6 Best Sites to Use to Search for Scholarships

By Kaitlin Hurtado on May 20, 2018

The high cost of tuition can often be the source of most of college students’ stress, especially if they find themselves not getting the amount of financial aid needed to cover the entire cost of their college tuition. Instead of going to apply and accept any loans possible to make up for what your financial aid package doesn’t cover, try applying for scholarships that you will not have to worry about paying back in the future after graduation. Depending on the type of scholarship you are looking at, the application may be relatively easy and the stress of having to pay them back on time is near non-existent.

Scholarships may seem too good to be true as they are essentially “free” money, but if you find the right ones that suit you and your needs – they may be the perfect option to finance your college education. The first place you may think of going to when it comes to your search for scholarships is your college’s financial aid office or counseling center. These places will offer you resources to find different scholarships, but sometimes, you might want to start your search for scholarships from the comfort of your own home and not spend more hours in campus offices.

Luckily, there are plenty of sites on the internet that post scholarship opportunities for you to take advantage of. If you are not sure on where to start on finding actual scholarships and to avoid falling into the trap of a fake scholarship, here are six sites that will help make your search for scholarships much easier and more efficient.

person typing on laptop

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

A quick breakdown of scholarships 

Unlike student loans, a scholarship will be money given to you to use to finance your college education. This can mean the obvious option of paying your college tuition directly, but also be your college textbooks, housing, or anything else that is necessary for you to help pay for your college education. Most college scholarships will not require you to pay them back in the future, but be careful because some scholarships run on a pay-it-forward basis and will need to you to pay a specific fee later on when you have the means to do so.

When a scholarship asks you for money up front or for your banking information in the application, it’s best to move on to other opportunities as those ones are likely to be a scam. You shouldn’t need to pay money to apply for a scholarship, especially if it is guaranteed – so you’ll be able to know whether a scholarship is a scam or not if they are asking you for your money from the first application.

Scholarships are given by different groups and organizations, certain companies, government agencies, colleges, individuals, or non-profit organizations. There are various types of scholarship opportunities that you can apply, such as need-based which depend on your financial situation, or merit-based which depend on your achievements and history (academic, athletic, extracurricular, etc.).

With varying amount awards from scholarship to scholarship, the general rule of thumb is that the higher the scholarship award amount, the more effort you’ll have to put into the application process (an essay or two or a submission of your past work). Whatever the case, there will always be scholarships out there to suit your wants and qualifications.

1. Uloop 

While Uloop is a great site to access news articles, advice through the Q&A platform, housing, and different job opportunities, it also provides opportunities for college students to connect with scholarships to help them finance their college education. The scholarships show up as different listings, similar to how the site displays different job and internship opportunities. These scholarships are narrowed down into categories and subcategories to help you narrow down your search for scholarships and connect you to the right ones.

Different categories include majors, different academic levels, athletic involvement, and company-sponsored. If you have specific scholarships in mind, the search will be much easier when you can sort out more general scholarships that any student could apply to and lead you to more specific scholarships that will usually have a smaller pool of applicants than general scholarships.

If you have a registered Uloop account, you can favorite different scholarship listings that peak your interest so that you can apply when you have time or have narrowed down your options. Clicking on the links provided will bring you to more information about the scholarship (application deadline, scholarship award, qualifications) and a link to apply.

scholarships infographic,

Infographic by Kaitlin Hurtado, via canva.com

2. Chegg 

You may have used Chegg in the past to buy or rent textbooks at a lower price than your campus bookstore, or for homework help, but Chegg can also help you save even more money by helping you connect with scholarships through its scholarship search platform. Chegg has over 25,000 scholarships listed for you to browse through and if the high number seems overwhelming, Chegg offers plenty of help when it comes to narrowing down your search to find the scholarship that is right for you without excessive effort on your end.

When you have an account with Chegg, you can create a saved profile that, if fully filled out, can match you to scholarships that you qualify for and will suit your needs best. You will not have to worry about stumbling upon a great scholarship only to be disappointed when your GPA is not high enough to reach the minimum GPA required for applicants or you need an affiliation with a certain major or organization to even apply for the scholarship when Chegg sorts out the scholarships that you will not be able to qualify for, and the scholarships that will not match your preferences.

If you are interested in a matched scholarship at first glance, you can click on the link provided for more info. The page provided by Chegg gives a profile of the specific scholarship, giving you information regarding the purpose of the scholarship, the qualifications, number of awards, amount of money awarded, and the link to apply.

