Unit 4 · Money for school
The Scholarship Hunt
Your picks in this lesson save to My Plan.
Scholarship money is real, but it does not find you; you hunt it. This lesson gives you the strategy that works, and a scam detector so nobody hunts you back.
Before you start: where are you now?
Rate yourself honestly. Nobody sees this but you.
The scam detector
Six situations. Legit or scam?
Correct: 0 / 6
The strategy that works
- 1. Local first. Your counselor's list, community foundations, local businesses, churches and clubs, parents' employers. Fewest applicants, best odds, and they WANT to give it to someone like you.
- 2. The college itself. The biggest checks are usually merit aid from the school you attend. Ask every school on your list: "what merit scholarships am I automatically considered for, and which need a separate application?"
- 3. Profile matchers. BigFuture, Fastweb, and CareerOneStop match your profile to national databases. Set them up once, check monthly.
- 4. Small and unusual. The $500 essay contests everyone skips add up, and the quirky ones (left-handed? tall? duck-calling?) have tiny applicant pools.
- 5. Reuse everything. Write one strong personal story, then retarget it. Ten applications should not mean ten essays from scratch.
- 6. Keep applying in college. Scholarships do not stop at high school; college students win them every year with far less competition.
Add to your plan
After the lesson: where are you now?
The big idea
Treat the hunt like a part-time job with an absurd hourly rate: a $500 local scholarship that takes two hours to apply for pays $250 an hour. Local first, reuse your essays, apply to the small ones everyone skips, and never, ever pay to apply.