Free Scholarships Blog

U.S. News Education recently reported on a college admissions study conducted by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The study found that more prospective college students are applying to a large number of schools than ever before. A quarter of freshmen who enrolled in college in the fall of 2010 applied to seven or more schools. The increase is likely spurred by economic factors. Submitting multiple applications allows students to receive multiple financial aid packages to compare and make a decision based on finances.

While applying to multiple schools might benefit students, it definitely presents challenges to admissions counselors. Admission counselors have to dig deep to find out if an applicant is really interested in attending their school and that they will be a good match.  They have to make sure they offer admission to students who are likely to accept in order to keep their enrollment rates high.

How many colleges did you apply to? How many colleges are you planning on applying to? Leave a comment to let us know what you think about applying to a large number of schools!

Read the full article here.

You only have a few days left to enter the October scholarship drawings. In less than one week we will be announcing the winners of the following awards:

• $1,000 Free College Scholarship
• $500 Refer a Friend Scholarship
• $1,000 Scholarship Sponsored by NPD
• $1,000 Scholarship Sponsored by Upromise
• $1,000 Scholarship Sponsored by ZoomPanel
• $1,000 Scholarship Sponsored by MyView
• $1,000 Scholarship Sponsored by Harris Poll
• $1,000 Scholarship Sponsored by PrivateStudentLoans.com

You still have time to qualify for any of these scholarship drawings! Login to your account now to increase your chances of winning on November 1st!

A recent post in the New York Times blog The Choice released results of a Facebook study conducted by Reynol Junco, a professor at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania. In his study Mr. Junco set out to find if using Facebook affects a student’s grades. He assembled a sample of 2,000 college students who all offered up information on their Facebook usage.

Here are some of the findings:

• Students who frequently posted status updates tended to have lower grades. Students who frequently shared links or otherwise engaged with their friends on Facebook tended to have higher graded.
• The more time a student spent on Facebook, the more likely that student was to be involved in extracurricular activities.
• No correlation was found between time spent on Facebook and time spent studying.
• The number of times a student checked Facebook each day was weakly related to academic performance.

What do you think? Are you surprised by these results? Do you think that spending time on Facebook impacts your grades? Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Read the entire article here.

Students from West Texas A&M University and the University of North Carolina among recent ScholarshipPoints scholarship winners.

QUINCY, MA (October 24, 2011) – ScholarshipPoints (www.scholarshippoints.com), an Edvisors online education company, awarded $10,000 on October 3rd to students from Louisiana State University, West Texas A&M University, University of Massachusetts, Miami University, University of North Carolina and more. Through their free scholarships program, ScholarshipPoints will help students of all ages achieve their dreams of a college education by giving away over $120,000 this year. To ensure funds are used for educational purposes, awards are sent directly to the student’s financial aid office.

Alexander Olivo, a freshman at Miami University knows that his $1,000 scholarship award will help him tremendously. “I am a first generation college student raised by a single mother with two younger siblings,” said Alexander. “I am paying off the balance of what I owe on my education our of my own pocket. This money will absolutely add some much needed support.”

ScholarshipPoints is committed to helping students alleviate some of the financial burden associated with higher education. Students who join the program have the opportunity to complete activities in order to earn points. Each point equals one entry into a scholarship drawing. The more points a member enters into a drawing, the greater their chances are of winning. In addition to giving away scholarship money, ScholarshipPoints also educates students on a variety of higher education topics and connects them to third party scholarship offers and alternative financial aid options.

ScholarshipPoints awards multiple monthly scholarships worth up to $10,000. To learn more or to enter upcoming scholarship drawings, visit www.ScholarshipPoints.com.

Happy Thursday! We have almost made it through the week. Before the weekend gets underway we have some very interesting scholarship awards to share with you. Take a look to see if you qualify for any of them!

State Employees’ Association of New Hampshire Scholarships

This first award is for employees of the Granite State and their children. The State Employees’ Association of New Hampshire is awarding a number of scholarships to this group of people. If you or one of your parents works for the state of New Hampshire it is definitely worth checking out!

FreeTestPrep.com Essay Contest

FreeTestPrep.com has an extremely unique scholarship opportunity for high school and college students. They are looking for students to submit the college essay that helped them get into their top choice school. FreeTestPrep.com will publish all of the essays and they will serve as examples for perspective college students. A $1,000 scholarship award is at stake for the student with the best essay.

National Jersey Youth Scholarships

The American Jersey Cattle Association offers a number of different scholarships to students who are Junior Members or Lifetime Members of the association. Available awards total over $15,000 and students must have a minimum GPA of 2.5 to qualify.

That is all we have for today! If you don’t qualify for any of these awards, head over to Student Scholarship Search to view all of the new scholarship awards.

