Wednesday, March 10, 2010

College Financial Aid Guide - 3 Steps to Secure a Scholarship

Every student wants a scholarship to fund their college study, but not all students manage to secure one. Although you can apply for all scholarships that are opened for application, but you may not qualify for all and applying for scholarships which you are not qualified for will waste your time and efforts. You should only apply the scholarships that you are qualified for. Here are 3 important steps to secure a scholarship:

1. Get Your GPA As High As Possible

Most scholarships are reserved for students with best academic results. Hence, the first thing you must do is get your GPA as high as possible so that you can qualify for more scholarships. Some scholarship application requirements required you to maintain a certain GPA through out your academic years while other might need you to achieve a certain GPA to qualify for application. Hence, your GPA is an important factor that will determine your opportunity to secure a scholarship.

2. Search & Apply For Scholarships

The second thing you must do is searching for the scholarships which you are qualified for and apply for them. Be sure to read the requirements and prepare all the necessary documents to be attached with the application form. You can choose to search individual scholarship online or your school might have certain recommended scholarships for their students.

You can also use the online free scholarship search services to help you match the scholarships with your qualification. The two most popular free scholarship searches are FastWeb and Scholarship Experts. They will send the details information about the proposed scholarships to your email address; what you need to do is review these scholarships and apply the scholarships you are interested in. These free scholarship search services are a great service to help you identify the scholarships that match your qualification so that you have the best chance to secure at least one.

The only thing you should beware is the scholarship scams which try to cheat your money; they are around especially on internet, so you must double confirm about the scholarships offers before you make any payment if there is a processing fee involved.

3. Be Persistent To Follow Up On Your Application

Today, most communications are through email, if you submit your scholarship application and put your email address in the contact column. Be sure to check your email periodically. There are students who submit their scholarship application but never check their email regularly; when they found out there is a scholarship offer which ask them to confirm their acceptance before the due date, but at the time they read their mail, it already past the due date. Don't miss any scholarship offer due to your laziness of checking your email. Don't give up and keep applying for scholarships until you secure one. You will have success if you keep persistently in applying the scholarships which you are qualified for.

Summary

The basic 3 steps to secure a scholarship to fund you college study. These steps are: maintaining your academic result with as high GPA as possible, do the search for scholarships that match your qualification, apply them and persistently check for the status.

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