Tips to Get Money for College 15: How to Find More Scholarships

Saturday’s we share tips or cautions to facilitate getting scholarships or avoid problems

Pamela was returning to college after her divorce. She worked with several community programs to identify sources of financial aid. She received a Pell Grant. She received a scholarship from an organization working with single mothers. We worked with her to identify 76 other possible scholarships from one search engine. She also used five other search engines. While most of the search engines duplicated some of the scholarships, they each located some that were unique. Her lists of scholarships totaled more than 179 scholarships.

Click It If You Did It

Many scholarship search engines require you to complete a personal profile to match you to scholarships listed within their database. As a result, they include questions in the profile that link to specific scholarships. When you click an option it adds a scholarship to your list. The more things you click, the more scholarships appear on your list.

The profile will ask for information about certain categories. Each category will have 40-50 different activities listed. You click on the ones that apply to you. The search engines do not ask that you have professional or extensive experience. They merely ask if had any involvement.

Some of the general categories listed in the profile will include:

• Athletic involvement
• Performing or creative achievements
• Membership in Clubs or Organizations
• Parents Membership and Activities
• Ethnic background

I suggest that you click it if you did it. Click on basketball if you played basketball in a county or church league. I’m not saying that you should click on things that have no relation or bearing on what you have done. That would fill your list with scholarships that would waste your time. However, if you did the activities, then click them.

Click It and Then Do It

You may also click something in the profile, and then do it. For example,

• Click a club and join it
• Click an activity and do it
• Click a creative endeavor then do it

Monday we share using Google searches as a source to find scholarships

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