by Steven Tagle
How to Perform an Effective Scholarship Search
Most students looking for scholarships start with the same question: “Where can I find a list of scholarships that fit me?” Though many balk at the task of sorting through thousands of potential opportunities, this endeavor is absolutely essential. Anyone searching for scholarships must develop individualized search strategies based on their knowledge of themselves and their area of study. In this post, I share three steps to help you accomplish this task efficiently and effectively.
Table of Contents:
1. Start local.
Once you’ve been accepted to a university, begin navigating its bureaucracies to find opportunities to apply for funds. You can start with your specific department, but there are hundreds of other centers, labs, institutes, student services, and academic communities that can support your goals.
2. Generate a list of effective search terms.
Next, set aside time to answer the following questions about your short- and long-term goals, background, and personal interests. Your answers to these questions will become your internet search queries.
Graduate School Goals
List the specific goals you will achieve through your degree program. Hone your goals with these questions:
- Will you conduct research or fieldwork?
- Do you plan to gain hands-on work experience?
- In what kind of community, archive, or institution do you plan to conduct your research or perform your work?
- What communities do you wish to serve through your work and research?
- Think through the progress of your degree. What are normal benchmarks for a student to hit along the way? You will likely be able to get funding to support your work toward achieving each of these benchmarks, but you must identify what those benchmarks are in order to search for relevant funding. For example, general benchmarks for PhD students include proposal, literature review, research, writing, submission, and defense.
Community
Use the following questions to build search terms related to your particular sense of community:
- What communities do you belong to? Consider ethnicity, race, religion, immigration or citizenship status, medical conditions, gender, and sexuality. Identifying these elements of self will allow you to connect with a large number of communities.
- What communities do you care about? Perhaps you don’t belong to a particular community, but you care a lot about one. Many people care about the animal kingdom or the environment. Some of your career goals might even be built around a community or entity outside of yourself. Do any of your habits, interests, or routines make you part of a broader community?
- What communities care about you? Do you know of any organizations that might care about aspects of your life story or research? Think outside of yourself and your own interests, and imagine which communities might be invested in you, your goals, and your experiences. This exercise will expand how you think about the role that your identity plays in a world of shared experiences and allow you to connect with the missions of many organizations.
Potential Careers
Use this category to list the future careers you see your degree leading toward. It’s better if you can include more than one career trajectory here. Ask yourself these questions:
- Are these careers associated with professional organizations?
- What essential turning points, key experiences, or critical skills will you need in order to contribute to these communities?
- Do related national associations of organizations fund students to achieve career-based goals? (The likely answer is “Yes”!)
Interests and Hobbies
I usually use this category to help clients find essay contests related to their personal interests and hobbies. Feel free to go all out here: there are essay contests for people who love coffee and for people who love zombies. List all of your genuine interests and hobbies here. Rather than peruse the many essay contests that exist online, I encourage you to make a list of the hobbies and interests you’d most like to write an essay about. Then your search queries will look like this: “Essay contests about coffee.”
Geographies
What countries, regions, states, and cities do you have a personal connection with? List places that have more meaning to you than “I’ve traveled there” but are also a little broader than just “I am from there.” When you start searching for organizations, the best place to begin is where you’ve lived, where you went to high school, where you went to college, and where you are currently based. Ideally, you’ll start asking questions like “What organizations in LA care about something I am studying, researching, or passionate about?”
Languages
Include all of the languages you currently speak or are interested in actively learning over the next two years. There are many federal grants and career-based associations that support people in using or developing language skills to build careers working with diverse populations. Just knowing a language other than English or learning a new language as part of your course of study may make you eligible for additional scholarships.
Project-Based Goals
What would you do if someone gave you $15,000 for a community project? What components of a community organization or mission do you most care about? Many organizations and private donors award funds to students based on project proposals, but these foundations usually have very specific mission statements. The best way to connect with an organization like this is to first think about the kind of project you’d like to carry out, and then search for foundations that would support that kind of project.
3. Begin searching!
Once you have a list of 25+ terms that describe various aspects of who you are and what you do, spend an hour experimenting online with each search term. Use the terms to navigate institutional or university websites, find privately endowed community funds, and identify interesting essay contests. As you search, don’t be afraid to edit your initial list! Remove terms that are too broad or don’t return quality results, and add terms that appear in candidate descriptions and mission statements. By reading the bios of past and current scholarship recipients whose profiles match your own, you can learn about other opportunities that may be a good fit.
So, if you’re faced with a daunting tuition bill from your dream school, don’t give up! Roll up your sleeves, follow the suggestions above, and spend some time looking for a scholarship that’s also looking for you.
Related Resources
