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Free College Scholarships
How an Average Student Can Win a Scholarship

Free Cash for College

Undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships are forms of aid that help students pay for their education. Unlike student loans, scholarships and fellowships do not have to be repaid. College scholarships range from $100 to $100,000. More than 1.3 million scholarships totaling $3 billion dollars are offered. There’s a scholarship waiting for you.

The Big Wide World of College Scholarships

Average students often ask whether there are any scholarships available to students who don't have an A+ average. Yes, there are many scholarships for average students that don’t emphasize academic merit. There are also many community service scholarships. Some scholarships and fellowships target students with special qualifications, such as academic, athletic or artistic talent. Awards are also available for students who are interested in particular fields of study, students who are members of underrepresented groups, who live in certain areas of the country or who demonstrate financial need. Scholarships are offered on the basis of your career goal, major, academics, your intended college, your financial need, public service, talent, athletics, leadership, religion, and ethnicity.

College alumni and other private scholarship sponsors occasionally establish scholarships with curious and original eligibility requirements, such as a scholarship for left-handed students. These offbeat scholarships might be just what you’re looking for.

You do not pay income tax on scholarship money that is used for tuition, fees and books. However, a scholarship may reduce the amount of other financial aid you can receive. Your school’s financial aid director can provide more information.

Famous College Scholarship Programs

Here are a few generous scholarships to pique your interest. The most prestigious scholarships and fellowships attract a lot of attention because they are large and well-advertised.

America's Junior Miss
Canada Merit Scholarship Foundation
Canadian Millennium Scholarship
Chevening Scholarship
Commonwealth Scholarship
Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange
Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund
Fulbright Program
Gates Scholarship
George J. Mitchell Scholarship
Goldman Sachs Global Leaders
Jack Kent Cooke Foundation

Marshall Scholarship
Miss America
National Merit Scholarship
Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps
President's Scholar
Rhodes Scholarship
Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship
Samsung Global Scholarship Program
Truman Scholarship
United Negro College Fund
World Bank Scholarship

Local Scholarships

There are millions of scholarships offered in communities around the country. Most organizations that serve the public offer scholarships. Businesses offer scholarships to children of their employees. Many churches, community foundations, non-profit organizations, labor unions, chambers of commerce, military, fraternal, churches and charitable organizations have scholarship money for you. These local scholarship sources have fewer candidates, which gives you a better chance to win. Many colleges also offer full tuition academic scholarships. Your guidance counselor at high school and the financial aid director at any college will also suggest more scholarships.

Don’t be discouraged if the scholarship offers only a small amount of money. Many scholarships are renewable year after year if you keep your grades up. And you can accept as many scholarships as are offered, so that your cummulative scholarship money can be very substantial.

What are Scholarship Matching Services?

Scholarship matching services do not award scholarships and do not apply for scholarships on your behalf. All they do is provide a list of the names and addresses of scholarships that appear to match your profile. It is then up to you, the student, to contact the scholarship sponsor for current information and application materials. The scholarship matching service does not complete the applications for the student, nor do they select the winning students.

Using College Scholarship Search Sites

The three largest, most comprehensive scholarship search sites are FREE. They are listed for you below. It takes only 5 to 10 minutes to search one of these databases. If you are committed to the scholarship process, search all three of the best databases. Filling out the online scholarship search request doesn’t take much time. Most students will get around 20 good matches from a free service. The scholarship matching service is free, because the sites make their money through advertising. You may receive ads by email, unless you specifically indicate that you don’t want them. Be on your lookout for scams. No legitimate scholarship source will ask you to pay a fee to obtain a scholarship.

Scholarship Scams

There are a lot of scams that prey on unsuspecting high school and college students. Don’t be lured into a scheme or duped by shysters. They describe their huge database of high-paying scholarships that no one else knows about. They practically guarantee you a scholarship… But then you read the fine print. Or do you? Maybe you skip over the fine print, anxious and short of time. Instead, you pull out your credit card and buy an overpriced membership.

Do not waste your money on fee-based scholarship matching services. All scholarship information is FREE. The companies, schools, governments and organizations that offer you scholarship money WANT you to know about it. There is NO secret treasure trove of scholarship information.

Scholarship services sometimes overstate the number and value of the scholarships available in their database. When a scholarship service advertises a 94% success rate, they are describing their success in matching students against the database, NOT the number of students who receive money. There’s no way they can guarantee that you’ll win a scholarship, because they have no control over the awards. Their guarantee only means that they’ll find a scholarship that you can apply for.

Beware. If someone tells you that a scholarship is waiting for you, providing you pay them a small fee, it is unequivocally a scam.

The Best Free Scholarship Search Sites

FastWeb Scholarship Search. The FastWeb Scholarship Search is the largest, most accurate and most popular free scholarship search site, with more than 35 million registered users. It is also the most frequently updated and provides automatic email notification of new scholarships that match the student's profile. The FastWeb Scholarship Search was the first scholarship database available free on the web and is the most innovative and student-focused of all the scholarship search sites.

College Board's FUND FINDER. The College Board's FUND FINDER scholarship database lists scholarships and other types of financial aid programs from 3,300 national, state, public and private sources. The database is updated annually.

Scholarships.com LLC The Scholarships.com database has good list of awards and a fairly precise match, but sometimes it could contain out-of-date entries.

Local College Scholarships

Your next step is to find the smaller scholarships and the local ones. To find small local awards that aren't listed in any book or database, look for notices posted on bulletin boards at your school's guidance office, the public library and outside the financial aid office at nearby colleges and universities. Check the newspaper, any local colleges and other high schools.

You can also search for scholarships using your favorite web search engine by including the word "scholarships" with your search keywords. This procedure takes some patience as you weed through the miscellaneous and misleading articles.

College Scholarship Directories

You will find the book Get Free Cash for College by Gen and Kelly Tanabe especially helpful in your scholarship search. The book not only provides an extensive scholarship directory, but it includes great ideas for completing the applications, writing award-winning essays, and understanding the whole process. The authors are experts who have been featured in The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, and USA Today.

Free Cash for College will give you a head start over other students. Any one of the tips from the book could be just what you need to come in first place. It is highly recommended. Here is a link to buy the book at Amazon.

I hope life brings you much success. I wish you a very happy day.

----- Surfer Sam

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Free College ScholarshipsHow an Average Student Can Win a Scholarship