On the coattails of that unresponsive AMA, here's what'll hopefully be a productive one! Before I post my story, I just want to say -- I am in no way advocating that you only apply to outside scholarships, or even make any part of your college plan contingent on getting outside scholarships. This is a very bad strategy; outside scholarships are awesome, and for sure apply if you have time -- AFTER coming up with a reasonable plan that includes financial safeties (schools where you'll get merit aid, and/or are super cheap due to in-state tuition, whatever -- find something that works for you) and executing on that plan. Only then is applying to outside scholarships a potentially good use of time.
I repeat: outside scholarships are NEVER something to be counted on. Please keep this in mind throughout this post, and this thread. I worked hard to maximize my chances for every scholarship, but there's always a lot of luck in this process. Don't let luck (or lack thereof) keep you from going to college.
So, with that long disclaimer, here we go--
I first started applying aggressively to scholarships in June of 2014. I'd moved away from home to accept an internship in another city, and self-supporting on a low wage -- in a metropolitan area -- is pretty rough sometimes. That's when I started to have the, "If I don't even have the money to go get groceries until this friday... how am I going to go to college?" epiphany. Again, please note that that epiphany spurred /a lot/ of emails to faculty, financial aid offices, and many institutional merit aid applications (I ended up getting $127,050 in merit from my school). However, at the time -- without that offer in hand yet -- I also applied obsessively to every single scholarship on Fastweb et al.
If you haven't figured this out already, this is not a good idea. The time/reward ratio is way too low, and I was applying to all the "Ayn Rand Essay Contest"s out there, all the random sweepstakes, etc. And no, I didn't get any.
I think the big takeaway here is to think long and hard about what opportunities you're applying to: The "easy" stuff on Fastweb and similar sites are the scholarships literally everyone is applying to. You're not going to win. Point blank. "But someone has to win, and it only takes 5 minutes!" is terrible logic -- you can find a more reputable (harder to complete, honestly) scholarship in 5 minutes. (Related side note: I've been told local scholarships are super awesome. I personally never had any success with them, but I think that's an anomaly. So, second takeaway: always prioritize local scholarships before national ones.)
Third point, in my mind, the outside scholarship world is really owned by a duopoly: (1) Scholarship Management Services/Scholarship America and (2) ISTS. They administer almost every big dollar scholarship, and even a bunch of local - mid tier ones. If you aren't applying directly through their site, their applications are often embedded in a Foundation's scholarship application site (the Burger King Scholars program is a good example). Anyway, this means that a whole ton of scholarship applications you'll find yourself filling out -- if you do decide to apply to outside scholarships -- are going to be the same exact thing, or at least very similar. Save every application you fill out. Think about how you can fill it out better. Lots of these scholarships are autograded -- the number of lines you can fill out *matters*. The content of those lines *matters*. Some programs even look for "unique" activities that not many other students (or any) listed. But, I can go into all these finer details if someone posts a question below :)
I don't want to make this post super long -- I think those are probably my top three takeaways for most students. But, definitely ask whatever questions you have. Just for the record: it's not just me. At every scholarship event I've gone to, I always see the same kids (or, mostly the same kids). Yes, part of it is being a good student, but another large part is figuring out what matters to the scholarship administrators and learning to represent yourself in the light they want.
Re: the stats question -- 4.0 GPA (weighted is above that), upper-90th-percentile SAT score, family is pretty firmly middle class (but not upper middle class). But, for the record, there were Coke Scholars/GE-Reagan Scholars/etc that I see at every event that did *not* have top stats. Stuff happens.
List of outside scholarships won in case anyone has specific questions:
AXA Achievement Community Scholarship
Brad Feld Aspirations in Computing Scholarship
Burger King WHOPPER Scholarship
Coca-Cola Scholars Scholarship
Elks Most Valuable Student Competition Scholarship
GE-Reagan Scholarship
Harry E. Arcamuzi Aviation Scholarship
Jack Kent Cooke College Scholarship
National Space Club Keynote Finalist Scholarship
SanDisk Scholarship
Lint Center Scholarship
GoEnnounce "Define Yourself" Scholarship
VIP Women in Tech Scholarship
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