Online-Degree-Scholarships Blog

Whether you are student, a single or working mom or an athlete, you should be aware about how scholarship applications are judged. If you know how judges review applications, you can prepare yourself in a better and become a prospective candidate to win a specific scholarship grant. You might have filled out a number of scholarship forms and mailed it, only never to be heard from again. Why does it happen? Why does your scholarship application form not make it to winning the scholarship? It is, therefore, important to understand the procedure of scholarship judgment, so you may increase your chances of winning the free grant money.

A First Glance at the Application
Scholarship judges take the first glance at the scholarship application forms for a short duration of 15 to 30 seconds. This is the initial stage of judgment and hundreds of forms are rejected in this stage alone. You need to take a final look at your scholarship application form to make sure you fulfill the following criteria.

Are you eligible for the scholarship program?
Is your scholarship application neat?
Have you included all the required documents along with the form?

Remember to ask yourself all of these questions before you send your application form to the sponsor or the organization that is offering free grants. It is surprising to note that around 90% of the scholarship application forms are ‘killed' right at this stage. There are many scholarship committees that also use a checklist to ensure that you are an eligible candidate and your application is acceptable. In most cases, it is not actually a scholarship judge who has a first glance at your scholarship application form. Therefore, always keep the above mentioned points in mind and make sure that you fulfill all the eligibility criteria while applying for a specific college scholarship program, whether need-based, minority scholarship, women scholarship, athletic scholarship, education or degree scholarship etc.

The Second Look at the Scholarship Application Form
If the candidates or the students are pass the first stage, they are through to stage where judges have a second look at the grant applications. This is the stage where the ‘OK' is separated from the ‘Great'. Judges select only those applications that are thorough and well-thought-out responses. Therefore, candidates need to make sure that their responses are complete. Also remember to review you scholarship essays over gain to make them completely error-free and effective.

The Final Decision
This is obviously the toughest parts of the scholarship judging procedure for judges and for candidates to make it through and win the free scholarship money. At this stage, the judges narrow down their deserving candidates list to a few highly qualified students. To select scholarship winners, scholarship judges or the scholarship committee considers a number of things.

According to the Mark Davis, President of Coca Cola Scholarship Foundation, judges take the following into consideration -

Academics
It is essential to possess a competitive GPA. Sponsors or providers pay special attention to courses you are taking and whether these are right courses. In addition, they check out your performance in these courses.

Leadership
It is one of the extremely important criteria to get selected as a scholarship winner. Judges will, therefore, have a look at your leadership skills and activities.

Service
Community services and volunteering work is something scholarship judging boards keenly look for. Whether or not you have been involved in some kind of community service or volunteering efforts will play a most important role in winning a scholarship grant.

Creativity
Try to show your creative skills or artistic talents to the judges or the achievements or awards you have won on the ground of your innovativeness.

Special Circumstances
Don't forget to mention any obstacles you overcame in the past to fulfill your goals. The ability to cope with adverse circumstances is a criterion that will make you stand apart from other applicants. It shows the judges your resilience and how focused towards your career goal you are.

To be able to win free scholarship money, it is essential to know how scholarships candidates are judged and how scholarship grants are awarded. Knowing these basics will always enhance your chances of winning college scholarships and free grant money.

Of course, winning a scholarship takes time and effort. You may have applied to many a student and college scholarship programs and have won quite a few too. If you have not won a scholarship yet, you may win one in the near future if you do your homework well and apply keeping in the mind the eligibility and selection criteria. But, what do you need to do after you have won a scholarship? Is that all? Exactly, not. In fact it is the beginning. The free money that you get is surely going to help you bear the college expenses. Given below are some tips and suggestions on what scholarship winners need to do next.

Writing the Thank You Letters
So, you have received a letter with the opening words: "Congratulations". It is quite obvious that you have the scholarship that you had applied for. It is now time to write thank-you letters to scholarship sponsoring organizations, scholarship selection committee, the program director and other people involved in the whole scholarship selection and awarding procedure. Do not fret, as you do not need to draft a speech for a movie awards ceremony. You need to write just a couple of words to express your heartfelt thanks to scholarship judges who spend many hours selecting the deserving candidates out of thousands or more applicants.

Writing thank-you letters after winning a scholarship also brings you the opportunity of keeping in touch with many scholarship organizations that might help you later as well. In the thank-you letter, do remember to mention your contact info and plan to keep in touch further as well. You may also plan to write another letter to continue being in touch.

Preparing Scholarship Recipient Speeches
Many times when you win scholarships, sponsoring organizations may ask you to make a scholarship speech. After you have won scholarship money for college, students may be required to speak at the winner's banquet or reception. Do not feel apprehensive about speaking before the public, as the audience already loves you for winning the free money for college. It is a good idea to prepare a short story including who you are and what goals you want to achieve in future. And be ready to enjoy the moment, as the audience is there just to celebrate your win.

