Current seniors’ tips for finding and applying for scholarships

Reuse essays from college applications, try to stand out, try to find smaller and local scholarships- Nichole Chambliss (she/her)

If you are writing something for a scholarship, don’t write for the readers – write for yourself.  Avery Evans (she/her)

Apply to as many as possible. I applied to 67 scholarships worth over $800,000 in total. There’s no harm in applying because the worst that can happen is that you don’t get it, and you can find many on scholarship databases – there are both national and local scholarships. Also, get used to rejections. From 67 scholarships, I won 7 scholarships equating to around $54,000. – Pinyu Liao (she/her)

There aren’t very many of them. Give up hope. – Christopher McQueen (he/him)

Apply to a bunch, and then hope and see what you get. It’s definitely a waiting process. – Emilyn Smith (she/her)

It’s very good to look at ones that are unique and apply to you, because you have a better shot at getting them. Apply to as many as you can. – Sam Best (he/him)

Do it really early and apply to as much as possible. – Lain Harold Rufo (she/they):

I used washboard.org which connected me with a lot of scholarships. – Alex Song (he/him)

Start as early as possible because the longer you wait, the less opportunities you’ll have. – Mary Poole (she/her):

I think it’s probably best to apply for scholarships while applying to colleges because after I was done applying for colleges, I forgot about applying to scholarships. Take into consideration the Northshore scholarships. – Steven Escobar (he/him)

Find scholarships that are specific to your major and your interests because you’re more likely to get them (in contrast to those larger scholarships which only give aid to very few applicants. Also try a lot of different websites. – Ally Hong (she/her)

Seniors share the amount of money they earned from scholarships

Siqi Li: $150,000

Julia Gonzalez: $144,000

Siddharth Manika: $125,000 

Kathryn (Kath) Shelden: $114,000

David Nilsen: $112,000 

Sasha Cass: $100,000 

Allie Fey: $100,000 

Rebecca Stephenson: $90,000 

Liana Moldovanu: $82,500 

Sophia Rodriguez: $82,000

Sara Lawson: $76,000 

Cameron Clark: $70,000

Nolan Stewart: $60,000

Pinyu Liao: $54,500

Laney Brackett: $50,000

Carlos Rubio-Marroquin: $48,000

Wyatt Gilbert: $44,000

Violet Brose: $44,000

Emilyn Smith: $44,000

Don Mo: $40,000

Alivia Chambers: $40,000

Jonathan Chan-Tang: $25,000

Steven Escobar: $25,000

Dylan Magdziarz: $24,000

Dulcy Solomon: $20,000

Isabel Amaya: $20,000

Haley van Meurs: $14,000

Ava Lachmann: $11,000

Justin Chae: $10,000

Alex Song: $8000

Roan Howard: $5000

Ally Hong: $4000

Audrey Gasser: $3500

Alissa Lau: $3000

Ty Dixey: $3000

Maria Sushmitha: $2500

Liam Shalom: $2500

D’ Aire Pham: $2000

Isabelle Garrard: $300