Scholarships generally are divided into categories. As noted on Scholarships4students website, these categories are: academic , activities, associations , artistic, athletic, attributes, disabilities, employer, financial need, heritage, international, military, minority, occupational and religious. There also are scholarships by major or state and scholarships by school. Additionally, there are scholarship contests and sweepstakes you can enter; winners' names are chosen randomly. Examples of these are the College Prowler's $2,000 "No Essay" Scholarship; College Week Live Scholarship; SunTrust "Off to College" Scholarship Sweepstakes; Scholarships.com's $1,000 "Tell a Friend" Scholarship; SunTrust Banks, Inc. $1,000 college sweepstakes contest; and The Great Sallie Mae Giveaway.
Many scholarships focus on a student's talent and require them to illustrate their gift for the application. If you're a good writer, try essay based-scholarships like: the Ayn Rand Essay Contest, the Mensa Education and Research Essay Scholarship or the New York Financial Writers' Association Scholarship. For those into cooking there are culinary based scholarships: ACF American Academy of Chefs Chairs Scholarship, IFA Educational Foundation Minorities in Hospitality Scholars Program and Scholarships.com's Culinary Arts Scholarship. Art scholarships for high school seniors include the: Liberty Graphics Art Scholarship, Simple Solutions Design Competition and The Scholastic Art Awards. Seniors interested in attending a cosmetology or beauty school can apply for: the American Health and Beauty Aids Institute Cosmetology Scholarship or the Access to Cosmetology Education Scholarship Program among others.
The are company and school scholarships for students good at everything from knitting to photography to computer design.
High school seniors can locate easy scholarship opportunities within their community as well. Local chapters of the Booster Club, Key Club, PTA, and Rotary Club offer monetary awards annually. Students who belong to a particular minority group have other options, including scholarships from: the American Indian College Fund, Hispanic College Fund Scholarship Program and the United Negro College Fund. There are also scholarships available for students with disabilities, such as those offered by: the American Foundation for the Blind and the Sertoma Scholarships for Hearing Impaired Students. Moreover, numerous companies grant scholarship to the children of their employees, and high school students seeking to enroll in a school where a family member is an alumnus may be automatically eligible to receive a scholarship from that school. Large corporations including Bank of America, Coca Cola, Discover Card, Google, Prudential, Target, Tylenol and Wachovia also provide a number of scholarship opportunities for high school seniors.
All students should complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid on the FASA website even if it's not required for a scholarship. This site is the U.S. Department of Education's free source on funding higher education. It will help you determine the amount of money and financial assistance programs any student is eligible to receive through such programs as the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), Federal Pell Grant, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, Academic Competitiveness Grant, National SMART Grant and Federal Work Study.