Once you identify a potential scholarship, review the criteria before you ever begin to make sure you qualify. Not sure? Contact the scholarship administrator or ask your high school counselor. No reason to waste your time if you don’t meet the criteria. Items to look out for – Is an out of state institution approved? Do you need to be a current year high school graduate? Is the award open for vocational degrees? Do you meet the minimum grade point average? Is there a citizenship requirement? A great applicant won’t receive the award if they are not within the target audience of the scholarship provider.
On the flip side, don’t quickly assume you don’t qualify for an award. If you match most of the qualifications, contact the award administrator and ask. You may find that some years the scholarship doesn’t get awarded and your qualifications may be close enough for consideration.
Request your letter writers provide letters for each of the applications you’re applying to. Your letter writer can do this quickly if they have the list from you all at one time with clearly identified deadlines. If letters need to be submitted via varying online portals, record that information on the master list for the letter writer.
Keep all of your scholarship documents in a digital folder clearly marked. For each essay, short answer and personal statement you write, label it clearly so you’ll quickly identify if you can use the same material more than once or even if you can simply use one as a base for writing the next one. Write your essay and short answer responses in a word processing document so you can easily make changes for future applications that might have similar questions.
Keep these copies for your reference later if you’re completing an application that may request similar data.