The following piece was written by Evelyn from beginatzero.com
My daughter was looking through and signing up for scholarship programs at a site called fastweb.com. The problem she faced was how overwhelming everything was. Fastweb.com offers College scholarships for students looking to go to college. It’s mainly a database of scholarship programs.
My daughter is unfamiliar with how these sites work. After my daughter signed up to just a few programs and when she checked her email she was a bit shocked at how many emails she received.
She told me she needed my help so she could get a better understanding of how theses sites work.
The first site she signed up through was fastweb.com. Then through her email, she signed up to Scholarship points. Scholarship Points is a site that allows you to earn points to enter drawing to win scholarships.
This site offers different types of surveys that people can sign up for to accumulate points that a person can redeem by entering scholarship drawings.
As a mother whose earned income online, I kind of had idea of how this site works. I’m sure there are a lot of students out there who has checked these database sites and may have the same feelings as my daughter does.
I wouldn’t call these sites scams at all. These sites are free to join and you are getting the info that you’re looking for.
The problem is that these sites can be a lot of work. Yes, there are a lot of scholarship money up for grabs, but not all scholarships will apply to every person.
Another overwhelming part about looking for scholarships is that some of these programs can be outdated. Sometimes I would Google a scholarship program and I would read about this great scholarship program and the site will give a link.
When I click on the link, there is no scholarship program to be found on the site. Sometimes I would have to look through a site to find the scholarship program.
I realized after going through Google and Fastweb’s site and looking through my daughter’s email that some type of systems has to be put in place to help my daughter.
Why Is Organization Important?
A while back I use to do a number of surveys online. I had no idea what a web they weave with these sites.
To give you an idea, I would sign up for one survey sites then another and on and on, then after signing up a site would say I’m already a member.
I also made the mistake of not dedicating my email address to surveys. Just like with surveys sites there are among thousands of scholarship programs out there.
Knowing what you did and which sites you like will save you a lot of time.
You want to weed out the ones you feel are a waste of time, the ones you’ve entered, the ones you can reenter, to the ones you already got a scholarship from and the list goes on.
What I Did To Help My Daughter Get Organized
The first thing we did was dedicate an email address just for scholarships. This way nothing will get mix with my daughter’s regular email.
The second thing we did was started a spreadsheet. What I did was made one spreadsheet with her own little database.
I list the names in alphabetical order in one column and the website address in the second column. Then we highlighted them based on how we wanted them to be.
To give you an example,
We highlighted them based on different needs.
Scholarships come in all types of packages, finding the ones that fit you is the best way to tackle them.
The ones you don’t qualify for we highlight in red, green can be highlighted as the ones you want to apply to, yellow could be the ones you looked at and you’re not sure yet and the ones we decided not to highlight are the ones we haven’t looked at yet.
On this particular spreadsheet, we didn’t want to delete anything because we don’t want to look at the same scholarship programs over and over again.
The second spreadsheet was the ones we applied for. This way we can add more columns such as reapplying if we didn’t win, requirements when we applied and deadlines
Just so you know we are doing this as we go. So far it is working for us.
I thought I’d write about this because I’m sure there is at least one person out there who may get overwhelmed with all these scholarship programs.
There Are Other Ways
I know there are parents out there that may have more than one child and trying to make ends meet with college and just everyday life can be a financial challenge.
I’m not complaining about my babies, but they can be quite expensive. A family blog can be another way to earn income towards college and everyday life.
Not only money can benefit a family by having a blog, but the engagement, family time and responsibility can also be beneficial, all from the comfort of your home.
Family blogs could be something you and your family do as a whole. A blog could be something simple as drinking more water.
You may be thinking how could water make me money, well, let me tell you….
How you would get paid is through certain affiliate programs. There are tons of affiliate programs out there to choose from.
You can share your journey on drinking water as a family, there are numerous water bottle products out there from filter water bottles, to filter water devices, carrying cases to natural sparkling water makers and the list goes on and on.
All you would need to do is apply to these affiliate programs and share your articles online, If someone purchases a product that you recommend, you make a commission.
If you don’t know where to begin or would like more info on how to start a blog, I would highly suggest you check out a service called Wealthy Affiliate.
Wealthy Affiliate is a great service that has been in business for over 10 years that has helped many people worldwide build their own blogs through their passion.
Conclusion
Anyways, I hope I helped someone out there. We all know that college is expensive. I know that these scholarship program sites can be overwhelming.
Being organized seems to be a great way to tackle all these programs out there. Don’t forget that blogs are another great income source for either just you or as a family as a whole.
I wish you luck on your journey and don’t forget to check out Wealthy Affiliate, you can check them out for free.
If you have your own personal system that you’d like to share or even better system in place to tackle all these scholarship programs, please feel free to let us know below.
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