In a blog post last week we asked you, “What is your favorite thing about being back at school this fall?”  Many of you had great answers to share! Here are some of our favorites:

• “Crazy teachers who are passionate about what they’re teaching.”
• “My favorite thing about being back at school is learning and working on new material. Meeting new people and exploring the campus is fun.”
• “Starting a geocaching club, new haircut, new posters I got for my dorm, getting a better idea for my future plans through my seminar class.”
• “My favorite thing about going to college is knowing that I’m getting an education to be successful on our society.”
• “My favorite thing about school is when I work extra hard and it shows in my grades. There is nothing better about school than seeing a 4.0.”
• “I don’t think I have a favorite thing yet, but it’s cool to be living in a dorm with a bunch of college students. I really like the fact that my college (or any college?) has fun things that I can sign up for like martial arts sessions, dancing sessions, exercise sessions, and sports things. I’m taking Karate and it’s a fun class!”
• “My favorite thing about being back at school this fall is not being in a 40 hr/week job! And I’m well on my way to another degree!”
• “Listening to a lecture and having that “Ah-ha” moment when all the pieces fall into place.

Thanks for all of the great feedback! To see the complete blog post and list of comments click here.

Effective November 1st, ScholarshipPoints is launching new rules for all of the scholarship drawings and your chances of winning just got better! We want our most active and loyal members to have the best chance at winning a scholarship. Here is what you need to know:

• Activate your account! You must login to your ScholarshipPoints account at least once a month to be eligible for any of our scholarship drawings. You must login to your ScholarshipPoints account at least once to activate your membership and be eligible for any of our scholarship drawings.
• Sponsored scholarships: When you complete an activity for a sponsoring partner you will automatically be entered into the next scholarship drawing sponsored by that partner. For example, if you join MyView or complete the MyView follow-up activity in December, you will be eligible for the December $1,000 scholarship sponsored by MyView.
• For high school students: In the past, if a high school student won a scholarship award we would hold it for up to one year until they were officially enrolled in a college or university. Now, if you are in high school and you win a scholarship we will deposit it directly into your 529 college savings plan. Don’t have one? Open one today!
• Scholarship winners must submit their photo: If you win a scholarship we will ask you for a photo of yourself for our website. Our scholarship winners are an important part of our community, and it’s important to us that we have your photo.
• Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa: If you are a US citizen with residency in one of the 50 states or Washington DC, are attending a school in Puerto Rico, Guam or American Samoa, and your school is listed on the U.S. Department of Education’s website here, you are eligible to win.

Think you can remember all of these changes? Take the “ScholarshipPoints Rules!” quiz now for 25 scholarship points!

Want to know more? You can find the official rules for each scholarship drawing here.

The next #ScholarshipChat is just a few days away. We will be chatting from 9:00pm ET until 10:00pm ET on Monday, October 17th.

The topic of this #ScholarshipChat will be: Tools of the Trade and we will be talking about free tools that can help students find scholarships and stay organized during their scholarship search. Students should tune for great tips and to uncover new scholarship search tools. Parents and higher education professionals should tune in to share tools tips and tools that have worked for their students! As always, @WinScholarships will facilitate the conversation, but come prepared with your questions too!

We hope you can all join us. Don’t forget that you can now use TweetChat to make participating in the chat even easier. If you login to TweetChat with your Twitter account and follow the hashtag #ScholarshipChat you will be automatically see updates and be included in the chat every time you tweet.

Looking forward to chatting!

Happy Friday everyone. Hope you all had a great week! Before you get wrapped up in weekend activities we have a few new scholarship awards to share with you. Check them out to see if you qualify!

SunTrust Off To College Sweepstakes

The Off To College Scholarship Sweepstakes is offered by SunTrust on an annual basis. Through this sweepstakes students can win a $1,000 scholarship for education expenses at an accredited college or private career school. Fifteen drawings will be held and one winner will be chosen every two weeks from October 27, 2011 through May 11, 2012.

Scholarships In Photojournalism

The National Press Photographers Foundation is offering six $4,000 scholarships to photojournalists who are returning to school. These scholarships are being supported by a grant from the Author’s Coalition of America. If you fit into this category definitely check it out!

WyzAnt College Scholarships

For 2011 – 2012 WyzAnt is awarding $10,000 in scholarship money to students. To qualify students must write an essay about the most important lesson they have learned. All essays must be submitted by April 1, 2012 and winners will be announced on May 15, 2012.

That’s is all we have for today! Don’t forget to check out all of the new scholarships posted on StudentScholarshipSearch.com. Have a great weekend!

School has been back in session for a few weeks now and you probably have all had moments of loving all the fun and hating all the work! We know that you spend most of your time going to class, studying for midterms, writing papers, applying for scholarships and working part time jobs on campus, but you have to have some fun too, right? College is  about making new friends, having cool experiences and trying new things.

We want to know, what is your favorite thing about being back at school this fall? Maybe it is watching TV premiers with your roommates or maybe it is going to all of the football games. Leave us a comment and let us know what your favorite thing about school has been this fall!