Getting into college is the easy part, it’s making it out of college without losing your life savings that is difficult. We all know that scholarships exist, but very few of us actively pursue them. When you hear about scholarships, you imagine kids with brilliant 4.0 GPA’s who dig wells in Africa being handed $50,000 to go to Harvard. But that is the exception, not the rule. You too can win money by doing something as simple as writing a 500 word essay, making a video or taking a photograph. All you have to do is know where to find those opportunities and which ones you qualify for. That’s the beauty of Zinch and Fastweb, they exist solely to help you get the money you need for the school of your dreams.
Zinch – I am more than just a test score.
The college application process can be impersonal. Often, colleges view applicants as nothing more than grades and test scores. Zinch is committed to connecting students with the people behind the schools and scholarships free of charge. They have more than 5,000 active school profiles and offer over $2 billion dollars in scholarships. To date, Zinch has awarded 781,654 scholarships worth $1,623,044,202. The next person to receive a scholarship could be you. Upon signing up for Zinch, you are asked to add the usual information such as SAT scores and GPA. Zinch, however, goes one step farther. They ask for a profile picture, favorite music, favorite TV shows, hobbies and etc. They are dedicated to showing you off as a complete package instead of just a set of grades and scores. The first page of your profile features a blurb about who you are and more importantly, who you want to be.
Scholarships are found using a search engine. You can manipulate the scholarships you’re shown by adding more information about yourself such as background, gender, GPA and etc. The more information you add, the more accurate and applicable the scholarships shown are to you. When you “like” a scholarship, it gets added to your My Likes section where you can work on it at a later time.
You can also change what type of scholarships come up. You can view those with certain deadlines or only show awards that you can currently apply to. If you don’t fit certain types of criteria, you can uncheck selection criteria to make sure that scholarships with those requirements aren’t shown. Be sure to stop by Zinch and start saving money on college.
Fastweb – Paying for school just got easier.
Fastweb is another free scholarship finder. So far, they have awarded $3.4 billion in scholarships and over 50 million users have benefited from their services. The thing that sets fastweb apart from its competition is its intuitive set up. Based on your profile, fastweb will alert you when there are scholarships that you fit the criteria for. Fastweb also provides students with financial aid tips and internship opportunities in their area.
You can browse the new matches and either save them for later or delete them. You can click on the scholarship to see it’s requirements and get more information. The easy to read format shows you the scholarship deadline and amount of scholarship right on the original screen so you can decide which are right for you in as little time as possible. Every time a new scholarship is available to you, an email is sent to the email address of your choice to keep you from missing out on any opportunities.
To keep you from forgetting about anything you save for later, fastweb lets you know when the deadlines are coming up and keeps reminding you on the homepage. You can also click the deadlines tab to get a detailed calendar view. This feature is especially important because the hardest thing about applying for scholarship is remembering to apply for them on time. The scholarship deadlines makes sure that you don’t miss out on any scholarships that you qualify for. Be sure to check out the many other services that fastweb has to offer to help you save money quickly and easily.
2 Comments
this is amazing information! where were you when I sent my boys to college??? however, I work with many high schoolers and junior college students and I will be passing on this website to them!! sooooooooo helpful!!! you rock!
So many people are unaware that they could qualify for free aid! This is a great resource, thanks for sharing (we’ll do the same!).