With the excitement of college comes the question every parent frets over: How are we going to pay for this? With tuition, room and board, meals, travel, and more, expenses add up quickly. Even if your student receives some financial aid, you will likely still have expenses you need to cover. This is where scholarships come in! We’ve compiled some information about homeschoolers and scholarships to help you get started.
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This post is part of a 10-day “Tips for Homeschool Moms Series” we are doing in conjunction with several other homeschool bloggers. Our theme is “Preparing Your Homeschooled Teen for College”. To see links to all of our posts and the other blogs, you can view this post. Now, onto our info on homeschoolers and scholarships to help you pay for college!
Finding Scholarships
Personally, I found many of my scholarships through online search engines. One of my favorites was Fastweb, as I felt it organized them well and had a variety of scholarships. I also used Niche, Cappex, and Unigo. There are plenty of options available, so your student can find the one that works best for them.
If your student prefers searching on paper rather than online, you can check out this book. The Ultimate Scholarship Book is a yearly compilation of thousands of scholarships, contests, and grants for homeschoolers. The book is well-organized into various categories and types of scholarships, which makes it easy for your student to find what they are looking for. It’s a great resource to have on hand as your teen is searching!
While it’s great to check wide bases of scholarships that are open to everyone, your teen should also look for homeschool-specific scholarships. These scholarships often have smaller entry pools meaning your student has a better chance of winning. One example is this essay contest by Techie Homeschool Mom. It is only open to homeschool students, and all it requires is an essay!
Applying for Scholarships
Many scholarships have similar essay prompts, so it helps if your student has a few essays that they can tweak to apply to different scholarships. Do check the rules when applying and make sure this is allowed, though. And don’t submit an exact copy. You can use the general structure and ideas and change the wording a bit for different contests. Some common prompts are “What was an obstacle in your life that you had to overcome?” “Why did you choose (insert student’s major)?” and, “Why do you deserve to win this scholarship?” Your student can find others by Googling or by looking for patterns when applying.
When I was applying for scholarships in high school, I often found it a bit difficult to keep track of what was due when, and what I needed. To help, I organized a spreadsheet so that everything was in one place. It wasn’t anything fancy or complicated, but it made applying for scholarships so much easier. In my spreadsheet, each scholarship has its own row. The columns were: deadline, amount, where to find (usually a link to the page), components needed (essay, video, etc.), and date winners are announced. I usually kept them organized in chronological order by due date, with the soonest deadlines at the top. When I finished a scholarship, I highlighted the row in green and added the reminder to check for a winner announcement on my phone.
Additionally, if a scholarship has “optional” requirements, they often are not actually optional. Meaning, that applicants who complete these steps will be considered before applicants who didn’t. So, if a scholarship says it requires an essay and a recommendation letter is optional, your student should be submitting the essay and the letter. Also, make sure students thoroughly read through the requirements for submission to ensure they are not missing components!
More Information
We have more resources available if you would like to read or listen further about homeschoolers and scholarships. This post has more ideas about where to find scholarships. And this book by Monica Matthews discusses strategies to improve your odds of winning scholarships. If you prefer listening, we have podcast episodes on “Finding, Tracking, and Winning Scholarships” and “Completing Online Scholarship Applications” over on the Homeschooling with Technology podcast.
Blog Post Series
We hope you find this information about homeschoolers and scholarships helpful! This post is part of a 10-day “Tips for Homeschool Moms” series we are doing in conjunction with other homeschool blogs. Our theme is “Preparing Your Homeschooled Teen for College”. You can find all of our posts, as well as the other blogs and series topics linked in this post. Our partners have some excellent experiences and insight to share in their series, so please do check out their blogs!
As always, if you have any questions, comments, or other suggestions, please leave them in the comments below!
Thanks for reading!
