Do you need help finding scholarships?
Can you imagine knowing what you are looking for but have no clue of where to find it? It’s beyond frustrating because you not only want to find it, but don’t want to spend anymore time than necessary to find it. This is exactly how the scholarship searching process is for many students and their families. But, the great news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. If you focus on your achievements and talents, you can attract scholarship opportunities rather than spend hundreds of hours searching for them.
You need a scholarship search road map because no two students nor academic abilities are the same. In other words, following generic scholarship advice will only take you so far. To go all the way (and save time and frustration), you need to create a method that consistently gets results.
Create a personalized scholarship resume. A scholarship resume contains all of your qualities, special talents, volunteer experience, and leadership experience. This resume represents the endless possibilities of scholarship opportunities available to you. Your scholarship resume also gives you insight into what types of scholarships you should be searching for as well as where to find the scholarships that best fit you.
The best way to create a scholarship resume is to spend time brainstorming your special talents (singing, poetry, etc), qualities, and experience. Spend time asking others who know you very well to contribute to your scholarship resume to capture all pertinent information. Don’t forget to include your industry or association memberships, local organizations, and your parents’ industry or association memberships as well.
Organize the information for your scholarship resume by categories (talents, association memberships, etc). If you have items that won’t fit with the other categories, feel free to create a general categories.
Use search engines and local sources (library, school counselor, etc.) to find scholarships with information from your scholarship resume. You will take your scholarship resume and search for scholarships that pertain to the specific talent, skill, or association. After completing this specific search, you will need to search for general scholarships (gender, desired college major, geographic location, etc.).
You have the steps so now it is time to take action!