3. ScholarshipOwl

Just by registering for a ScholarshipOwl account, you will be entered to win the site’s $1,000 scholarship given to its users. Like Chegg’s scholarship platform, you will be able to fill out personal information that includes your interests, experience, and studies so that ScholarshipOwl can use your profile’s information and preferences to match you to scholarship opportunities.

With your initial application to register for ScholarshipOwl, the scholarship database site will help you apply for various scholarships with little-to-no effort on your end. However, remember that while all your personal information may be easily provided by ScholarshipOwl during different applications, you will still need to write essays when necessary for scholarship applications.

ScholarshipOwl will also send you regular emails to keep you caught up on the latest scholarships without having you putting in constant effort to keeping up-to-date with current scholarships when you are busy with school and work. With this option, you can continue your search without much effort, allowing you to connect with more opportunities if your first few applications don’t work out for you.

4. Unigo

As another scholarship database, Unigo will allow you access to its scholarship directory of over 3.6 million scholarships that total up to $14 billion. Like Uloop’s scholarship directory, you can narrow down the site’s scholarships to athletic scholarships, college-specific scholarships, merit-based scholarships, and the site’s very own scholarships.

If you don’t want to search manually or simply don’t have the time to go through each scholarship opportunity, however, Unigo also has a scholarship search option that allows you to get personalized matches when you make a free account. Unigo will allow you to match to different scholarships based on your preferences and qualifications.

Once Unigo has provided you with a list of matched scholarship opportunities, you can sort through each one yourself to categorize them to make future use much easier: “will apply,” “will not apply,” “applied,” and “not eligible.” Choosing “will apply” allows you to access the scholarship opportunities when you have more time later on or find that you want to narrow down your opportunities. Choosing “will not apply” allows you to hide the scholarship from your search and further help narrow down your search for scholarships and keep unnecessary listings out of your way.

The search platform makes your search for scholarships much easier when you can sort your search by application date, award amount, and name. If you are worried about time sensitivity, you will want to sort by expiration so that you can access the ones that are going to expire soon and save ones that you have more time to apply for later on when you have time. If you are just going for the fewest amount of scholarship applications possible with the highest amount of awarded money possible, you will want to sort by “award size” so that you can make the most of your search.

5. Niche 

On top of helping you navigate college rankings and admissions, Niche offers its users access to its scholarships database that will help make your search for scholarships much easier. When searching for scholarships, you can sort your search by category or through matches made by your listed preferences and qualifications.

Niche saves you the trouble of clicking to other pages to access scholarship information without clicking on to other pages. You can apply from the search page and also find out information to help narrow down your search for scholarships: whether or not an essay is required, if a recommendation is necessary, or what the minimum GPA is (if any).

If you are set on not applying to scholarships that require applicants to submit an essay, Niche will make your search for scholarships much simpler when one of its focuses is listing whether or not an essay is required of applicants.

money

Photo by Pepi Stojanovski on Unsplash

6. Cappex

With more than $11 billion available in scholarships, the scholarship database on Cappex is another place for you to continue, or start, your search for scholarships. Very similar to other scholarship database sites, Cappex offers its users an easy-to-use, free website to connect with scholarship opportunities.

Not only does Cappex connect you to scholarship opportunities that match your preferences and qualifications, it will also tell you which ones are your “Best Bets” by telling you how hard the application process is (1-click-and-apply or multiple short answers/essays) and what the competition is (how small or big the application pool is). By providing information on the application process and the application pool, your search for scholarships can be narrowed down immensely when you have more information to help you make the choice on what scholarships are worth your time.

While the 1-click-and-apply scholarships are the most appealing at first glance, they are also the most appealing for other scholarship applicants as everyone wants to put in as little effort as possible to reap the most benefits. A safer choice may be applying for a scholarship that is as specific to your information as possible (major, academic history, extracurricular involvement, or personal interests) that will most likely have a smaller application pool and essay/short answer involved with the application process. It may require more effort and time on your end, but with a bigger chance to actually win the scholarship, it will be worth it.

With so many options of online scholarship databases, your search for scholarships can be made a lot easier with the use of the internet. Depending on your preferences, one site may work very well for you or may not work at all. But when the sites are free to use, you may as well take advantage of the opportunity given to connect with different scholarships.

The earlier you apply for a scholarship, the better, so the sooner you start your search for scholarships, the more time you will have to find the scholarships best for you and more time you will have to apply for many scholarships as you wish.

Best of luck in finding and receiving scholarships to help you finance your college education!

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