Grants. Loans. Merit-based aid. Need-based aid. Scholarships. The field of financial aid can be overwhelming in and of itself.
Most students look to scholarships and grants first, because it's aid you don't have to pay back.
Institutional scholarships can be handy, but colleges only have a lot money devoted to scholarships. Along with trying to get aid at your college, you could also consider financing college with private scholarships. (Private scholarships are simply scholarships funded by private companies or entities.)
If you choose that route, you may encounter a different problem. There are so many private scholarships for top school students out there that it can be tough to find ones highly relevant to your individual situation. That’s why it’s important to know where to find scholarships.
Luckily, you will find quite a few scholarship websites that will help you search for additional aid. Private scholarship websites run the gamut, and we've rounded up a summary of the very best of the best scholarship websites for you personally.
What Are the most useful Scholarship Websites?
Figuring out how to locate scholarships shouldn't be the point that holds your student back. So here’s a summary of scholarship websites to locate money for school.
Fastweb
Fastweb is probably one of the most famous scholarship search engines-and for good reason. After you create a simple profile, Fastweb provides a curated listing of scholarship matches, which you can filter by your strengths, interests, student activities, and skills. You’ll also have the opportunity to sort scholarships into Interested, Applied, I've Won!, and never Interested categories.
The site also has a listing of “Quick Links” to scholarships for certain identities, like veterans or high school students.
Ease of Use: Easy
Requirements: None, although a profile yields curated matches
Popularity: Very popular
Scholarships.com
Scholarships.com is a touch less flashy than Fastweb, but it’s still noted for being one of the greats. To be able to connect to the scholarship search tool, you have to make a merchant account. This can include information like current grade, birthday, and email address.
Scholarships.com includes a scholarship directory open to casual browsers; although that involves more manual work for the scholarship hunter.
The site offers the name from the scholarship, the deadline to use, and the number of awards given. Like Fastweb, it provides a summary of quick links for special identities.
Overall, the site isn't as appealing or inviting as Fastweb, and ads are often wrapped round the scholarship info, making it hard to get the information you want instantly.
Ease of Use: Medium
Requirements: None, although a profile yields curated matches
Popularity: Very popular
JLV College Counseling
This simple, hidden gem of a site is really a fan favorite. Although it doesn't offer a searchable database, it does give a myriad of scholarship lists according to diverse identities-including scholarships by age, athletics, disability, gender, hobbies/interests/talents, major, military status, and more.
You can take a bird's eye look at all the scholarships on the site sorted by deadline. The site is neatly and intuitively organized, but the lack of a strong database might make filtering through all of the options a slog for potential scholarship hunters.
Ease of Use: Medium
Requirements: None
Popularity: Hidden gem
Cappex
Cappex is yet another major league player in the scholarship search field. In addition to offering scholarship matches, it also helps students find the correct college for them.
While Cappex provides a little teaser of potential scholarships with no account, you will need one out of order to view scholarship details and also to start applying. Required account information includes the student’s full name, date of birth, unweighted GPA, address, and make contact with number.
Once you create an account, your scholarship matches are neatly specified by a table that tells you the scholarship name, amount, just how much effort the scholarship will take, and how much competition you're facing.
Under the following Steps header, you can keep your search organized by choosing your status with that scholarship from a drop-down menu.
Ease of Use: Easy
Requirements: Profile
Popularity: Very popular
Unigo
Unigo is a scholarship engine that doubles like a college search tool. It's similar to Scholarships.com in that it provides both curated scholarship matches (if you create an account) along with a scholarship directory (should you decide to not).
Creating a profile involves handing on the lot of private information before you're given your matches. You’ll have to identify as a student, parent, or counselor. Then, you’ll submit your student’s education level, high school grad year, name, current email address, birthdate, and zipcode.
The scholarship search page offers large buttons that say things like “I will apply for” and “I will not apply for,” but it's not obvious what clicking these buttons does. About this same page, you can filter scholarships by name, deadline, and award amount.
Ease of Use: Difficult
Requirements: None, although an account yields curated matches
Popularity: Popular
Big Future
Big Future is one of the official websites from the College Board. As a result, it provides lot of different resources, including classroom resources, career guidance, and college search info. After some digging, you can find the scholarship directory, BigFuture scholarships, and an informational page that stops working scholarships, grants, and loans.
The College Board scholarship website prompts you to definitely enter just as much information as possible, but none of them from the fields are required. It doesn't offer any filters when you are your results, although every individual scholarship page includes details like eligibility requirements, application requirements, and sponsor contact information.
Ease of Use: Medium
Requirements: None
Popularity: Popular
Going Merry
Going Merry is a well-kept scholarship secret. You need a profile to gain access to their curated matches, but it's quick and easy to enroll in one-just sign up with Apple, Google, or your email.
The scholarship dashboard sorts your scholarships by matches, favorite, ignored, and native scholarships. Most importantly local scholarships in many cases are tough to find by yourself, however they usually have less competition. There's also a sidebar that lists scholarships with upcoming deadlines at a glance.
Once you select a scholarship category, you can filter results by deadline, completion time (within a few minutes), award amount, number of winners, and number of applicants. The interface is a touch cluttered, but Going Merry is specific where other engines stay vague.
Ease of Use: Medium
Requirements: Profile, one essay for multiple scholarships
Popularity: Up and coming
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Scholarship Owl
Like Going Merry, ScholarshipOwl's claim that they can fame is that it pertains to scholarships for you personally. You need to create a profile to access their professional services, and you're necessary to complete the majority of the fields, including birthday, gender, current school level, field of study, and more.
Your scholarship dashboard is super streamlined. It shows only the name, award amount, and deadline, as well as a link to the scholarship's conditions and terms.
Unlike other scholarship search engines like google, you need a subscription to access the service that allows you to apply to more than one scholarship at a time.
Ease of Use: Medium
Requirements: Profile, one application for multiple scholarships
Popularity: Up and coming
Road2College
And while we’re in internet marketing, we can’t help tooting our very own horn.
For each month, Road2College publishes its own list of scholarships which have deadlines within each particular month. Here’s and you'll discover them.
While these websites all offer myriad kinds of private scholarships, there are specific ways of use when doing your searching, finding, and trying to get them.
These strategies have a lot to do with why some students are more successful in receiving aid than the others.
The more your student can learn about these strategies, the better.