-known computer company. She wanted more money to cover food, books, housing, and more. She earned $26,000 from the Rotary Club, a local bank, and others. None of these specified how to use the money. She just needed to prove she was in school. We describe those as no-strings attached.

Prioritize Which Ones to Reject or Submit Application

Scholarship search engines generate lists of possible awards based on your answers to their profiles. Some, even a majority of the scholarships listed, will waste your time. You need to review each one to delete the ones that barely apply and save the ones that provide real opportunities:

We suggest the following steps to help you prioritize:

• Read the summary provided by the search engine
  • Delete all that indicate they are a survey or contest
  • Delete the scholarships marked “essays” that seem real or nonsense
  • Delete the ones that appear to be nonsense or questionable essays
• Click through to the actual web site of those that remain to read the details about the scholarship:
  • Read the qualifications, delete the ones that do not match you
  • Review how many awards they give and how many people apply, delete the ones whose competition may seem too tight
  • Consider reviews about the scholarship
  • Look for testimonials from past winners

Save or favorite the ones that you still think will warrant your time and effort to apply.

Criteria for Prioritizing the Order of Application

Prioritize when to apply for the scholarships according to the following criteria:

• Apply for the smaller scholarships first (resolve mistakes with smaller ones)
• Scholarships that reward the first people to apply rather than have deadlines
• Application deadline date (coordinate the multiple lists)
• Monitor those you may apply for multiple times

Monday we share Scholar-Box as a source of student financial aid for students

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