HOW TO APPLY FOR AND GET A FULL SCHOLARSHIP FOR COLLEGE

Also known as full-ride scholarships, full scholarships are a category of competitive and uncommon scholarships that cover a whole lot of expenses all through the beneficiaries’ years of education. What this definition implies, in other words, is that if a student receives a full scholarship for their three-year higher education, the scholarship will cater for almost all of the student’s expenses all through the three-year period.

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Full-ride scholarships constitute the kinds of financial aids that hundreds of thousands of college aspirants are looking for. This is because such scholarships remove the need for engagement in money-yielding activities, thereby allowing students to pay optimum attention to their studies.

For the most part, full-ride scholarships are highly-coveted financial aids that numerous students strive to get. Compared to partial-ride scholarships, full-ride scholarships are not easy to win. Since the ultimate goal of a full-ride scholarship is to save students the need to seek additional financial assistance, it is unsurprising that many college aspirants gravitate toward these kinds of financial aids.

If you’re among the college aspirants hoping to get scholarships that would sustain them through college, chances are that you need well-written guidelines on how to apply for full scholarships. We understand that you need in-depth information about this topic and so, we’ve painstakingly put together a piece that will comprehensively guide you.

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Guidelines to Apply for Full Scholarships

Conduct thorough research

Students interested in full college scholarships should commit time to thorough research. Doing this may help them identify available scholarships, thereby preventing them from missing out on full scholarships.

Scholarships do have closing dates which interested applicants are expected to be aware of. If you don’t take your time to exhaustively research about scholarships, you’re unlikely to get detailed information about the full scholarships best suited for you.

While conducting your research, endeavor to peruse popular scholarship sites. In the end, make sure you’re only considering the full scholarships that are well tailored to applicants from your region/country and with your sorts of academic credentials.

Find out if you are qualified for specific scholarships

Eligibility is definitely one of the areas you have to consider in the early phase of your scholarship hunt. You must note that it is not all scholarships that specify flexible requirements for intending applicants.

Through your earlier thorough research, you’re very likely to come across the scholarships that fit you best. But you must do well to know if you meet up with the scholarships’ underlying requirements. Deep research about specific scholarships will help you figure out if you’re actually on a par with the requirements.

Know where to find full scholarships

Full scholarships are not so easy to come by since they appear much more beneficial than the common general scholarships. The competition for full scholarships is stiff but this can’t rub out the fact that if you tread the right path, you can get a full scholarship for your college education.

There are several avenues where you can find full scholarships but for the most part, the website of your preferred college/university should be your first destination. It’s very possible that your preferred college does offer financial aids –in form of full scholarships –to students applying for your field of study or to applicants from your country of residence.

Keep a list of your desired scholarships

After thorough research about the scholarships you’re qualified for, it is sacrosanct that you organize whatever scholarships you’ve decided to apply for. By carefully organizing your desired scholarships, odds are that you’ll find it a lot easy to monitor each of these scholarships and identify your level of progress with them.

Ensure you create and keep a list for all your desired scholarships. You’ll have to update this list so that you can easily weigh your probability of making success with any or some of the scholarships. It is also good that you prioritize the scholarships in such a way that the full scholarships are considered more important than the others.

If you’re really keen to commit more effort to the organization of these scholarships, you may want to keep a folder that spells out all of your preferred scholarships along with essential information about them.

Familiarize yourself with all the application instructions

To really prepare the ground for a successful full-ride scholarship application, you will have to do more than ascertaining that you’re eligible for the scholarship. Failure to comply with some application instructions may turn out to be an applicant’s worst undoing.

For every scholarship that you intend to apply for, there are specific application instructions to follow. By failing to thoroughly read a scholarship’s application instructions, applicants may end up ruining their chances of application success.

Do not assume that two different scholarships will have the same application instructions. Take your time to acquaint yourself with all the instructions attached to whatever scholarship you’re applying for.

Ensure you don’t leave out any of the requisite application details

The screening panel for your preferred scholarship might not hesitate to disqualify your application if they observe that you’ve left out some important application details.

If certain application details aren’t mandatory, the screening panel will likely tag them optional. You must be careful not to omit any of the details specifically demanded for the scholarship application.

By keeping to the point made earlier about familiarizing yourself with application instructions, you can save yourself the disaster of leaving out important application details. Always bear in mind that there are dozens of applicants for whatever full scholarship you’re applying for and in order to trim down the number of applicants, the screening panel may not hesitate disqualifying erroneous applications.

Avoid providing incorrect information

Your name, country of origin, residential address and any other required personal details should be correctly filled into your scholarship application form. If you end up providing inaccurate information, the processing of your application is very likely to be delayed.

Try to confirm and re-confirm whatever information you’re filling into your application form. If the information you provided appears incorrect, probably with several misspelt words, your application might look informal to the screening panel.

Make your application presentable

Poor wording, inaccurate spellings and incomprehensible terms are just some of the things that can render your scholarship application unprofessional.

