Easy Scholarships to Find

Applying for scholarships can be hard work, but there are easy scholarships to find for those students who want to take a walk on the safe side for a little bit. A real quick rule to understand when applying to a given scholarship is that the smaller the number of awards which are handed out, the smaller the chance is of being a recipient of that scholarship. Those sorts of programs are not easy scholarships – while they certainly should not be avoided by any means, they do represent those programs which students have the lowest chances of getting a financial reward from.

In order to maximize a student’s chances of financial assistance from programs with small award pools an individual must apply to as many programs as possible, entering the same information over and over again. Unfortunately these really are the most common forms of scholarships in the United States, but students should also realize that there are easy to get scholarships with large award pools available every year. It can be very difficult for students to simply find a list of scholarships which present only those programs which have a lot of awards to give, but students should learn to identify these programs in lists they do have. Because their chances increase for these sorts of programs students should probably apply to these programs before others, just to make sure they have applied for those programs where they are most likely to receive an award.

Students who are looking at this and are having a hard time understanding why it is the case that easy college scholarships are often those programs with large award pools need only consider the numbers. Scholarships which provide only two awards every year for large amounts may have incredibly large applicant pools. If thousands of students are applying to a program which only awards one or two rewards, their chances of winning a scholarship is much more difficult. However, those programs which have say 20 awards and have a thousand applicants – well an applicant’s chances have just increased by 20 or 10 times as compared to a program which only gives out one or two awards, making it an easy scholarship on paper.

A good example of a program which offers a high number of awards is the U.S. Bank Scholarship program offered every year by the company of the same name. This easy scholarship provides forty different high school seniors or undergraduate students with $1,000 each. The process of entry and selection is pretty easy as well – instead of going through a grueling selection committee which may interview candidates or weigh various measures of community service or leadership positions, this easy scholarship operates on a simple drawing basis making it more akin to a sweepstakes program. Though the 2011 program has come to an end, students should watch for the announcement for when the 2012 period begins. This would be a silly easy scholarship to pass up.

The Robert C Byrd Honors Scholarship Program might be the 800 pound gorrilla of all scholarship programs which awarded $42,000,000 in scholarships in 2010 to 28,000 students. This is a program everyone who reads this should apply to first and foremost then move on to the others. The Byrd scholarship is most likely the largest of it’s kind unparraled by none and could be the easiest scholarship you ever will apply too in term of the numbers. Run and don’t walk to apply to it.

Another example of an easier college scholarship is the International Benjamin A Gilman Scholarship. This program is designed to provide easy scholarship awards to undergraduate students who are interested in studying abroad and are able to show financial need merit. In 2010 fifty different Gilman International awards were given out varying in amounts from $3,000 up to $8,000 depending on financial need and amount of time being spent abroad. The number of awards vary with each year, but there are normally at least forty different awards available making this an easy scholarship that students should pay attention to. Compared to other programs which offer only a few awards, this easy scholarship typically gives a scholarship award to more students then over 90% of scholarships awarded today which hand out only one yearly award to all the hundreds of students who apply every year. In order to be eligible for this easy scholarship, students will need to be receiving a Federal Pell Grant and have already been accepted into a study abroad program. Study abroad programs must be at least four weeks long and cannot include Cuba due to restrictions by the US government. Applications are due March 1 of every year.

Harry Truman Scholarship awards about 70 scholarships yearly and was created by the US Congress in honor of the 33rd US president. The Harry S Truman Scholarship Foundation looks for future leaders in public service and if this is your calling you may be a good fit to win one of the 70 awards.

One easy and crazy scholarship is the Duct Tape Prom program. This particular simple scholarship is great for a number of reasons. Apart from having the fun of designing a prom outfit purely from duct tape, students will also be entering a program with a limited applicant pool simply by merit of the fact that most students are more interested in keeping their prom nights special instead of spoiling it with duct tape. Finally the program awards not only a first, second, and third place but also 10 finalists who had outfits worth mentioning. Applicants are submitted as couples and each people gets an award making the total amount of awards given out yearly 26 – a pretty good number for an easy scholarship. First place winners receive $5,000 each, second placers get $3,000 each, and those coming in third will receive $2,000 a piece. The remaining 10 couples who did not place will receive $500 each. All entrants must be US residents, be at least 14 years old and be attending their school’s prom. The deadline for the program is June 13 of 2011, so if an interested applicant has not begun planning their prom outfits out yet, they’d better get started!

So remember to apply firstly to the easy to get scholarships in the beginning of your scholarship search where your chances of winning are higher simply because they dole out more yearly scholarships to more students. There will be a similar amount of students applying to many of the scholarships out in the market today, so why apply to a program where only one is handed out as opposed to 10, 50, 100, or 200 are handed out. It’s just a numbers game. Work smart and not hard so you have more time to other important things that matter just as mutch.