#money for college

This post was written by the team at Bold.org especially for College Essay Guy.

You’ve worked your tail off for four years of high school, and you’re ready for your next adventure at a great college.

By now, you’ve thought aboutwhat schools would be a great fit for you and help you launch a great career.

Now you need to figure out how you’re going to pay for it without breaking the bank or saddling yourself with a massive pile of post-graduation debt.

These days, no matter your family’s financial situation, that means finding and applying for some combination of student loans, work-study programs, grants, and scholarships.

 How do you figure out the best combination of aid with so many options and, once you’ve got that nailed, where and how can you compare the options and apply?

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Read the full guide here. 

We partnered with the amazing Amanda Miller (and a few other financial aid experts) to create a brand new resource to help students and families navigate paying for college.

By the end of this guide, you’ll know how to …

• Find and apply for scholarships efficiently and successfully
• Determine which colleges are most likely to be affordable for you
• Apply for grants with minimal stress (#FAFSA)
• Make sense of your financial aid award letters so you can make an informed decision about college costs

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 Click here for the full guide. 

In this guide, I’ll share with you a series of step-by-step mini-guides to answering the top 10 most common scholarship essay question prompts.  

How do I know these are the most common scholarship prompts? Because they’re based on a random sample of about 700 scholarship essay prompts analyzed by my friends at the scholarship site Going Merry.

First, we’ll get into questions like:

• Where do I find scholarships?
• What are colleges and organizations looking for in a scholarship essay?
• How do I write a creative scholarship essay that stands out?
• Can I re-use scholarship essays as college essays (i.e. personal statement or supplemental essays)—and, if so, how?

After that I’ll break down how to write each of the top 10 most common scholarship prompts:

1. Tell us about you. (Or another very generic bio request)
   
2. What impact has sports had on your life? (Or some other athletics-related question)
3. How have you contributed to your community, or what community service have you provided?
4. Why do you want to study/pursue [X]?
5. How are you unique?
6. Tell us about a time you failed and what you learned from it.
7. What are your academic and/or career goals?
8. Tell us about a time when you had a belief or idea challenged.
9. Why do you deserve this scholarship?
10. How will this scholarship help you?

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