Students
Students
How to Find Scholarships and Grants
Author Miranda Hasani '25 is a Sports, Entertainment, Event - Management major and works as a student assistant at JWU, contributing to JWU News.
For many students, scholarships and grants are essential to helping them pay for college. I come from an unstable financial background, so even with the amount of financial aid I receive and the amazing help I get from JWU, I’m still always in search of more outside scholarships to allow me to complete my degree and keep costs down.
I transferred here from a community college in Connecticut. Before coming to JWU, I first started with my own search for scholarships through different sites, and then I asked some of my on-campus resources if they knew of anything I could apply for that was offered through JWU or through different organizations.
I found that JWU offers transfer students a great transfer scholarship of up to $20,000 depending on your academic performance. This was one of the reasons I was able to come here and why I am going to be able to finish a 4-year degree with the credits I transferred in.
Whether you’re a high school student, already in college or transferring like I did, the search for scholarships and grants doesn’t have to be overwhelming! You can start by looking at what your desired or current school offers, checking with the organizations you’re involved with and meeting with your guidance counselor. These are the resources that can help you narrow down searches and find scholarships you qualify for. There are thousands of scholarships and grants that are awarded to college students through different platforms and organizations. Here are three easy steps you can take to start your search.
1. Search your desired school’s site for their institutional scholarship and grant offerings
Many schools offer their own scholarships and grants — JWU has numerous institutional scholarships and grants that cover a variety of categories. Some examples include:
The JWU Early Visit Grant
This grant is offered to incoming undergraduate first-year students who take part in an on-campus visit experience (Open House, Daily Tour, Career Explorations or other admissions event) by November 17 of their senior year of high school. First-year domestic and international students are eligible, regardless of financial need. This grants an incoming student $5,000 annually, and it’s renewable for up to four years while at JWU.
The Future Food Scholarship Program
This scholarship program is offered to U.S. high school seniors and transfer students who have applied, been accepted or deposited to JWU in select culinary, baking and food-related academic programs. The scholarship program requires students to submit an original recipe. Recipes are scored by JWU faculty and guest judges, and the top nine accepted students are awarded JWU academic scholarships.
Third tier award winners (5th-9th place) receive $1,000 scholarships, renewable for four years ($4,000 total value). The top four participants will be invited to campus to produce their recipes for final judging (at JWU’s expense). The 2nd, 3rd and 4th place participants will receive a $5,000 scholarship, renewable for four years ($20,000 total value), and the 1st place participant will receive full tuition to JWU. The deadline to apply is January 15, 2025.
JWU Early FAFSA Award
This award is available to all incoming domestic first-year students, including transfer students who have applied and been accepted to JWU and complete their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) at fafsa.gov using JWU’s school code (003404) before February 1, 2025. Need assistance completing the FAFSA? Our financial planners are ready to help.
Career & Technical Student Organizations (CTSO) Scholarships
If you’re involved with any of the following organizations, you can indicate it on your JWU application to be automatically considered for a CTSO scholarship:
• Business Professionals of America (BPA)
• DECA
• Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA)
• Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA)
• HOSA — Future Health Professionals
• Junior Achievement (JA)
• National FFA
• SkillsUSA
• Technology Student Association (TSA)
Explore All JWU Scholarships and Grants
To help you with your specific financial questions, JWU offers an assigned financial planner to every student. They can aid with searches like this as well as with questions about your financial aid package and ways to finance your college experience.
2. Take advantage of scholarship search platforms
There are many popular college and scholarship search platforms available. Sometimes picking one to look through can be a challenge when you don’t know what exactly you are looking for.
One of the platforms that I found to be extremely helpful before coming to college was Niche. Through this scholarship search engine, you are able to explore the profiles of different schools you are interested in as well as search for scholarships using filters such as topics, interests, location and more. This narrower searching method has typically allowed me to find more specific scholarships.
Another platform that I have used is Scholarships.com. This platform is similar to Niche and lets you find scholarships related to the schools you are interested in applying to or plan on attending.
There are a wide variety of popular scholarship platforms to help you kick off your search. Scoir is a platform used primarily by high school students to research college options and access scholarship search tools. You can save scholarships that you are interested in applying to and receive a generated list of that information.
Naviance is a program that most high schools use through PowerSchool. You can find colleges you’re interested in and be matched with scholarships that you are eligible for. This is a tool that your parents can also use to assist you in your searches.
Many students also use College Board, an organization that offers SAT prep resources, Accelerated Placement (AP) classroom resources and BigFuture search tools for careers, colleges and scholarships. College Board also offers BigFuture scholarships directly to students through monthly drawings for $500 and $40,000 scholarships for those who complete the six qualifying steps.
Fastweb is another popular scholarship search engine that matches you with scholarships based on your profile. It is another essential tool used to sift through different scholarships you can apply for depending on your eligibility.
If you’re currently or planning to become a JWU student, you will also have access to an internal platform called iGrad that will connect you with even more opportunities for scholarships and grants once you submit your deposit to JWU.
3. Connect with your school guidance counselor and your school’s resources to explore local scholarship offerings
Your high school guidance counselor can be a great resource for navigating the entire college and financial aid process. They may start by telling you to search your desired school’s offerings and also sign up for some of the platforms above, but they may also know about additional scholarship opportunities offered by your high school, community or state.
Through connections made with one of my professors and a Directed Experiential Education (DEE) course I participated in, I learned about the Rhode Island Foundation, which primarily offers scholarships to those residing in Rhode Island or attending school here. They offer an array of scholarships to hundreds of students including those graduating high school and those that are already attending college in Rhode Island every year and can easily be applied for online. Your counselor should be able to connect you with opportunities like this in your home state.
If you’re already in college, your school should also have academic counselors who can help you in the same way. At JWU, you’re assigned both an academic counselor and a financial planner. After my online searches, I went to my financial planner for help with finding more funds and he provided me with JWU specific scholarships and grants which were incredibly helpful.
I wanted to continue to find other options as well, so I reached out to some of my faculty to find out if they knew of any type of scholarship or grant that I could apply to with different organizations that they were tied to. One of my professors informed me about some scholarships and recommended me for a scholarship with the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA). I did not know it at the time, but JWU’s College of Hospitality works with this organization to provide scholarships for hospitality students.
Having this conversation may not always be the easiest to have, but it can be well worth it, and it was for me. It provided me with information about an organization that I didn’t know existed and opportunities available to me. I ended up getting the scholarship.
If you are struggling with finding scholarships or feeling that your search is not getting you the results you are looking for, my advice is to start with these easy steps. Don’t be afraid to apply for a scholarship just because you think you won’t be chosen. Apply anyways — you never know what can happen!
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