The audience would usually comprise of scholarship organization members, program director, community leaders, sponsors etc. So, use scholarship speech as an opportunity to impress the audience and win some brownie points by appreciating other scholarship winners as well. You never know when they get impressed and consider you for an internship later. While delivering the speech, do thank the organization members, scholarship program judges, your family and teachers who recommended you for this college scholarship program.

Requesting Funds
After winning a scholarship, you may be asked to fill out a form so that the scholarship award office may send you the check. If you receive a letter mentioning the same, you need to exactly find out where you need to submit the form for requesting scholarship fund. Many universities can have separate offices for financial aid and awarding scholarships. Check out all the details while requesting funds for college education. You can either log on to the respective website or make a call to the scholarship office to gather inform regarding the fund request form and its submission.

After the submission of the scholarship fund request form, the scholarship award office can either send the free money directly to your address or at the school you attend. The school committee will later deposit the fund into your account. In case you find delay or do not receive the scholarship money even after submitting the fund request form, do not sit thinking that they are not going to send it. Just make a call and get in touch to find out the details or the current status. At times, the scholarship award office may not be able to get sufficient information required to send you the scholarship money.

Keeping in Touch
Winning a scholarship means you have also won the support of a whole network comprising of scholarship organization members, scholarship judges, community leaders etc. You need to keep in touch with all these influential people. This network can also bring you lots of job opportunities, internships and mentoring facilities among others. The scholarship organizations would really love to hear about your updates and progress while you attend college. You can also write them a nice email on a quarterly basis to keep them updated. You have no idea how this professional and influential network can bring you more and more opportunities for the advancement of your career.

To help finance a college education, thousands of scholarship organizations provide free money to students. Depending on the organization or an association the scholarship is provided by, it can be of different types to serve students of a variety of backgrounds. Candidates looking to win free money for college expenses should be aware of the different scholarship types and numerous types of organizations that provide them. Scholarship money can be offered to students from organizations, foundations, clubs, academic institutions and other establishments. It is not that only students with an excellent educational background are eligible to apply and win scholarships. Various types of scholarships have come into existence to cater to the specific needs of students whichever background or community they may belong to.

Private Scholarships
There are hordes of scholarships available other than those offered by universities and colleges. Private scholarships are also provided to help students finance their college education. Students need to do some research on their own to find such private scholarships. You may also use numerous online scholarship search services.

Community Organizations
A student may belong to any particular community. And in almost every community, scholarships are provided to help students. There are different civic bodies and community organizations that offer free scholarship money for students. Many of these civic organizations have their branches nationwide. Students need to get in touch with these community organizations and find out the details of student scholarships provided by these community organizations.

Parents' Place of Employment
Employed parents can also help their children by getting them scholarships from their company. There are many companies and labor unions that provide free scholarship money to the employees' children. So, find out whether the company your parents work for provides free scholarship money to defray college education expenses.

Religious Organizations
Different religious organizations also try to help students by providing them free scholarship money. Students need to check out at the local churches, mosques, temples and other religious organizations that offer scholarship opportunities. It is not necessary that a church would provide scholarship money to only Christians. Religious organizations may provide free money for college to students belonging to different religious groups. Eligibility criteria for receiving such scholarships can be a good academic background, your commitment and dedications or a student's financial need.

Ethnic or Racial Organizations
There are such organizations that provide scholarships to candidates who are a member of a particular ethnic group or a racial group.

Corporations
Among other scholarship funding organizations, corporations also play a vital role in providing free college money to students in the form of scholarships. Not only large corporations like Chevron, Westinghouse and Bank of America, but even numerous smaller companies as well provide college scholarships. Eligibility for corporate scholarships, however, may vary from one corporation to other. Some of the corporations will offer you scholarships in a specific area of study while some other will reward scholarships for a candidate's excellent leadership skills.

ROTC Scholarships
These scholarships are offered by the Armed Forces of the United States. ROTC scholarships require a commitment from the student to serve in the military after they complete their graduation. To check out the details and avail yourself of such student scholarships, you can get in touch with your high school guidance and counseling centre or contact the local military recruiter.

College & University Scholarships
While you attend a college, you can find out the details about the scholarships that the college provides. Colleges offer merit-based scholarships to students considering factors like your class standing in high school, your grade point average and your SAT or ACT scores. Factors considered for awarding scholarships may vary a little from one college to another. Some colleges also take into account the financial need of a student before providing them the scholarship.

There are many colleges that provide free scholarship money to students who have performed excellently well in a particular field. If a student has shown their excellence in mathematics and is eager to pursue the very subject as a major course of study may be provided free scholarships money at the university with the assistance of the college department. Fellowship money and athletic scholarships are the other major scholarship types awarded by colleges and universities.