Most
scholarship applicant must have come across a scholarship scam before. This is because, more often than not, applicants may be tempted to apply for every scholarship they see, whether or not they are eligible and most times they become desperate when they are not getting the awards. “Pay $100 to get a scholarship worth $100,000’’ can be a very tempting post, don’t you agree?
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It might be difficult to identity scholarship scams but that’s why I am here, to give you a helping hand:
1.Scholarship Fees:
This might be in form of application, processing, guarantee or insurance fee. Scholarships are not paid for; rather you get paid when you are awarded a scholarship. There is no exception to this rule. Do not think for a moment that there is some kind of exception to this rule. Unless you are applying for a competition, do not pay any money at any stage of your application even if it looks real and authentic.
Scammers would definitely want to make it look believable and some might even go all the way to asking you to pay with your credit card, now that is double danger.
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2.Eligibility Requirement:
Every true scholarship award has its eligibility criteria because the truth is that they cannot cater for everyone. So if you come across a scholarship with no requirements included, please be wary of it and tread carefully.
3. Guarantees
Scholarship awards can be sponsored by the government, non profit foundations, private organizations or individuals. They do it as a means to help those who are financially incapable to take care of their tuition fees. So if you are not closely related to them, I do not see how you can be guaranteed you will get the award.
Anyone who guarantees you will get a scholarship award is definitely a scammer because firstly, those who vet scholarship applications do not have the time for such and secondly, it requires more than one person to vet an application and finally award the best applicants.
4. Time Pressure
Although time is of essence when applying for a scholarship which is one of the reason I insist you check deadlines before applying for scholarships. When you get a call or an email pressurizing you to apply immediately because the deadline is in two days or a day, please ignore. You cannot complete a successful application in short notice and moreover people do not pressure you to take an opportunity, they simply tell you about it. They may probably tell you to pay after the application.
5.Unsolicited Scholarship Offers and Phone Notification
Just imagine being contacted by a random person offering you a scholarship you didn’t apply for saying they applied on your behalf! You are not even supposed to be contacted on phone, you are only notified through email.You ought to be skeptical if you are really an outstanding student.
So there you have it, watch out for these signs and do not be desperate in whatever you do.
