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Scholarships.com has made a winter break scholarship checklist and checked it twice for students like you who are looking to earn free money for college. Winter break is one of the best times to hone in on college and scholarship applications before their deadlines in the New Year, and without being bombarded with other school work and commitments. Before you hit the slopes or engage in a full-on snowball fight - have you taken these steps towards winning college scholarships?:
1. Conduct a free scholarship search - This personalized process only takes a couple of minutes and will ensure that you qualify for the scholarship matches you will see upon completion of the search. Be sure to accurately and thoroughly answer the match questions for the best results, as it will be the foundation for the entire process. The next step is where you will sort out the ones most ideally suited to you and most likely to be the best, most productive use of your time.
2. Create a Scholarship Spreadsheet - You may get 100 or more scholarship matches which is great since you have many options. Use a spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel to organize all your opportunities. Copy and paste all of your scholarships and include columns for deadline dates a place to indicate whether you have applied, plan to apply, etc. Add columns for any criteria by which you would like to be able to sort your awards. For example, if it requires an essay, video submission, and so forth.
3. Develop a Scholarship Application Strategy - Consider applying to scholarships with the largest award amount first. Pick awards that are best-suited for you, and your odds of winning should be considered as well. Next, figure out what scholarships appeal most to you. Some could be really easy or fun projects that you can use for school as well. During this process you can take notes on progress, to help keep you organized and inspired.
4. Apply - You can't win scholarships if you don't apply for any, so be proactive and try not to let any of the deadlines pass on scholarship for which you would like to apply. Many scholarship providers do not accept late scholarship applications. Don't forget to also mark scholarships for which you apply on your spreadsheet.
5. Repeat - Applying for scholarships isn't a one-time thing, nor is it limited to high school seniors. You may find that you need to continue to search for scholarships into undergraduate and even graduate school in order to continue to pay for your education. You may also want to keep track of scholarships that you have that are recurring and make sure your GPA or any other criteria required by the scholarship are satisfied. Keep a spreadsheet that you can access anytime with all the scholarships you have won and those to which you should still apply in order to make sure you are in the best position to pay for school.