Are You Ready to Win Money to Help You Pay for College?

Start searching before senior year: Getting an early start on the scholarship search can increase the number of options you have.

What Do The Answers To Your Quiz Mean?

If you scored less than 5 YES answers – you’re just beginning to get ready for your scholarship journey. Pick Up the Pace! Time To Get Moving!

If you scored 5 to 9 YES answers – You’re on the way to being ready to win money for college. Keep Up The Great work!

If you scored 10 or 14 YES answers – You’re almost COMPLETELY ready – Great Job! You are ahead of the game.

If you scored 15 YES answers – You’re All Set! Awesome job, You Should Be Proud!!

If you scored less than 15 – YES answers, No worries! Here are some suggestions to help you:

NOTE: Your performance on this quiz is not a guarantee that you or your student will win a scholarship, grant, award, or prize.

QUESTION 1 – It’s not all about you! In many cases, to have a winning edge for winning scholarship money, you need to do more than tell an organization why you need and want college money. You must go beyond your need and include how you think that completing your own education, could benefit others in the future.

If you need help identifying a reason or reasons why you deserve to win a scholarship, read Reap A Harvest: Tips for Aspiring College Students (eBook version available), attend one of our upcoming workshops.

QUESTIONS 2 THRU 7–One of the best ways to stand out among a crowd of other scholarship applicants is through participation in activities beyond the classroom. This includes roles in a club, sports team, academic team, honor society, sorority, an association, or a faith-based organization. Strive to be well-rounded and participate in several meaningful activities. A leadership role in some of the activities is also important.

Did You Know: your paid work and job experience, unless significant should be listed last. Chronological order is not as important as the impact of the activity on you and/or others. Emphasis should be on community service, leadership (in unpaid roles), awards, honors, and achievements. For additional help, schedule a consultation with our Lead Consultant.

Did you know that the higher your college entrance exam score, the more money you could win? If you have not taken the SAT or ACT, register today. If you don’t do as well as you like the first time, take it again. (Ask your high school counselor if you qualify for a fee waiver). If your grades aren't perfect there's no need to worry. Scholarships aren't just for students with a high GPA.

Non-Academic Scholarships are available to a wide variety of people. They can be based on community service, leadership, extra-curricular activities, hobbies, disabilities, or even wearing duct tape accessories to the prom (see, there IS something for everyone!)

QUESTION 8 – Amazingly enough, student scholarship winners often don’t check their email. Most students prefer to text, some almost exclusively. Although some programs will try to track down a student who doesn’t answer their email about winning a scholarship, many others will not. Always remember to check your email. Also, if you have not created a personal email outside of your school email address, do it as soon as you read this sentence! Once you graduate from high school, your school email address will no longer be linked to you. P.S. Also make sure that the email address you choose sounds professional. Try to keep it simple and use your name if possible...(You'll thank me for this later)!

QUESTION 9 – Essays should reflect more than the information included in a scholarship résumé or transcript. Essays should highlight and explain extracurricular activities and reveal how specific activities may have impacted you or positively affected someone else. If you need help writing college or scholarship essays, review the Reap A Harvest: Tips for Aspiring College Students book. (eBook version also available) or attend any of our upcoming boot camp essay writing work groups.

QUESTION 10 – Be ready to discuss any activity you included in your application and/or your résumé. This is really important for activities in which you’ve been heavily involved. They want to make sure that they are awarding the right student with their scholarship money. They are almost certain to ask you questions to gain more insight into who you are and to learn more about your activities. Another tip: If they were to Google your name, or find you on social media, what would they say? Now is the time to clean up your profile. Still show your personality, but be mindful of who's looking!

QUESTION 11 – 12- Time management is very important. Try to schedule a time each week to dedicate to your scholarship search. Make sure you pay close attention to deadlines! Stay on top of it and stay organized!

QUESTION 13: Find out if you have a community foundation in your area that awards scholarships. Also, check your school website and ask your high school counselors. Using the Internet and social media will help with your search too!

Ask Local Groups: It couldn't hurt to ask different foundations, religious organizations, or groups in your area if they offer scholarships. Many foundations do offer scholarships and since they are typically only awarded locally there is less competition. Civic groups, Churches, and Credit Unions are great sources for local scholarships.

Search the web: Looking for scholarships on the internet is a great way to find tons of them. There are several scholarship search engines that make surfing the web much quicker. Searching the web provides many more options, however there is also more competition for these scholarships.

Be specific: When searching the web it is important to look for scholarships that apply directly to you. Typing "scholarship" into google will give you many options, but all of those options probably aren't available to you. Try searching for scholarships based on your field of study, your area, your state, your gender, etc.. Being specific allows you to find more scholarships without finding out halfway through the application that you don't even qualify.

For a monthly list of scholarships compiled and customized for you and your situation, subscribe to our Scholarship Access plan here.

QUESTION 14: If you said to yourself, "APPLY" as the first thing to do when you find a scholarship that you qualify for, that's the wrong answer! The first thing I suggest you do is to write it down! Add it to a scholarship log to help you get organized and remember where you found it. Here is a free sample Scholarship Log that you can use.

QUESTION 15: This question was just to see if you are paying attention, LOL... But seriously, to maximize your funding opportunities, be prepared to start applying in the early fall of each year. This applies to students at all educational levels (high school students, current college students, nontraditional students, and adult learners. Here is a Scholarship Log that you can use to organize the scholarship opportunities that you find. You can also check out this page to see a free list of scholarships that you could consider, or if you'd like to receive a customized list of scholarships individualized just for you, we can do that for you.

Subscribe to our "Harvesting U" blog for other college readiness tips for all types of students!

Your answers on this quiz and the results are not a guarantee that you or your student will win a scholarship, grant, award or prize. This is not a scholarship, but only tips that will help you during your search.

Schedule a time to chat with the Harvesting Scholars Lead Consultant.