Start with a self-analysis. Being thoroughly honest, make a list of your general academic skills, school accolades and extracurricular activities. This is essentially a generic assessment, filled with the types of accomplishments your guidance counselors and teachers are already aware of.
Now compile more of a free-for-all catalog of everything else about yourself. Leaving no stone unturned, write down the physical quirks, background oddities and personal peculiarities that separate you from the rest of the group. These can include anything from possessing an unparalleled talent for baton twirling to being extremely tall for your age.
Start contacting the numerous organizations out there that cater to college students with unusual physical attributes. The Tall Clubs International Scholarship offers the chance of winning $1,000 to boys 6 feet 2 inches or taller and girls 5 feet 10 inches and up. Their website (listed in Resources) offers the details, as well as the rules regarding the required essay, "What Being Tall Means to Me."For left-handed scholars, Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania also awards a $1,000 scholarship to two southpaw students every year.
Investigate academic rewards that evolve from passions toward hobbies and miscellaneous diversions. Do you have excessive knowledge of the FBI? Apply for the "FBI Common Knowledge Challenge," which awards two high-school students $250. For epicurean experts, there is the Culinary Institute of Americans "All-American Apple Pie Recipe Contest," in which the person with the best recipe wins $25,000. (Follow the links in Resources.)
For the random oddball scholarships, check out the likes of "Starfleet Academy Scholarships" (yes, modeled after the sci-fi cult classic "Star Trek"), the "American Nudist Research Library Scholarship" and the "Excellence in Predicting the Future Award," a scholarship awarded to students who make realistic predictions in global economics.