How to Win a Merit Scholarship

Merit scholarships are typically awarded on the basis of academic, athletic or artistic merit, in addition to special interests. Some merit scholarships also consider financial need, but rewarding talent is the primary objective.

In most cases the scholarship sponsor has a set of criteria they use to select the winners from among the qualified applicants. (This is in contrast to scholarship lotteries which select winners randomly.) So a key to winning a merit scholarship is to identify the sponsor's criteria and tailor your application to those criteria.

Common Types of Scholarships

A scholarship is an award of access to an institution, or a financial aid award for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.

The most common types of scholarships may be classified as:

College Scholarship Searching Instruction for Parents

College schooling is very expensive. Colleges and Universities offers higher payments on every course that one may wish to take. The average cost of college schooling nowadays has amounted to at least $20,000.00 a year. That amount is too much to bear especially when you have bills to pay and other financial responsibilities to look into.

Many parents opted to save in the banks college funds to be used for their children when they enter college. Some invests in educational plans to surpass the heavy burden they might encounter later on. Good for those who have prepared for the college schooling of their children but how about those who have not? Can their child still go to college even if they lack finances? By all means yes.Here are some tips on how to find college scholarship:

How to Apply for Scholarships

When you apply for scholarships, it is important to be clear on the scholarship requirements. After all, you want to be sure you are eligible before you apply for scholarships. If you are not, you are wasting your time, as well as the time of the business or individual offering the scholarship.

In addition to making sure you are eligible before you apply for scholarships, understanding the requirements also helps guide you through the application process. Failure to follow the application requirements correctly when you apply for scholarships will almost certainly result in denial of the scholarship. This can include failure to include a specific form or even filling out the forms with the wrong ink color. Therefore, you absolutely must read all of the requirements and guidelines when you apply for scholarships. If you do not, all of the work you put into the scholarships will be wasted because your application will not even be considered.

Common College Scholarship Mistakes

Every semester college students all across the country are pursuing scholarship money to help pay for their college education. Some are very successful in getting scholarships, and others aren't. So here are the most common mistakes that are made when pursuing college scholarships, and how you can avoid them.
1. One of the most common mistakes that students make when applying for college scholarships is to only apply for one or two at a time and then hope for the best. Instead, think of scholarships as a numbers game, where the more scholarships you apply for, the more you are most likely to get.
2. Another mistake that you want to avoid is not following the directions that are clearly stated for applying for the scholarship. Some students seem to just send off generic packets of information to every college scholarship program they can find, but this would usually only guarantee failure.

3. A scholarship application mistake that is often made is in filling out the form itself. Scholarship reviewers like to see the entire form filled in, so if there is a blank on the form make sure that it has something in it. Even if that particular section does not apply to you personally, just note that on the space provided.
4. Another deadly mistake that will almost guarantee failure in applying for college scholarships is sending out a sloppy application that is hard to read. If you put yourself in the place of the scholarship reviewers who will most likely be looking over several scholarship applications at the same time, you can understand why they will most likely not spend much time with applications that are very hard to read and understand. The best way to avoid this is to type in the information on your application, but if that is not possible be sure to write it in clearly and legibly instead.
5. Closely related to neatness is spelling and grammar. Even if the information in your scholarship packet appears neat and easy to read, it can still reflect badly on you if it is filled with spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. So before you send off any scholarship information packet, be sure to have someone with good writing skills review the entire packet beforehand looking for all spelling and grammar mistakes that they can find. Also, it's a good idea to ask them for any suggestions on how to improve your essay at the same time.
6. Of all the mistakes that are commonly made each semester when students apply for scholarship money, perhaps the worst is simply not getting the application and packet in on time. This usually indicates that there is a failure to organize your schedule enough to get the job done. So don't let all your hard work go down the drain because you miss the scholarship deadline.
7. A common mistake that is growing in popularity these days is falling for college scholarship scams that are designed to separate students from their hard earned money. So if any scholarship program promises to do all the work for you, or asks for money or credit card information in advance in order to qualify for the scholarship, it's best to avoid this scholarship program altogether if you don't want to get taken.
These are some of the most common mistakes that are made when students apply for college scholarships, and hopefully by being aware of them you can avoid falling victim to the same mistakes yourself.