How to Pay for Your First Year of College with Scholarships

Making the transition from high school to college is not always easy for students and their families. The changes can be difficult academically, socially and financially. If you have recently started college, or will be starting soon, you know what I am talking about. Luckily, there are many college resources that help students with all aspects of the transition process. One thing that can make the financial transition easier on families is scholarship money. In fact, freshman college students have a better chance of being able to pay for their first year of college in scholarships than anyone else.

Many organizations that contribute scholarship money focus their efforts on awarding scholarships to students who are entering college for the first time. There are many financial barriers to starting college; Not only do students have to pay their first tuition bill and recurring expenses like room and board and books, they also have to contend with up-front costs like a computer, dorm supplies, and possibly even a car to travel to and from school. Because of these up-front costs, most scholarship committees recognize that college freshman have the most immediate need. There are still a lot of scholarships out there for non-freshmen, so make sure to keep you search going after your freshman year.

Where should you go to find scholarships? There are three places where a student is likely to have the most success. One is your high school guidance office, another is your prospective college or university, and the final place is the internet. Your high school guidance office will likely have access and connections to all of the scholarship awards in your community and are great local resources. Likewise, many colleges have internal scholarships for a number of different criteria. Sometimes, a student may be award a merit scholarship without having to apply. Other times, research is necessary to find any applicable school scholarships for your program, major, or extracurricular activities. The most common resource for finding scholarships is the internet. There are hundreds of thousands of scholarships out there, so scholarship database websites make the search much easier. You can search by all different criteria e.g. by state, institution, ethnicity, major, etc. This makes it very easy to find scholarships that you are qualified for, and to weed out the ones you are not eligible for.

When it comes to applying for scholarships it is important to follow a few basic guidelines. One is that you should only apply for scholarships for which you qualify. Scholarships are awarded based on a number of different factors and there truly are scholarships for everyone. There are scholarships for students who excel academically, scholarships for students who have financial need, scholarships for students who play sports, scholarships for students who are musical and the list goes on and on. Take the time to weed out the scholarships you do not qualify for and apply for those that you have a good chance of winning. This can save you a lot of time and effort during your very busy senior year. Another time saving tip is to plan ahead. Scholarships can have time-consuming applications because they often require essays. Rather than applying hours before the deadline, keep track of when applications are due and schedule time to work on essays accordingly.

If you are lucky enough to have all of your hard work pay off, it is extremely important to follow up with a thank you note to each awarding organization. Scholarship committees like to know that they chose the right person as the recipient of their award. Thanking them with a hand-written note or letter will enforce the fact that you were deserving and help them remember you for future scholarship offers.

To wrap things up, here are some things to keep in mind as you start planning for college. It is never too early to start the scholarship process. Even students who are just starting high school can start to make a list of awards they might want to revisit and apply for before they are ready to head off to college. The earlier you start your college scholarship search, the better your chances will be of accruing enough scholarship money to put a major dent in your first tuition bill.