When you think about college scholarships for yourself, you are probably hoping for some big scholarships – or those that award large scholarship sums of money. Unfortunately, most of the scholarships that you will be eligible for and win are small awards. This doesn’t mean, however, that you shouldn’t know about and apply for the really large scholarships if you qualify. These are unusual scholarships because the awards are so large and definitely not the norm when it comes to student scholarship aid. Less then 1% of students will be able to qualify and win a big scholarship.
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First you need to understand that big college scholarships come from a wide range of sources. Many colleges offer their own unusual scholarships, and some colleges offer scholarships that are worth more than other colleges. The biggest scholarships offered by colleges will come through the departments. For example, if you are an English Major, you need to seek out large scholarships that are available through the English Department at the college that you attend. Most of these unusually large scholarships are not available for entering freshmen, because you have to prove your value to the department head to be eligible.
The next place you need to turn to for large scholarships is corporations. Because corporations typically have more funds available than small businesses, they can offer larger scholarship awards – and they offer these big scholarship awards to keep the publics opinion of their company fairly high. People tend to not like big corporations that make lots of profit without reinvesting at least a portion of that profit back into communities.
Examples of corporate scholarships that are quite large include a $25,000 Target scholarship; $25,000 Discover Card scholarship; $20,000 Coca Cola scholarship, a full ride Rhodes Scholarship $20,000 Dell scholarship and the massive Robert Byrd Scholarship Program. This is just a small sampling of the large corporate scholarships that are available through big corporations. Each corporation will have their own eligibility requirements, and their own selection process.
While you are seeking large college scholarships, make sure that you keep your eyes open for fellowships as well. Fellowships award stipends – and you can typically spend your stipend in anyway that you wish. These stipends can be as little as a few thousand dollars, or as high as $45,000. Of course, there will be other requirements that you must fulfill as the winner of a fellowship, such as research work.
It is vital that you understand that the unusually big scholarships are typically not available to average students. In most cases, you must possess some special skill, score very high academically, show true athletic promise, or prove yourself to be extremely civic minded. If none of this applies to you, your search for large scholarship awards may be futile, and you may be better off spending your time applying for numerous smaller obscure scholarships. Many community based local scholarships are quite large, but again you must have shown your value to your community and meet other requirements in order to be considered.
Overall, some of the largest scholarship awards are from athletic scholarships. The big scholarship typically offer the student what we call a ‘full ride.’ This means that the entire cost of the student’s education is covered along with living expense and book. These large scholarships are typically made through the college that the student will be attending – and playing sports for. If getting big scholarships interests you the most consider the above and see if you may fit the criteria to apply.
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