Are private scholarships worth it?

Will you win the scholarship lottery?

Once sticker shock has set in, parents and students often reach out to College Credit Cutter seeking help, hoping to find a magical scholarship to solve their financial woes. I take a dim view of scholarships based on personal experience. They also aren’t as efficient as the money- and time-saving loopholes I recommend.

Before diving in, let’s talk about what’s involved with applying for college scholarships:

• Locating the scholarship (Harder if not widely advertised)
• Amount of funding (Full-ride scholarship or a one-time payment?)
• Eligibility (Wide open to all or restricted to a certain group of people?)
• Application criteria (Need an inspirational essay?)
• Number of finalists (Is it winner takes all or can multiple applicants win?)
• Time and effort invested (If you aren’t selected, was the application worth your efforts?)

Locating the scholarship

You may have been told that there are a plethora of private scholarships available. All you have to do is look. There are indeed lots of free websites out there. Most frustratingly require you to create an account by giving up your email address. To bypass this obstacle, you can create a temporary email address, use an alias email address or a third-party website, such as BugMeNot.com where users share usernames and passwords to help each other access information on free websites that do not allow “lurking” or browsing without logging on.

Once you’ve settled on a scholarship search website, you can supply various demographic information about yourself such as age, gender, race, religion, intended major(s) etc. For our demonstration, we’ll use the CollegeBoard’s scholarship search tool instead since it doesn’t require supplying an email address. If offers filters based on current location, academic stage (e.g. high school senior, college freshman etc.), grade point average, scholarship type by need- or merit-based, degree level currently pursuing (e.g. bachelor’s degree). Results can be sorted by application deadline or award amounts in ascending or descending order.

You might be greeted with thousands of results. With so many to sort through, there has to be at least one that’s applicable to you, right? Let’s find out!

Eligibility

As you click on the first result that pops up, you’ll see a list of eligibility requirements. What are some you may find during your search? When it comes to the rules for private scholarships, it’s up to the donor(s). It’s their money, after all. Here are some restrictions that you’ll often see:

• Age
• Gender
• Race
• Religion
• Current age
• Current location
• Intended major(s)
• Intended career(s)
• US State in which you plan to attend college
• College you plan to attend
• Need-based aid
• Merit-based aid

Let’s look at some examples of results you may find while scholarship hunting.

1. This one restricts applicants based on race (at least you won’t have to write an essay!):

If you don’t meet these requirements, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Unfortunately CollegeBoard’s search filters aren’t very specific. I clicked “merit-based” while leaving “need-based” unchecked for my scholarship-type filter. Unfortunately, it still spits out results that are both merit- and need-based. This is a free website, after all, so I guess we can’t complain too much.

2. Is your student a dependent child of a California Police Officer? If yes, this scholarship’s just for you!

“I have one word for you. Plastics Rubber”

The Graduate, 1967

3. A family friend in the 1967 Hollywood film, The Graduate, famously extolled the virtues of a career in plastics. Now it’s time for plastics to move over, because rubber is the future! At least the founder(s) of this scholarship must think so.

4. Is the University of Southern Mississippi your dream school? Perhaps a $12,000 scholarship will change your mind?…

5. Now it’s time to get serious and stop putzing around with these itty bitty scholarships. Let’s sort our results by descending award amounts and see if we can snag a big one!

If you’re a United States citizen residing in the USA with great grades and can write a killer essay, you might have a chance at this one. The real question is how to demonstrate the intangible characteristics they’re looking for. Why not copy what Ivy League college applicants do: take mission trip to an improvished country to help the natives build a road etc.? With your photo ops in-hand, you can humbly boast about how the experience “transformed” your life. Sprinkle other cliches into your scholarship essay for good measure. Leave no stone unturned!

Conclusion

This sample search probably has you wondering “where are all the scholarships for the average Joes out there?” I had the same question as a high school senior too. There are undoubtedly diamonds in the rough. You could try a shotgun approach by submitting applications for lots of small awards, rather than hunting full-ride scholarships, where competition is fierce. Do you have patience to spend time searching for small, obscure ones? Do you have energy to write lots of essays? If you aren’t selected, will you feel like your time was wasted?

There are no guarantees with private scholarship applications. Rather than gambling your time, why not go for the sure thing? Why not earn dirt cheap college-level credits instead? Credit-by-examination programs such as AP, CLEP and DSST charge only $100 per subject exam. Put your time and effort into earning discounted college credits before matriculating. Don’t get sucked into the scholarship lottery.