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3 Smart and Easy Strategies to Win More Scholarships

The key to winning scholarships is just a little extra thought and strategy. If you want to win more free money for school, use these three smart tips to do so!

Getting a jump-start on the scholarship search can help a student qualify for more opportunities in the future and open the door to massive college cost savings for their family. After working with hundreds of schools and thousands of students over the past decade, I have found these to be the three easiest steps anyone can take to give themselves an edge and advantage to becoming a successful scholarship recipient.

1. Learn about local scholarships

Most school districts have a “senior awards night” or some other kind of annual event where scholarships from local companies, organizations, and individuals are awarded to graduating high school seniors. Contact your high school counselor’s office and request to be emailed the program from last year’s event. This will give you a list of all the local awards that were given away. As these scholarships are only open to local students, you’ll have fewer competitors and a statistically higher chance of winning. Although many local scholarships may be smaller amounts, you can accumulate these awards into thousands of dollars, so it’s definitely worth applying.

Related: The Ultimate Scholarship Guide: Searching for Scholarships

2.  Find out who won last year and why

Most companies and organizations that offer scholarships will post on their websites who their recent scholarship recipients have been and why they were chosen. Many also post the winner’s submission if creative work or an essay is required. You can also gather this information from your school counselor or online community forums and keep it in mind as you're applying. You don’t want to copy what last year’s recipient did, of course, but finding out what’s impressed the scholarship committee in the past can give you insight into what they value and may even improve your applications in case you’re not on the right track.

3. Find out who the decision makers are for each scholarship

Some local scholarship recipients are chosen by a faculty member or members of a school, whereas other scholarships may have their own committees to review applicants. Find out who the decision makers are for each of the local scholarships, then reach out to that decision maker with two goals in mind. First, you should thank the decision maker for their efforts in making scholarships available for local students; second, you should ask what they’re looking for in an ideal candidate. Asking this simple question will already define you as motivated, determined, and driven—which makes for an incredible first impression.

Think about it like a job search

Professionally, people are encouraged to research and prepare to be the ideal candidate for an internship or job. You can give yourself an advantage by taking a similar approach to the scholarship search. By learning in advance what scholarships are available and what the criteria is for the opportunity, you can strategically direct your limited time and energy outside of the classroom to qualify for as many scholarship opportunities as possible. 

Related: 6 Student Tips to Help You Apply for Scholarships the Right Way

With the student loan debt crisis in the United States having reached over $1.5 trillion (surpassing US credit card debt), it’s important that families are empowered to take a proactive approach to finding scholarships from companies, organizations, individuals, and foundations. Every student should start their money mission as early as possible. Use any free time you have plus these three strategies to give yourself an edge to success in your scholarship pursuits.  

Start searching for scholarships you’re qualified for using our Scholarship Search tool!

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About Jean O'Toole

Jean O’Toole is an educational consultant and author of the bestselling book Scholarship Strategies: Finding and Winning the Money You Need. Over the past 15 years, she has helped tens of thousands of students in the United States. Individuals collectively have been awarded millions of dollars by applying Jean’s scholarship strategies. In 2008, Jean co-founded Connections101, a company specializing in providing motivational tools for scholarship searching. It is her goal to empower students to design their paths to their future without college debt. Visit Connections101.com for more information, and follow Jean on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

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Ana Sophia Garcia-Cubas Assemat

Ana Sophia Garcia-Cubas Assemat

$10,000 Scholarship Winner, 2020

CollegeXpress has been an instrumental resource for my scholarship search and has given me the opportunity to try my best so I can graduate from college debt-free.

Asia Stockdale

Asia Stockdale

High School Class of 2021

CollegeXpress helped me overcome a huge hurdle. Because of the small town I live in, I felt like I would never achieve more. I felt like I could never go beyond because of costs. I feared I wouldn’t be able to find scholarships. I had no idea of where to start. With CollegeXpress, I easily found scholarships—they came to me. It was a helper, and I was instantly matched with opportunities to go above and beyond educationally.

Kyla McClain

Kyla McClain

High School Class of 2024

I found CollegeXpress when you partnered with Bold.org for a scholarship. I found your website, put my information in, and got connected. I only wanted to stay in North Carolina [for college] and not move far from home, but you all opened a door up for me. I started researching colleges you suggested for me. On your social media platforms, you also give really good test-taking tips that I used and suggested others to do the same. It helped me a lot on my exams, so thank you.

Melanie Kajy

Melanie Kajy

High School Class of 2021

CollegeXpress has helped me tremendously during my senior year of high school. I started off using the college search to find more information about the universities I was interested in. Just this tool alone gave me so much information about a particular school. It was my one-stop shop to learn about college. I was able to find information about college tuition, school rank, majors, and so much more that I can't list it all. The college search tool has helped me narrow down which college I want to attend, and it made a stressful process surprisingly not so stressful. I then moved to the scholarship search tool to find scholarships to apply for because I can't afford to pay for tuition myself. The search tool helped me find scholarships that I was eligible for. The tool gave me all the information I could ever need about a particular scholarship that was being offered. The CollegeXpress scholarship search tool is so much better than other tools offered, like the Chegg scholarship search. Thanks to CollegeXpress, I was able to apply to tons of scholarships in a relatively easy way!

Yuhlani Patterson

Yuhlani Patterson

High School Student

CollegeXpress has helped me find so many scholarships that fit me. They match me to colleges I have specific interest in to make searching for colleges way easier and more efficient. CollegeXpress refers me to schools that have my major of interest and backup schools if I want to change my mind. CollegeXpress also gives out their own scholarships, so you have even more of a chance at gaining multiple scholarships. This website has helped me de-stress from the pressure of not being able to afford college, [of finding] what schools are right for me, and how to find easy access to scholarships that most people never knew existed.

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