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Guide to Prioritizing Scholarship Applications

Guide to Prioritizing Scholarship Applications
12/17/2020
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Izzy Hall

A free scholarship search at Scholarships.com can hook you up with so many options to win free financial aid towards college costs. There are quick and easy scholarships, essay scholarships, and even scholarships based on artistic portfolios and musical performances. When juggling scholarship applications, college apps, and high school classes, students may want to know – which scholarships should they apply for first? Let our guide on how to prioritize scholarship applications help get you organized.

Priority #1: Urgent Deadlines

If you have a scholarship with a deadline coming up very soon, that scholarship should be your first priority. After all, you can’t win a scholarship if you don’t send in your application on time! To help identify urgent deadlines, we recommend students use a planning document or list to organize scholarships by their due dates. You can easily sort your scholarship search results by date with the click of a link in the “Sort By” options.

Want to avoid deadline crunch? Log back in to your Scholarships.com account regularly to see your new scholarship matches. Logging in periodically will give you a chance to identify scholarship opportunities with time to spend on their applications. While you’re there, make sure your profile is up to date too!

Priority #2: Project Scholarships

When you hear “project scholarships”, think scholarships that ask for an art portfolio, a musical audition, or even a certain number of community service hours. These scholarships require some time commitment, so it’s best to give yourself plenty of time to tackle them. If you already have skills in art, performance, media and service, these can be great opportunities to win financial aid, so plan ahead and block out your time well in advance of the due date.

Priority #3: Essay Scholarships

Essay scholarships come in many forms. Some involve researching and interviewing that cannot be done overnight. But even scholarships that ask for paragraph-long personal statements shouldn’t be left until the last minute. No matter your skills as a writer, we recommend getting started on essay scholarships with time to spare for proofreading and editing. Plus, if you write a really good essay, you may be able to use it for multiple scholarships. Now that’s a reason to give yourself time with essay scholarships!

Priority #4: Easy Scholarships

What makes easy scholarships “easy”? It’s in how simple and quick it is to apply to these kinds of scholarships. Easy scholarships may require nothing more than filling out a form in order to apply. When you’ve already got so many scholarship applications on your plate, you can save working on easy scholarships for last. Applying only takes a minute or two, so you can easily apply to three or four scholarships any time you’re on Scholarships.com!

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