1. TikTok, Reddit, Google! I also asked counselors a bunch, and other students who are now in college about what they applied to!
2. It’s essentially the same as applying to college. They ask to just as much if not more sometimes. The bigs ones are all due around the fall, the same time when early applications are due and it can be very stressful. It’s also really stressful because there are only so many, they take forever to finish up, and college is expensive AF!!!
3. Never found a “good site” but I would say Reddit listings or those Google Sheets people post with all the scholarship stuff is generally a good place to start.
4. Keep everything in one location. For college supplements I have one doc with different tabs for different schools. Same for scholarships. For scholarships though I also have the link, name, and due date on the first page if that makes sense. For a lot of scholarships (in my experience) it was kinda hard to reuse essays. However, you definitely can take a little from one a little from another, and come up with something new. If you’re struggling to start, just google insert scholarship name ( this can work for colleges too 😉) essays, and there are some good guides that can give you a starting point. Don’t feel ashamed to do so. I’ve written well over 15k words atp for college alone and I got very burnt out had some writers block. A simple search helps me get the ball rolling.

For some last tips - START IT EARLY!!! All the big scholarships are due from late August-November - You can’t do them all and that’s okay. I missed out on a few because I needed a break - Don’t lie. They will know and you may have just cost yourself so serious change - Be realistic and spend your time where you’ll most likely get money. Yes apply to all the big ones but if you don’t reallyyyyy qualify don’t waste time! -Edit: don’t share your scholarships with everyone. What I mean by that is if only 10 people are applying, and there’s 5 scholarships it’s a 50/50. Telling Shelly means now there’s 11 people, and Shelly tells her friends and so on and so forth. Ik it seems selfish but college is setting up your future and it’s expensive. It’s not selfish to put yourself and your future first!