If your scholarship application is fraught with incoherent terms and inaccurate spellings, you will not seem to have submitted a presentable application. To make your scholarship application presentable, it is recommended that you regard it in the (official) manner you’d normally handle your job application.

If you aren’t pretty confident about your editing or proofreading skill, you can have your application edited or proofread by others. Do not shy away from seeking a friend’s or relative’s assistance for the structuring of your scholarship application.

Also, you shouldn’t hesitate to seek help in filling out your application form. There’s no need stressing that a presentable application will help make a great first impression about you.

Submit an excellent and standard scholarship essay or cover letter

Submitting a poorly written scholarship essay is undisputedly one of the things that can mar the quality of your scholarship application.

Contrarily, one way you can rev up the quality of your application is to attach an “excellent” scholarship essay or cover letter to the application. By “excellent”, the essay or cover letter should measure up to great standards in terms of formatting, grammar, spelling, intro, theme, etc.

Rather than dangle unnecessarily between issues, your scholarship essay should have a well-defined theme (main focus). Re-reading, editing, proofreading and other essential post-writing steps should be considered for the letter. Before submission, you may get others to help assess the quality of the letter with special emphasis on the intro, the grammar, punctuation and wording.

Let your outstanding qualities reflect in your application

More often than not, scholarship providers want to be convinced that applicants possess outstanding qualities –or have engaged in extracurricular activities –that command value.

If you really want to distinguish yourself from the crowd, you need to prove that you possess excellent personal or academic qualities. For instance, you can leverage your leadership qualities as well as your past engagement in a community cause for winning over the interest of scholarship providers. If your recommendation letters reveal that you possess outstanding leadership/academic qualities (or volunteered for several valuable community projects in the past), you stand a high chance of being considered by scholarship providers.

When preparing your scholarship application, endeavor to highlight your outstanding qualities as well as the extracurricular activities you engage in or have engaged in. The competition for full-ride scholarships is very stiff and so, any applicant who is keen to beat the crowd shouldn’t ignore revealing their outstanding qualities.

Ensure you submit before the application deadline elapses

A scholarship aspirant can miss the application deadline for several reasons. Irrespective of your reason, failure to submit your scholarship application within the deadline can cost you the scholarship opportunity. Scholarship providers barely take late applications into consideration.

To avoid missing the deadline, stay updated about your desired scholarships. Keep accurate information about each of the scholarships so that you don’t mistake the deadline of one (scholarship) for that of another.

Provide referees if required

Referees are usually required while applying for some scholarships. If your desired full scholarship requests that you provide referees, ensure you inform the preferred persons beforehand.

On the one hand, you should select the appropriate persons for the position of referees and on the other hand, you should tell them what you want them to make as a reference about you. Don’t forget to tell them the kinds of skills, abilities or competencies that you want them to include in the reference.

Some Commonly Asked Questions about Full Scholarships

Can I get a full-ride scholarship from every college or higher academic institution of my choice?

The answer to this question is definitely no simply because it is not all colleges (or higher academic institutions) that offer full-ride scholarships. However, there are full-ride scholarships –usually sponsored by various organizations, sources, etc. –that qualify you for free education in the college of your choice.

What qualities can qualify one for full-ride scholarships?

Any student can be considered eligible for full-ride scholarships especially if they possess exceptional academic qualities or excellent leadership skills. Other factors that may qualify students for full scholarships include merit and athletic capabilities.

Is a full-ride scholarship the same as a full-tuition scholarship?

Clearly, a full-ride scholarship differs considerably from a full-tuition scholarship. While full-tuition scholarships tend to cover only educational costs (including tuition and the costs of books), full-ride scholarships often guarantee extended coverage across travel expenses, living expenses, board, etc.

Who is eligible for a full-ride scholarship?

Every full-ride scholarship has its own eligibility requirements and that is why we mentioned earlier that before applying, intending applicants should ascertain that they meet up with the eligibility requirements.

Depending on the eligibility requirements stipulated by the provider, your desired full-ride scholarship may be open to national students only, both national and foreign students, or foreign students only.

Also, there are full-ride scholarships with strict eligibility requirements. You should browse the online portal of your preferred full scholarship or the provider’s website for information about eligibility.

How difficult is it to get a full scholarship?

We mentioned earlier that full-ride scholarships aren’t easy to obtain due, in part, to the fact that there’s stiff competition for such scholarships. Nevertheless, an applicant with detailed background information coupled with an excellent academic profile can push through the crowd of competing applicants.

Conclusion

At this juncture, we’re convinced that you have been walked through the guidelines for applying for and getting a full scholarship. If you can bear all the listed guidelines in mind concerning your application for a full-ride scholarship, you’re pretty likely to end up getting the scholarship.

Frankly, certain other factors determine whether an applicant will get picked for a full-ride scholarship but we can’t downplay the essence of preparing ahead and keeping to application instructions.