Stop Googling, Start Winning: How ScholarshipOwl Changes the Scholarship Game

Wondering how you’ll manage to afford college without the crushing weight of student loan debt? You’re not alone. The cost of college has skyrocketed 1200% since the 1980’s. That’s not a typo. Given all of the economic challenges that have impacted households in the last two decades, it’s no surprise that the overwhelming majority of parents have been unable to save much – if anything – for their children’s education. While grant aid can help students with the most significant financial need, most students are unable to qualify for enough grant aid to cover all of their college costs. As a result, many students end up relying on student loans to cover their out-of-pocket costs. But loans are not a “solution.” Loans only compound the problem, kicking the can down the road until after graduation. Loans are the last thing you’ll want to think about  as you’re celebrating your achievements and planning for your future. Students know that scholarships are a better choice, but they often don’t know how to maximize their opportunities. ScholarshipOwl changes the scholarship game with an AI-powered smart system that streamlines the application process AND boosts your chances of winning.

Scholarships Are Your Lifeline to an Affordable College Education

Students know that scholarships provide a debt-free alternative to loans. But students often don’t know how to:

• Find and apply for scholarships that are a good match for them
• Determine which scholarships they have a better chance of winning
• Organize their schedule to ensure they have time to prioritize applying for scholarships
• Stay motivated and engaged in their scholarship application efforts

In fact, most students who have tried applying for scholarships quickly give up because they feel overwhelmed. It can be tough to summon up the time and energy to add scholarship applications to the list.

But if you aren’t applying for scholarships, those dollars don’t go away. They go to someone else who has chosen to prioritize scholarships over loans to pay for college. We’ve all heard the news stories about some students getting offered over $1 million in scholarships. That doesn’t happen by accident. That happens because those students have created and leveraged scholarship strategies to ensure they can afford college without going into debt. And you can do the same!

If You’re Googling for Scholarships, You’re Doing It Wrong

Most students search for scholarships online using Google, which can unfortunately be a frustrating experience.

An Example

• You’re a computer science major, and you try Googling for “computer science scholarships.” You’ll get pages and pages of search results, so it’s hard to know where to start.
• You see a search result titled “50 Computer Science Scholarships” which sounds promising, so you click that link. Now you get a blog post with 50 links to computer science scholarships. You click the first link, and it launches a new tab in your browser. You skim the page and discover you aren’t eligible.
• You go back to the blog post and try the next link, which again opens a new browser tab. You skim the page and are happy to see a scholarship that you’re qualified for, but the deadline has already passed.
• You go back to the blog post and try the next link. And so on.
• By the time you are done, you have a cascade of open browser tabs which is annoying, but on the positive side, at least you’ve found a few scholarships that you feel are worth applying for, and that are currently open and accepting applications.
• To keep yourself organized and on track, you create a spreadsheet to list the scholarships you’ve chosen, creating columns for name, dollar amount, and URL of each scholarship, along with the deadline date, date you applied, etc.
• You fill in the spreadsheet for the scholarships you’ve decided to apply to, and now you are finally ready to apply for some scholarships!
• You go back to the website for each chosen scholarship and read the instructions in detail so that you’ll know how to apply.
• Then you complete the application form for each one, as well as write your essays, prepare the required documents, etc.
• As you complete each application, you update your spreadsheet.
• Once you are finally done applying for the selected scholarships, you go back to your original Google search to select another page that lists dozens of computer science scholarships, and begin the process all over again…

Googling for scholarships is mind-numbing

Is it any wonder that most students find this to be a mind-numbing, frustrating, and time-consuming process? The reality is that while students do understand that scholarships are an important lifeline, most students apply to very few scholarships, if any at all, because they get fed-up with the entire experience… So they give up. But it doesn’t have to be this way. ScholarshipOwl changes the scholarship game, making the application process so much easier!

