In today’s economy, everyone and their brother are looking for ways to save money.  A great way to save on money when going to college is by looking at scholarships.  Scholarships are a win-win for everyone.  The student gets money for college, while the scholarship sponsor gets coverage and feels good helping someone out.  What’s better than helping a student that actually wants to succeed in life?

When on the search for unique scholarships, there are many ways you can find one but thing that you need to remember before you start this search is that you treat it like a full-time job.  It takes work and a lot of research to find the scholarship you want.  Remember, when you find one, it won’t hurt to apply for one because the worst thing that happens is you either get denied or you never hear from them.

Start by using services- Start by using scholarship service databases like FastWeb.  Services like FastWeb has access from over $3.4 billion in scholarships.  Services like this make it easy for you to find what you want.  Put in all your credentials and the database will do it’s best to match you up with the best results. 

Try search engines – Use search engines like Google to find scholarships that you may want.  Be unique and think about what’s unique about you.  If you love playing a particular video game, search for “video game scholarships”.  You never know what will pop up.  This is why it’s necessary to be as unique as possible to find out what will work best for you.

Ask around online – Another great place to look for scholarships is by going to forums online to ask questions and/or read other people’s threads.  These places can be very helpful when you’re looking to get more information on particular scholarships.  It’s also great if you’re looking for ideas and advice.   A great place to start is at CollegeConfidential.com.

When looking for that unique scholarship, use some of the methods mentioned above.  Sometimes you’re going to have some great luck finding what you want while other times you’ll get rejected.  No matter what, put at least a few hours each week into your search and treat it like a job because if you look at it this way, let’s say you find a $5,000 scholarship and you put 50 hours into the search, it comes out to $100/hr.  That’s not bad at all!