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Scholarship books are another great tool for finding scholarships. The Using the Library post provides some great information for finding scholarship books, and more of that information will be posted here. 

Finding Scholarship Books

This post provides a great starting point for scholarship books, but there are often hundreds of more books available through your local library. 

1. Search for scholarship books in your library’s catalog. When searching for books, use words like “scholarships” or “financial aid.” If they apply to you, you can use more specific terms such as “athletic scholarships” or “military scholarships” to get fewer, more specific results.

When searching, search by keyword. Using a keyword search allows you to find books and materials that do not have the word “scholarship” (or whatever you searched) in their title, but still contain information on that topic. Example: If you searched “scholarships” on Tumblr by blog title, you would not find this blog!

Look for more recent books, preferably printed in the last 5 years. Older books can still be helpful, but some of the scholarships listed in them may no longer exist (meaning you are wasting your time reading about them) or the tips and information may be too old (especially in books printed before the internet was popular). You can filter, or narrow, your search by publication year on most library catalogs. 

2. Search for scholarship books at your library. Most scholarship books are filed in the non-fiction section (either the adult or teen non-fiction section) under the 378.3 call number. Explore your library’s nonfiction areas to find these books. 

If you are at the library, make sure to ask a librarian for scholarship help. He or she will be able to show you exactly where the scholarship books are, reserve more for you on your library card, and provide you with more information on scholarships specific to your needs and interests.

Using Scholarship Books

Books of scholarships are typically over 500 pages long and include extensive lists of scholarship details, often in small print. The scholarships may be organized by title or state of origin. Neither of these tools is very helpful to you.

Scholarship providers, colleges, and students have taken advantage of social media so that scholarship information is constantly at your fingertips. It is simple to find scholarships or scholarship information via many of your favorite social media sites:

Facebook

Twitter (Post 1 and Post 2)

Tumblr

Pinterest

YouTube

Most of these websites have general search boxes that allow you to look for information or allow you to find pages, groups, or people to follow, 

Twitter takes scholarship hunting to the next level. You can find hundreds of scholarships a day just by following the right hashtags. 

If you choose to use Twitter to actively search for scholarships (not just waiting for them to appear in your feed) try searching the following, hashtags:

#scholarships

#financialaid

#MoneyforCollege

#CollegeScholarships

#college (this will provide you with a lot of results, not all of which will be related to scholarships and money)

How to Search for Scholarships on Google

If you search “scholarships” on Google, over 87 million results appear. That is a lot of scholarships. The thing is, not all of these sources are individual scholarships, which is actually a good thing--you wouldn’t want to read through 87 million different scholarship descriptions, right?

The first few pages of links on Google typically are links to scholarship databases, such as FastWeb. Think of FastWeb, and other scholarship databases, as a Google search engine exclusively for scholarships. When looking for NATIONAL scholarships, it is much easier to start at these databases instead of searching on Google, Yahoo, or other search engines that can give you millions of results. 

How to Search for Scholarships on FastWeb 

1. Register for an account. On almost all scholarship websites, you are going to have to put in a lot of information about yourself to narrow the scholarships you see. FastWeb requires you to create an account so that you do not have to retype this information each time you get on the website. Other scholarship databases will not have you make an account, but you will still need to provide them some information to make your search easier. 

This information typically includes:

Grade Level

High School Graduation Year

Gender & Ethnicity

Military Service

Citizenship Status

Academic Information (GPA, Test Scores)

College Information (colleges you are considering, possible majors)

Activity and athletic interest and participation

The more information you provide, the better scholarship results you will receive.

2. Check out your dashboard. Once you have created an account, you will be able to access a dashboard at almost any college scholarship database. It will include links to update your profile as well as links to scholarships that match what you have told the website so far.

In the sample picture, based on my profile, I have 123 scholarship matches. 

3. See your scholarship matches. I clicked on the “see matches” button in the orange box on my dashboard, and it brought me to a scholarship information page. This page lists more detailed information on all of the scholarships I am eligible for.

Before we look at individual scholarships, let’s look at all those navigation bars at the top of the page. 

The top white bar contains links to other categories of information FastWeb provides. This includes information on colleges, financial aid, student loans, and career planning.

The top blue bar contains scholarship specific information, currently including matches, deadlines, and tips. The blue bar options will change depending on what word you select in the white bar. 

This toolbar is exclusive to the Scholarship Matches section. It lets you separate the scholarships you see by new matches you have not seen yet, as well as categories you can attach to each individual scholarship based on whether you think you will apply. 

When you are looking at any scholarship category, you can use the “Sort by” tool to sort scholarships by deadline, name, provider, or amount. 

4. Select a scholarship. Once you have a list of scholarships, choose one of interest to find out more information about it. 

The scholarship description contains detailed information about the scholarship, including the amount, the deadline, who provides it, a description of requirements, and how many scholarships are offered. It also includes a link to the application and a tool for you to categorize the scholarship by whether you want to apply or not.

When you want to look at another scholarship, simply press “Back to My Scholarships.”

While the above images and steps focus on Fastweb, almost all scholarship databases have a similar format with comparable information. 

How to Find Local or Specific Scholarships

Google can still be really helpful when looking for LOCAL scholarships or scholarships with specific companies, but you need to know the specific scholarship you are looking for before you start searching. 

If you are looking for local scholarships, try typing in your town or school name as well as the word scholarship. For example, try searching:

Columbus, Ohio + Scholarships

Canal Winchester, Ohio + Scholarships

If you are looking for a specific scholarship, try searching for the scholarship by name:

Coca Cola scholarship

Burger King scholarship