Effortless Access, Real Wins with ScholarshipOwl

Instead of spinning your wheels in Google, you can apply for scholarships with ScholarshipOwl! ScholarshipOwl changes the scholarship game with AI-powered technology tools that are trusted by over 10 million students! When you apply for scholarships with ScholarshipOwl, you’re accessing an online marketplace that matches scholarships offered by businesses and organizations to the students best-fit for those opportunities.

The ScholarshipOwl platform has AI, machine learning, and other proprietary technologies built-in to ensure your scholarship matches are truly relevant to you. And our tools help you focus on the scholarships you’ll be most interested in AND that you’ll have the best chance of winning.

Tons of scholarship matches all in one place

With ScholarshipOwl you’re able to view hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships all in one place, year-round! In fact, at any given time, we have over half a million dollars in live and active scholarships. Our database is dynamic, with new scholarships added every week, and expired scholarships removed as soon as the deadline passes.

What does all this mean to you? It means you can skip the endless Google searches and just log in to ScholarshipOwl to see all of your scholarship matches right in your dashboard. ScholarshipOwl changes the scholarship game by literally taking care of the search and match for you, so all you’ll need to do is apply.

One universal application form for the scholarships in our database

With ScholarshipOwl, you won’t have to fill out repetitive application forms over and over again. Instead, our platform uses our profile registration form as a universal application. Each time you apply for scholarships through our platform, your profile data will automatically fill-in each scholarship’s application form, so you won’t have to do it yourself each time. No wasted time, no wasted effort. How cool is that?? Just another example of how ScholarshipOwl changes the scholarship game!

Access AI-powered weekly scholarship recommendations customized just for you

Every time you login to ScholarshipOwl, you’ll see our scholarship recommendations. We send three recommended scholarships to your dashboard each week – and these recommendations are personalized for you based on the AI built into our platform, as well as your profile data. But we also layer other factors into our Recommendation System, prioritizing:

• Low competition scholarships
• Scholarships with a more limited eligibility criteria (because if you’re eligible and a lot of other students are not, you’ll have a better chance of winning)
• Scholarships with a high provider credibility score (more on that below)
• Scholarships with a close deadline because we don’t want you to miss those opportunities

Struggling when it’s time to write essays? Our AI Essay Assistant can help you get started

One of the most frequently-cited reasons why students don’t apply to scholarships is because they dread writing essays. While not all scholarships require essays, many do. To combat their essay anxiety, many students have turned to generative AI platforms and tools for assistance. In fact, according to a recent ScholarshipOwl survey, 65% of Gen Z students have tried using AI to help them with their college application essays and scholarship application essays.

So we decided to introduce our own AI Essay Assistant to help students write scholarship application essays, and this tool is accessible every time you see a scholarship in our platform that requires an essay. With our AI Essay Assistant, you can quickly generate a draft essay that is relevant to the essay prompt AND that is relevant to you, based on what we know about you through your profile data as well as what we know about you based on other scholarship applications you’ve submitted through our platform. To find out more about how ScholarshipOwl changes the scholarship game with our AI Essay Assistant, read on!

Leverage our filter and sort tools to organize your process

With so many scholarships in your match list, you’ll wonder which scholarships to focus on first. Just access our filter and sort tools and you’ll quickly be able to get started in the platform. Here are some of our favorite tools:

Filter your matches by Time Until Deadline

• • 

It’s always best to apply for scholarships that are expiring soon so you won’t miss out on those opportunities. You can filter for scholarships due in less than a day, 1 to 7 days, in less than 4 weeks, or more than 4 weeks. So set your filter and start applying!

Looking to avoid certain kinds of scholarship requirements? Filter by Requirement Type and you can!

Sometimes all you want to do when applying for scholarships is avoid the kinds of requirements that you like the least. For example, if you really don’t want to apply for essay scholarships, when you use the Requirement Type filter, select essays. When you do, our system will make the essay scholarships in your match list temporarily disappear so that you can focus on scholarships with other kinds of requirements OR you can focus on easy-apply scholarships that have no requirements at all!

