As Teacher Man said in his article about Free Money: Scholarships, Bursaries, and Grants, school is expensive any way you look at it. Some of us are lucky to have summer jobs that pay for half of the costs of the upcoming school year, let alone all of it. So if you are still in highschool, or in your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th,….or even 5th+ year, there are many scholarships out there that you can apply for!
Applying Is Easy
Most of the time requirements for applying for scholarships are pretty similar to each other. Sometimes they ask for a small write up on why you feel you deserve the award. I would just use that write up for multiple scholarships, or simply tweak it a bit. Every scholarship will have its own little form to fill out and send in. Many of these can be done online, which will save you time and postage
Get Organized
Start by going out and finding as many scholarships and bursaries as you can. Once you have a stack of them, do them in order of the deadline date or do the ones you have the best chance of getting.
Places To Find Scholarships Or Bursaries
- Online – By far the easiest way to find scholarships, but its also easy for everyone else to find them, see the list below.
- Private – Many companies have scholarships that they advertise internally or with their customers. I do some banking with CIBC and I know they have a few scholarships available for their customers and they sent me a letter asking me to apply for them.
- University Student Aid Office – This is where students negotiate their payment options with the university and find ways to get more money from various associations that donate money to the university. They will have public and private postings of scholarships and bursaries. This is where you can find some scholarship opportunities that have very specific qualifications (for example: aboriginal decent going into the field of medicine).
- Student Union Office – If these people don’t have any scholarships, they can point you in the right direction for finding them.
- Automatically – When I applied for student aid I filled out a form stating my financial situation and I wrote a short essay explaining why I was in need of money. The univeristy gets a budget every year and it includes all kinds of donations for scholarships. Many of them are allocated according to field of study, year of study, and sometimes ethnicity. All in all, they wrote me a check for $500. Not bad for 20 minutes of work!
- Bulletin Boards – Many scholarships don’t get advertised at all and just are posted on bulletin boards in certain buildings on campus.
- Faculty Office – These are found at the general office. Every faculty will be connected to its industry and many companies are throwing money towards them to help build their future pool of potential employees and give their corporate image some positive PR. These scholarships are faculty-specific so it give you much better odds of winning them.
Requirements Are More Of A Guideline…
