Whats the best website to apply for scholarships?

(@Everyone: Please comment with other scholarship sites I have missed!)

Here are the biggest scholarship websites:

• FastWeb: I hear students referring to this one a lot. They have several billion dollars worth of scholarships listed and are quite searchable. Look for highly specific ones that meet your needs.
• Scholarships.com: This is a big one. With over 3.7 million scholarships and grants, Scholarships.com has been around since 1998.
• SallieMae.com
• Zinch
• Dreamersroadmap.com
• PeerLift.org
• CollegeNet.com
• College Board: The only problem with this one is that their scholarship inventory doesn't get updated as often as I would like.
• ScholarshipMonkey.com
• Theschoolfund.org

Final thought: The most important thing to know about scholarships is that you can't win them all! You need to apply to MANY in order to fund college. Think: "1 scholarship application submitted every other day" and you might be alright. It's Free money, but you have to spend the time to get the free money!

Hi David (and Jared!)

The best website to apply and to receive meaningful scholarships come directly from the colleges where you are applying.

My kids had no luck at all with FastWeb or other scholarship sites. (And I would very much like to hear from the CareerVillage community of anyone who has received any financially meaningful scholarships using these sites. )

I don’t have much positive news about “scholarship websites.”

 I was hoping you would hear from others about successfully applying and earning scholarships from “websites.”

The best chance for decent scholarship money comes from the schools themselves. 

My daughter (3.9 gpa in high school and incrediblely accomplished) applied for many scholarships using multiple websites and received nothing.

And, she had an incentive to apply for these scholarships. For every dollar that she received in scholarships… my wife and I advised her that she could keep the money for herself.

During the Fall & Spring Semester of her senior year in high school she spent months applying for scholarships. The only scholarship she received was $50 from the Black Employees Association at a company where I used to work.

I hope others reply to your question with positive news on how they applied for and earned scholarships.

By the way, both of my daughters received UNSOLICITED scholarships from colleges. The 3.9 gpa daughter received an academic FULL RIDE (Tuition, room & board, books) to Fresno State University... about a $100,000+ offer. Another daughter (3.0 gpa) received $32,000 ($8,000 a year) to go to the University of Arizona. My daughters did not apply for these scholarships -- the schools offered these scholarships to them. My kids received no scholarships from applying online via websites. Their scholarships came from the colleges where they applied. 

FINAL NOTE, my kids both attended Arizona State University and received no financial assistance to go to ASU.