“Oh scholarships, where are you?”

Now that you’ve articulated your dream and know a little more about yourself, it’s time to look for scholarships.  For the second part of the boot camp our goal is to find you one scholarship and start the application process.  How do you do this?

The easy way is to go to fastweb.com or scholarships.com and conduct an online search for scholarships that match the unique characteristics you wrote down in part one of the boot camp.  However, which sites do you think every other student is using?  The same ones.  You have two options to start your search.  Pick one and follow the directions:

1. Visit a large national database and create an online account.  Enter information about yourself and see what you get back in the matching list.  Do any of them seem realistic?  Are they good matches?  For the boot camp, just pick one and either save it on your computer or print out the details.  You may have to visit the scholarship sponsor’s website to download the application.  These national sites offer a very methodical way to find scholarships.

OR

2. Go to the online version of your local newspaper or the largest newspaper in your area.  Type in the word “scholarship” in the keyword search and see what results you find.  Read the articles and find one that matches you.  If you don’t find one there go to any search engine and type in the name of your city and the word scholarship.  Type in the name of your high school and the word scholarship.  I have often found small, lesser known scholarships by googling a few keywords such as “chemistry scholarship Wisconsin.”  These wildcard searches take longer but are more productive on a local level.
   
   

You should find one scholarship through these methods.  This can take ten minutes or two hours, depending on your personal profile, where you live and how well you match what scholarship providers are looking for in a candidate.  In my book I recommend a much more comprehensive approach but for the boot camp we are moving along quickly.

Once you find a match go back to your “About Me” list and see how closely you match the criteria.  At this stage we only want to work on a top priority scholarship.  In my book I show students how to rank scholarships but basically make sure it’s a good match before you go any further.