No Competition for This Scholarship

If you've searched the scholarship websites for scholarships that you think may work for your student, you'll have noticed the incredible number of competitors you're up against in winning those scholarships. Especially for the big bucks.

Found a scholarship offering thousands of dollars? Check out how many scholarships are awarded. Many times a $10,000 scholarship contest comes down to awarding one scholarship of $5,000, and two second-place awards of $2,500.

Now $2,500 is nothing to sneeze at. But when you first get excited about the possibility of winning ten grand, and then you realize that you'll spend HOURS writing that essay that MAYBE will earn you third-place status, is it really worth it?

Our daughter went after such a scholarship. An essay contest, it was. She researched and studied and evaluated and outlined and produced an excellent essay -- far better than any essay that she had produced her entire high school career. It was quite an education in itself.

And she was named as a winner! But not first place. Not even second. Third place got her mention on the webpage and a free book.

Was it worth the effort she put in?

It may have been worth it in the education we received. And I don't mean just the research and writing effort. The lesson we really learned was to limit our effort in scholarship-getting to those "contests" that have little to no competition.

Wait a minute, you ask. NO competition? How is that possible?

It all depends on your scholarship-seeking strategy.

You see, when you start first with the college you wish to attend and examine that particular college's requirements for its best merit-based awards, you'll find that competition for those high-figure scholarships is very limited. In some cases, competition is nonexistent.

In our scholarship search, we were very happy to be invited to scholarship competitions in which our daughter competed with as few as 200 students to get 1 of the 40 big scholarship awards possible. Her chances were high (1 out of 5), and she succeeded.

At other schools, however, when an academically strong student applies, the admissions office automatically considers that student for a merit-based award. In some cases, the $7,000 or $10,000 or $15,000 award is simply awarded automatically upon review of the application for admission. More than one college I've spoken with indicates that the number of merit-based scholarships are not limited. In other words, as long as the student meets the academic standards for that award, there is no competition against other students to get the award.

In addition, many of the schools who award these excellent figures also invite such recipients to attend a specific scholarship day at the school, during which the student may compete for additional tuition. Some colleges award as much as full tuition at these events.

So the best strategy is to create an excellent student that colleges will want. Encourage your student to challenge him or herself academically to achieve that level.

And if you want to go after the full tuition opportunities, plan to develop that extra something on top of that. (Our Workshops B and J cover this area.)

Find what schools offer scholarships at what ACT / GPA levels in the Big Figure Scholarships database. (You may subscribe separately. Full access is included in the Scholarship Prep membership subscription.)