Scholarship Tips

Scholarship Tips

• Do not pay for a scholarship! This may seem like common sense but there are many websites that will offer to search for you in exchange for money and make it sound so much better. It's not. 

• Change the order of your search terms i.e., undergraduate nursing scholarships, scholarships for nursing, nursing scholarships, etc.

• Check out parent's, grandparents places of employment, social organizations, professional organizations they belong to.

• Be organized in your search! Start a system to keep track of scholarships and the details associated with them. This is especially important for scholarships you receive that are renewable each year you are in college, university, technical school. Examples of organization systems may include a binder with dividers, file folders.

• Apply for every scholarship you can!  There is no such thing as a waste of time when it comes to applying for scholarships. A "small" scholarship of $250 or $500 may pay for a book or other supplies. What other job pays you that amount of money for 15 minutes of work?? 

• Change existing essays you have already written to make them work for other scholarships. Be sure to triple check you are meeting the specific requirements for that essay as well as addressing it to that specific scholarship. There's nothing more embarrassing - or costly - than sending in a scholarship packet for XYZ Scholarship and having ABC Scholarship specified in the documents.

• Don’t be afraid to apply for scholarships that require essays!  Too often students don’t want to write essays, so there ends up being a ton of money left on the table for those scholarships that require essays! 

• PHEAA Scholarship Tips 

• Financial Aid Scam Sense