If a student is successful in high school and is college bound, the student should start applying for scholarships in the spring of their junior year and all through their senior year. There is no limit to how many scholarships a student should apply to and a rule of thumb is to apply to at least one every week just to see if it will be accepted. College is expensive and student loans can break you. Scholarships are the preferred way to pay for colleges.
There are two types of scholarships available. The first one is a lottery scholarship. This type of scholarship is chosen by a lottery system. The administrators will take in all scholarship applications that meet the criteria and then randomly pick out the number of scholarships that will be awarded. This is common when the scholarship dictates a number of winners.
The second type of scholarship is a merit scholarship. Here the criteria are based on how well the student did in school. All aspects of the potential winner are looked at. Grade point average, civic clubs, leadership positions, and behavior records are scrutinized to find the perfect student to match the scholarship. The student picked to receive the money has the greatest attributes in all areas of the criteria.
The chances of a student receiving a scholarship are dependent on how well their history looked during high school. Of course good grades are a factor, but what you did out of school also has a bearing. Did the student participate in any clubs or volunteer work? Did the student have any brushes with the law or the administration? These are the considerations in choosing the student and set the chances for the actual award.
The diligent student should apply to many scholarships even if they do not qualify upfront. If the student is male and applies to the Daughter of the Revolution for a scholarship and no females apply, then the scholarship goes to the next qualified applicant whether they are male or female.
Do not let race, religion, or national origin stop you from applying to these individualized scholarships. If there is enough money, the scholarship committee will overlook the racial or religious requirement to be able to give the scholarship someone who deserves regardless of the requirements. It doesn’t hurt to try. The statistics are not against you if you turn in scholarship applications in by volume.
