About Article on Finding Legitimate Scholarships

Students wanting to attend college can look for scholarships to fund their education.  There are many legitimate scholarships available; however, many scholarship offers deceive individuals into sharing personal information or sending them money.  Allen Grove writes a good article on avoiding such scams on About.com.  Titled "Scholarship Scams: 10 Signs that a Scholarship Isn't Legitimate" it emphasizes the importance of not sharing credit card information, sending money, giving personal information, and believing claims that sound too good to be true.  In most cases they really are too good to be true.  Avoid clicking on those links.

I liked this article, because it calls on individuals to be critical thinkers and develop their information-literacy skills.  Remember to evaluate the information you find.  Increasing its own credibility, the article identifies an author with a link to his credentials.  The easy road may consist of accepting information uncritically in life.  Be careful of taking that road.  Who knows where it may lead you.

"Sunrise on the Great Alpine Road." or Français: "L'aube se lève sur la Great Alpine Road, dans le Victora (Australie)." by Flagstaffotos

 Are you still baffled about how to find real scholarships?  It will require some work and searching, but the article listed at least four websites worth looking at in order to find potentially applicable scholarships.

• Cappex.com 
• CollegeBoard.org
• FastWeb.com
• Scholarships.com

Scholarships for Undergraduate Students

Earning and maintaining scholarships can be a full-time job.  Students should treat their college studies as a full-time job.  The benefits can be huge.

Today I attended an open forum on scholarships.  The presenter talked about finding them, applying for them, and offering thanks for them.  The ISU Scholarship Office put on this forum.  They suggested that students talk with parents and grandparents to see if their workplace offers scholarships to their children.  Additionally, students can ask their departments of scholarships of which they may know of already. 

Many scholarships can be found on the internet.  Again, the Scholarship Office updates a list of outside scholarships, or rather websites that focus on searching and finding all kinds of scholarships available to anyone and everyone.  If you are a college student, consider a visit to your college's scholarship office and dedicating an hour a week to researching and writing scholarship applications.

In the library, you might look for The College Blue Book (LA226 .C685) to see what it can tell you about scholarships, grants, and fellowships.  This titles gets updated yearly and usually resides in a reference collection.  For this book there were two subject headings that looked relevant to this topic:

• Scholarships --United States --Directories.
• Student aid. 

Other titles worth considering:

• The College Board scholarship handbook.
• College student’s guide to merit and other no-need funding
• Scholarships, fellowships, grants and loans.

The library provides books that can help you write a good application as well.

Finding Scholarships, Fellowships, Grants, and Loans

Do you need some scholarship money to help pay for your schooling? Where can you go for help? If you want to search for yourself, you might try conducting some internet searches to find databases with scholarship information, such as www.scholarships.com and Adventures in Education's Scholarship site.

Another option would be to find a reference book at your library that has already compiled contact information of organizations that offer scholarships. At the Idaho State University Library there are at least two books, which might prove useful:
1. The Scholarship Book. 12th Edition. The Complete Guide to Private-Sector Scholarships, Fellowships, Grants, and Loans for the Undergraduate. It contains 4,000 scholarship sources, 400,000 awards worth over $2 billion, and awards up to $40,000 per year. Editors have organized this book by the major fields of study: art, business, education, engineering, humanities, mathematics, science, social sciences, vocational education, and general studies. Subcategories within these broad fields also appear.

Beneath the English Language and Literature section there appear various foundations with the details for eligibility, contact information, website, how to apply, deadlines, number of awards, and the amount of each award. Therefore students may write essays about any of three of Ayn Rand's books for scholarships, which would need to be submitted to the Ayn Rand Foundation for the judging process. This book is over 650 pages, so that provides some indication as to the number of scholarships available for the motivated student. Call Number: REF LB2337.2.S28 2006.

2. The College Blue Book. 36th Edition. Scholarships, Fellowships, Grants, and Loans. This title also organizes its information into disciplines of study. Like the previous title it also give contact information, sponsor of the award, title of the award, fields of study eligible to apply, level of education required, awards given, funds available, eligibility requirements, deadlines, websites, and sources of additional information.

This source would be useful not only for undergraduate and graduate students, but it would also be good for professionals in the field looking for grants and fellowships. Call Number: REF LA226.C685 2009.

Need assistance? At most colleges and universities you can find help from professionals at the Financial Aid Office. They can give advice, recommendations, point you to useful resources, and sometimes they can look over applications for you to verify you have all the required materials and that you completed it accurately. At Idaho State University, the Financial Aid Office provides the following mission statement:

"The Scholarship Office administers the University scholarship program (around $10 million in scholarship disbursements each year) and coordinates timely scholarship-related activity including scholarship announcements and advertising, application screening, selection processes, award notification, and tracking of scholarship recipients. We exist to help students find scholarship opportunities and to help donors find qualified students for their scholarships. We hope you'll find the information linked from our website useful. If you have any questions or need help, please feel free to contact us."

Some universities assign specific individuals to help students with scholarship searches. The ISU Scholarship Office can be contacted here:

ISU Scholarship Office
921 S 8th Ave, Stop 8391
Museum Building, Room 327
Pocatello, ID 83209-8391
Phone: (208) 282-3315
Fax: (208) 282-5717
Email: scholar@isu.edu

Reference librarians can also be helpful in finding scholarship information, though they are not trained to review applications or provide advice. See contact information below:

Idaho State University
Eli M. Oboler Library
Reference Department
921 S. 8th Ave, Stop 8089
Pocatello, ID 83209-8089

* Phone: (208) 282-3152
* Email: refdesk@isu.edu