How to Score a Scholarship

Most people think scholarships are reserved for the super smart individuals in high school. The truth is that there are more scholarships out there than you think and they are not ridiculously hard to obtain if your marks are good. The trick is that you have to go searching for them. You'd be amazed at how many people just don't seem to bother doing it. Naive or lazy? Who knows? But you can be the beneficiary.

In my graduating year of high school, I checked out many resources. I inquired about scholarships at my school and did some online searching for various university scholarships, bursaries, grants, government assistance, company and even foundation scholarships. Great marks are not the only criterion; there are sports and volunteering scholarships, scholarships for minorities and even those given out by community clubs.

Filling out forms for government tuition assistance is a must. Many universities have a separate bursary application you can fill out to receive extra funding; however, they do take into consideration your government funding to determine your level of financial need.

I found a lot of scholarships through my high school. This is a great place to start because many universities will notify the high schools of the awards and scholarships available ahead of time. Talk to your guidance counsellors. They can point you in the right direction and even nominate you for special scholarships.

Start early, look everywhere and talk to everyone. Scholarship deadlines are spread out throughout the year and application deadlines can be as early as October or as late as April.

Make a timeline of everything you’ve done up to date. What clubs/sports are you in? Do you volunteer or have a job? Have you won any awards or held any leadership positions? All these factors are taken into account. Another important piece of advice is to make sure you have all necessary documents ready beforehand. Many scholarships will require reference letters, transcripts or written essays. Be prepared to know what is expected of you.

Don't rule out sports scholarships. Some Universities aren't supposed to have scholarships for a particular sport because the team isn't in the right Division, but in fact they do. Scouts recommend you and, surprise, you're offered an academic scholarship. The trick is that when the disguise their intent in this way, it only really binds the student to try out for the team, not necessarily to play all season. I'm sure you get the drift.

There are also scholarships for out-of-country students. Some are sports scholarships, others are – well in this University they're called “Diversity Scholarships”, because the school wants to increase the diversity of the student body. That's an opportunity for someone with an unusual background.

You may think applying for too many scholarships or bursaries will be impossibly time consuming. But for many, the essay questions are fairly similar. It might take you 3 hours to apply for the first one, but with the wonders of copying and pasting, it’ll take you only 1 hour to fill out subsequent applications.

Please don’t get discouraged if you aren’t awarded anything or as much as you would have hoped for. Keep in mind that there are others who are also applying. Don’t give up. You can do it. Just believe in yourself.