Focus on low-competition scholarships with the Number of Applicants filter

Wouldn’t it be great if you could know which scholarships have fewer applicants? With ScholarshipOwl, you can see that information right in your dashboard! For every scholarship in our system, you can see how many other ScholarshipOwl members applied, enabling you to focus on the scholarship with less competition. Because if there are fewer applicants, you have a better chance of winning!

Access the Credibility Score filter to focus on scholarships truly worth your time and effort

Only ScholarshipOwl assigns a credibility score to each scholarship. The higher the score, the more confident you’ll feel applying for the scholarship!

Sort your matches in multiple ways to see your match list the way YOU want to see it

We’ve got lots of ways for you to sort your match list:

• Sort by magic – enables our AI to bring the scholarships that are most relevant to YOU to the top of your match list!
• Highest dollar amount
• Lowest dollar amount
• Least requirements
• Closest deadline
• Fewest applicants
• Most recent

Missing a “Google-like” search experience? No worries, we’ve got you covered with our Keyword Search!

Instead of searching all of Google to get pages and pages of search results, you can search your match list to hone-in on scholarships that you’ll really like! Try searching for your major, or a hobby, or a personal circumstance and see what comes up. Remember that we add new scholarships all the time, so if you have favorite keywords, you’ll want to try them often in case new scholarships have been added that match what you’re looking for.

Save your favorite scholarships; ignore the ones you’re less interested in

One way to quickly customize your experience with the ScholarshipOwl platform is to take advantage of our “save” and “ignore” options. While browsing your match list, if you see a scholarship you like, hit the “heart” button to move it to your “Saved” tab so you can quickly find it later. See a scholarship that doesn’t interest you? Hit the “ignore” button to move it to your “Ignored” tab. That way, you can keep your match list clean and organized, and you’ll be able to work more quickly and efficiently.

When you are ready to work on your applications, go to the Saved tab and get started. And if you are second-guessing yourself about any scholarships you’ve ignored, check them out in your Ignored tab. You can unignore them and throw them back in your match list OR if you think you want to apply, Save it instead!

Quickly access your in-progress applications in the Started tab

If you’ve started an application but haven’t yet finished, it can be easy to lose track – but not with ScholarshipOwl. We keep all of your in-progress applications all in one place, in the Started tab. Each time you login, check to see which applications you’re working on, and make sure you submit them before the deadline.

Apply for scholarships directly from the ScholarshipOwl platform

Can’t stand all those open browser tabs?? We can’t either! Unlike so many other scholarship websites that simply provide a list of URL links, ScholarshipOwl changes the scholarship game by enabling you to apply for every scholarship in our system directly from our platform. By staying in our platform, not only will you avoid a messy browser; you’ll also find that your application process is more streamlined. You’ll work more productively and efficiently, and you won’t have to remember where you found a scholarship, where you applied for it, or what to do next.

Leverage our Similarity Engine to quickly apply for similar scholarships

You know that awesome feeling when you hit “submit” on a scholarship application? Wouldn’t you love to get that dopamine hit some more?? ScholarshipOwl changes the scholarship game with our Similarity Engine! Every time you submit a scholarship application through the ScholarshipOwl platform, our system quickly searches your match list to find scholarships that are similar to the one you just applied to! Scholarships might be similar in terms of topic or theme, or they might have a similar requirement. For example, if you just submitted a scholarship application that had an essay question about your academic and personal goals, our system might find another scholarship with a similar essay prompt, enabling you to re-purpose that essay and quickly apply for another scholarship! How cool is that??

Track the status of your completed applications with the Submitted tab

One of the most frustrating aspects of applying for scholarships is simply waiting to find out what happened to your application. Unfortunately, scholarship providers often don’t inform their applicants about what is happening with their application. In fact, providers will often only reach out to the winner, rather than notifying all of their applicants that a decision has been made. We can’t solve for this directly, but to the best of our ability, we do try to keep students informed on the status of the applications they’ve submitted through the ScholarshipOwl platform. You can check to see how your applications are doing by looking at the Submitted tab.

