A first step in the process is to search for scholarships on secure websites like fastweb.com or scholarships.com. After filling out brief questionnaires, you will be taken to a database that matches you to scholarships based on your major, degree, objective, and interests. The scholarships listed come from various scholarship databases, companies and private organizations willing to help you fund your education. The online databases lead you to scholarships that you may otherwise not be aware of.
Find a scholarship that meets to your strengths. Once you sign up on the aforementioned websites and choose categories for your field of study, read through the list of scholarship opportunities. There are three bases on which scholarships are awarded: essay, grant, and contest/sweepstakes.
Essay-based scholarships usually ask for nonfiction or creative-writing essays. For example, each year sevenfund.org holds a 3,000-word essay contest asking students to write about different moral issues. Brickfish, a social media marketing company, has yearly essay competitions. Each essay has a varying word count requirement. With essay competitions, the deadlines are usually earlier in the year and most postgraduate degree areas are accepted.
Paying for postgraduate school is easy if you obtain a grant. A grant is gift money that can help you pay for your tuition, schoolbooks, and other school-related expenses. Grants are made available for various purposes, the most common being: by ethnic status, subject matter, financial requirements, and degree level. There are also grants for athletic programs, student housing, talents, and gender among other categories, which you can find database for at collegescholarships.org. In addition, there are grants specifically designed for many college majors.
The leading federal grant programs, FAFSA, offers hundreds of thousands of dollars to students based on their economic requirements. There are also federal Pell Grants that help low-income students pay for their degrees. You can also apply for state grants.
Entering to win a scholarship via a contest or sweepstakes may be the riskiest way to proceed if you rely solely on this method. With a contest, your entry is entered among thousands of other hopefuls, so the chances of getting picked are slim. However, if you choose to try this method, there are many options available. For example, framemyfuture.com offers a scholarship for the person who best represents what his/her future will look like after graduation. This contest is open to all degree objectives.
If you choose to take the contest route, apply for other grants and scholarships as well. Remember, there is no limit to how many scholarships you can apply to, so feel free to try all options available.
Talk to the financial aid department at the university you plan on obtaining your postgraduate degree from. It is knowledgeable about available scholarships and the personnel may be able to guide you toward university-based scholarships within your field of study.