Introduction
Applying to scholarships can vary greatly application to application why because every single application can have different requirements so that you can be more prepared and you can help your student win that coveted debt-free money now if your student is in high school or even in college they can continue applying it’s never too early it’s never too late to start so as far as timing.
So we’ve seen a lot of different requirements we’ve also picked apart really how to submit the best materials for each requirement that’s what our course the scholarship system is all about it’s how do we submit the best pieces for each of the requirements so that said if you are curious how to increase the chances of winning scholarships dissecting the requirements is a huge step in the right direction let’s begin.
Requirements
It depend a lot based on the award that your student is applying for so most colleges for example they will choose winners based on Merit so this is a lot of times on academic or athletic performance or leadership skills and so that the requirements will be surrounding those kind of things it can also be based on financial needs the requirements might be based based off of that so knowing the type of money now this will also vary on if it’s a legitimate scholarship or not.
Basic Information
Basic information we’re talking about name email maybe their grade GPA one of the things however that we do not want to provide is our social security number if it is asking that then that should raise a red flag now the one exception to this is if a student wins a scholarship and they need the student’s identification number for the University so they can send the money sometimes universities use socials it’s crazy some most of the time though these days students have a specific student ID.
Major/Career Path
major or career path so maybe it is a nursing based scholarship for example where they have to be majoring in nursing now you might be thinking oh gosh do we want to do those what if we change Majors most of the time they don’t make a student pay back the money they understand a lot of students change their major but in order to apply they do need to initially be in that major a third requirement that pretty much always shows up on a legitimate scholarship application are essays
Essays
essays this is one of the easiest ways for a committee to judge whether or not they want to give the money to the student it gives them an opportunity to sell themselves to the committee now while essays are pretty much requested across the board the prompts and the topics can vary greatly some might be pretty general ones that we can often pull from admissions or reuse for admissions if we are applying earlier than senior year like what do you want to be in why or where do you see
yourself in five years some of them however might be specific to the program for example through the scholarship system we give out thousands of dollars every year and we ask students why is it important to you to be debt-free why do we ask that it’s because our organization is so passionate about getting students through college debt-free and so we want to see that a student is as well another requirement.
Transcripts
That often shows up are high school transcripts now the things we want to pay attention to here is are they requesting a copy or are they requesting an official copy an official copy cannot be opened it should be sealed you order it from the the school and you tell them where to send it and they will send it on your students behalf or if your students including it in their application they might get a sealed envelope and they can put it in a folder along with everything else but they also might just ask for an export and they can upload the PDF of it so this really is something where the application can vary on how and what kind of formality they want to receive these transcripts.
Proof of Financial Need
another one might be proof of financial need so this is more so those scholarships or the grants that are
need-based so one of the most important factors in this requirement is submitting FAFSA we have an entire FAFSA
playlist and we talk about it a lot every family should submit FAFSA because a lot of scholarships will ask this
information but also most universities will not even consider students for their funding unless you’ve submitted Fafa now the last category of of requirements that I want to cover are
Supplemental Materials
things that students have to submit in order to show they meet certain criteria for example GPA it might be transcripts or major they might have to submit a proof of their major but it can also be things like I had to submit my lease to prove that I had expenses Beyond just my college bill or maybe it’s something showing the amount of credit hours that a student is enrolled in maybe they require them to be in at least 12 or 15 hours at the University so full-time if something is based on a disability maybe they have to submit some kind of medical paperwork to show that they actually have that disability so this is where it
can really vary depending on the scholarship now comment below what are some of the most unique requirements you’ve seen but there’s so many different things that can fall in requirement so I’d love to see what you guys have seen in applications and maybe we can create some tips and videos on those to help you all as well so that said there are scholarships out there for pretty pretty much every student even if they don’t have the perfect GPA or they’re not the Superstar athlete or
they’re not low income they’re it’s just a matter of finding ones that fit to them while scholarships can be available to every student that also means that the requirements can vary greatly because like I said a lot of times those requirements go along with the reason that they’re giving the money ultimately by starting this search earlier rather
than later that is going to give you the most time to prepare these requirements and your student they can create quality materials rather than just rushing to get them submitted so always the earlier the better but note that it’s also never too late all right so that said those are the requirements