Oh, spring. The season of college acceptances (if you’re in high school), slogging until Spring Break, and everyone’s favorite: scholarship applications. (If you’re really committed to the grind, every season is scholarship season, but that can be exhausting.) Some misguided part of my high school senior brain thought I was done with applications after I got into college. It really doesn’t ever end (unless you graduate, I guess). However, don’t let the looming mountain of scholarship applications scare you off! As I’ve navigated this application season, here are the tips I’ve used to make it through.
- Start early
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Yes, everyone says this, but it really helps! You don’t want to be rushing out a whole essay 30 minutes before the deadline. That won’t be the best representation of you, and it will only hurt your chances of getting a scholarship.
- Keep your answers in a Google Doc
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Any word processor, like Pages or Word, will work! The important thing is that your answers are saved somewhere outside of the scholarship application, so you won’t lose all your work if the system crashes. You also can reuse answers on other scholarship applications later!
- Phone a friend
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Body doubling, where you find someone to just sit with you while you get things done, has been incredibly helpful for me. Knowing someone’s “watching” me keeps me off my phone and more motivated to get work done. You can even use someone on FaceTime (I used my mom last week)!
- little scholarships add up
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Yes, those $50,000 scholarships are awesome, and I’m not saying don’t apply to those! However, don’t ignore the $1,000 or even $500 scholarships. Everything adds up, and even a little money makes a difference!
- Look Local
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In a similar vein, look for scholarships that may have a smaller range of applicants. Common ones include high school-specific, home county-specific, and major-specific scholarships. There are also hundreds of scholarships for specific demographics. Since these have less applicants, your chances of winning are better!
- Don’t Give Up
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It can be discouraging if you spend hours applying for scholarships and end up with nothing. Just remember: scholarships are super competitive— college is expensive! Keep searching and applying throughout the year. If you aren’t applying, you definitely won’t get anything.
Happy applying, everyone! (Summer will be here before you know it!)