And extra bonus: Now you won’t have to create and maintain a spreadsheet of all your scholarship applications!!

Innovative easy-apply options that enable you to “set it and forget it”

 

The ScholarshipOwl product team is always working on your behalf, developing and executing product updates that make it faster and easier to apply for scholarships. Some of our newest innovations:

• Opt-in to be automatically applied to ALL of the “no requirement” scholarships in your match list
• Opt-in to be automatically reapplied to recurring scholarships so that you won’t have to remember to reapply each time the scholarship recurs
• Email notifications for certain scholarships that you can literally apply for via email

With these additions to our product, ScholarshipOwl changes the scholarship game by enabling you to authorize us to apply you for certain scholarships even if you aren’t logged in to the platform! And we’ve got more exciting product updates in the pipeline that you’ll love!

Not yet a ScholarshipOwl member? Go to ScholarshipOwl.com, hit the “Sign Up” button and follow the prompts to start your free 7-day trial so you can try it out for yourself!

Work Smarter, Not Harder

Once you get into the swing of applying for scholarships, you’ll discover clever ways to streamline the process:

Repurpose Your Content

Let’s say a scholarship asks you to write a 500-word essay about your volunteer service experience. When you find other scholarships requiring an essay on a similar topic, use your original essay as a starting point! Need 750 words? Expand on your original points with more detail and content. Need 250 words? Edit and trim your 500-word version down. This strategy allows you to quickly and easily apply to a handful of scholarships with customized but efficient effort.

Embrace Variety

Don’t forget that while some scholarships require essays, many others don’t! Explore opportunities that ask for a video on a particular topic, a creative social media post, or showcase your visual or performing arts abilities. By varying the kinds of scholarships you apply for, you’ll be able to play to different strengths, and you’ll also discover which kinds of scholarships you personally most enjoy pursuing.

TIP: You might be surprised to learn that video scholarships have far fewer applicants than most other scholarships. In fact, more students apply to essay scholarships than video scholarships! So if you see video scholarships in our platform, don’t scroll past them. If you do, you’ll be missing out on a low competition scholarship that you might have a great chance to win!

Increase the quantity of your applications through easy-apply scholarships

No-requirement scholarships and survey scholarships are appealing because you can submit the applications quickly. But your odds of winning are not high because there are going to be so many applicants. But someone WILL win these scholarships, and it could be you! And since these kinds of scholarships literally take just a moment to apply for, you should find all of the easy-apply scholarships on the ScholarshipOwl platform and apply for them. Because why not??

BUT

Simply applying for these kinds of scholarships is not going to be enough. You’ll ALSO want to focus on scholarships that you have a much better chance of winning – see below.

Increase your chances of winning by focusing on lower competition scholarships that require more of your time and effort

This is where the real strategy comes in. If you focus on scholarships that require more of your time and effort (like an essay, video, or creative project), your odds of winning will be significantly HIGHER. Why? Because most students will bypass doing the extra work required! Instead of competing against thousands, you might be competing against only a few hundred applicants. This dramatically improves your chances!

When deciding which scholarships to apply for, aim for a mix of scholarships, ideally 3 scholarships per week. Apply for some easy scholarships, but FOCUS on those scholarships that ask more of you. These “low competition” scholarships are often your best bet for a real payout!

Your Debt-Free Future Starts Now

A college education is an investment in yourself. Scholarships are an important lifeline that can make that investment pay off without the burden of overwhelming debt. It’s true that it takes time and dedication to apply for scholarships. When you use the ScholarshipOwl platform, you’re leveraging a smart system that makes the process faster, easier, and more intuitive.

You’ll find that you can be more focused, proactive, and persistent in your scholarship efforts. You’ll also find greater scholarship success – which is exactly what you’re looking for! Checkout our Winners page to find out more.

Ready to super-charge your scholarship efforts?

Just go to ScholarshipOwl.com, hit the “Sign Up” button and follow the prompts to start your free 7-day trial so you can try it out for yourself!