Finding scholarships in the 21st century is easy; winning scholarships takes WORK. That’s good news for you! If you are willing to put in the work you can win scholarships and academic awards. In fact, you can win the money you need to attend college before you finish high school! All you have to do is get smart about winning and prepare to apply. 

Winning scholarships does not mean you have to get “all A’s.” Winning scholarships does not take attending “the best” High School. Winning scholarships means understanding how to use the opportunities available to you right now, right where you are. You need to know the 5 “W’s” and a “H”:

• Who to ask for recommendations
• What scholarship judges want
• Where to find scholarships
• When to ask for help
• Why a Personal Statement is important
• How to structure your Autobiographical Essay

The best part about winning scholarships is that you can learn how to do it. With the information you’ll learn in this e-book, you can “get paid” now for activities you’ve already done or things you want to do! Most scholarships award you for performing community service, writing essays, talking about your future goals, or describing what you think the future will bring. Imagine winning $500 just for writing about your own ideas! 

At Scholarship Club meetings we discuss ways to leverage homework with academic contests. For example, suppose you have to write an essay about world peace for your history class. You can research current essay contests on that topic, write your class-assigned paper, turn it in, ask your teacher to “correct” it for you, then submit the paper to an essay contest. You can complete your class assignment, get a good grade, and win a cash award for “doing your homework.” That’s the way to get smart and get paid.

Understand What Scholarship Committees Want

Scholarships are awarded by scholarship committees. Members of the scholarship committee judge the quality of you scholarship materials. The key is to know what criteria the scholarship committee uses to judge your scholarship application. We’ve identified 10 attributes that scholarship judges think a good candidate should have. Now, you don’t have to display all 10 items, but you should know what these items are. 

We call them the Universal Judging Criteria, and here they are:

1. Hard Work
2. Overcoming Obstacles
3. Demonstrating Teamwork
4. Perseverance
5. Showing Initiative
6. Displaying Passion and Enthusiasm
7. Responsibility
8. Civic Duty
9. Sense of Purpose
10. Strong Character

You can demonstrate most of these criteria in each tool as you complete your Scholarship Application Kit. You’ll have to choose which criteria you’ll discuss in each tool in your Application Kit, but I’ll give you some suggestions as we work through this eBook.

Get Ready to Win

Get ready to win scholarships by assembling a Scholarship Tool Kit. A Scholarship Kit contains the items you need to start applying right now. Build your Scholarship Kit on piece at a time – don’t skimp on this part.

Begin applying for scholarship opportunities by assembling your Scholarship Tool Kit first. Your Scholarship Tool Kit will contain all of the information you will need to complete any scholarship application that comes your way.