This is Part 1 of our Scholarships 101 series. In Part 2, we’ll cover How Students Can Maximize Institutional Financial Aid. In Part 3, we’ll cover How to Research the Financial Generosity of Colleges
There’s a ton of college misinformation out there, and a lot of it has to do with how to pay for college.
Haven't we all heard stories about a neighbor’s cousin’s kid who got a full-ride scholarship just for being left handed or being a twin? Do those low effort/maximum reward scholarships really exist?
And each year, new websites pop up promising "exclusive access to millions of dollars in unclaimed scholarship money!" For a fee, of course.
Many families new to the college planning process think their student can apply for private or outside scholarships (that is: scholarships not coming from third-party organizations rather than the college itself or the state or federal government) to make up the difference between a college’s total cost of attendance and the amount financial aid doesn't cover. But it would be a mistake to ignore Financial Fit or rely on outside scholarships to cover that gap.
In our Scholarships 101 series, we’ll cover:
Why applying for outside scholarships may not be worth a student’s time
How students can maximize merit-based aid and institutional scholarships
How to research the financial generosity of colleges
Today, we’ll answer:
Is applying for outside scholarships worth it?
Depending on the student, it probably isn’t. Here are a few reasons why:
The Time Commitment (part 1)
Embarking on an outside scholarship search is no small feat! Students have to comb through thousands of scholarships to determine: whether a scholarship is legitimate or spam, whether it is still active, and whether the student meets the eligibility requirements.
The Odds
Let’s mythbust the “millions of dollars in unclaimed scholarship money” claim. While there may be some scholarships that receive few (if any!) applications in a given year, they are often local scholarships for small amounts. More well-known scholarships or scholarships for large amounts of money often receive tens of thousands of applications each year, making them extremely competitive. In some cases, more competitive than your most competitive colleges! The Coca-Cola Scholarship, for example, receives around 100,000 applications but only awards 150 scholarships for an “acceptance rate” of around 0.15%!
The Time Commitment (part 2)
Say a student has already devoted hours to their scholarship search and built the perfect balanced list of competitive and less competitive scholarships to apply to. They still have to fill out the applications. That means filling out activity lists, writing multiple essays, sometimes conducting interviews, and… wait a minute… Doesn’t this sound a lot like the college application process?! Applying for scholarships can take as much time, work, and energy as applying to college!
The Return on Investment
After all the time and effort that goes into the scholarship search and application process, most scholarships are for fairly small amounts (a few hundred to a few thousand dollars) compared to tuition costs and most are not renewable after a student’s first year of college. So even if a student earns several scholarships for their first year, that student will need to “find” that money again for the following years. And there aren't as many scholarships available to returning students. Colleges may also alter a student’s financial aid package based on outside scholarships, so don’t assume that students can “make up the difference” with outside scholarships! Colleges and universities require students to disclose any private scholarships they receive, and many institutions then reduce their financial aid award by the scholarship amount. Every college is different, and some will first reduce loans before reducing grants/scholarships. Families will need to ask each college about their policy.
For the majority of students, outside scholarships are not the best way to pay for college. But for students who are tackling a scholarship search, here’s some advice:
Use trusted scholarship search databases like Fastweb, CFNC (for NC students), or check with the high school counseling department to see if they keep a list. Your school counselor can be a great resource!
Students have a greater probability of being awarded scholarships when they keep the scholarship search local. These awards can often be smaller but just remember: if you’re seeing that website banner flashing with Unigo’s $50,000 No Essay scholarship, so are thousands of other high school seniors.
Check with a parent or guardian’s place of employment to see if they offer any scholarship programs for employees’ children.
Study hard! Doing well in school and even on standardized tests can increase your eligibility for some outside scholarships as well as make you more competitive for merit scholarships coming from colleges and universities!
Before putting in time and energy into applying for scholarships, check with the financial aid offices of each college on your list to see how they handle outside scholarships!
And for the record, from what I can find, there was once a scholarship for left-handed students… but even it was an institutional scholarship!