Are you wondering how to tell which sites on the Internet are truly going to help You find scholarships that fit YOUR circumstances?
Unfortunately many of the social sites that advertise free sources of scholarship and grant information are ultimately busy hives for scholarship spammers, so be careful not to get stung. Be sure to measure what your time, energy and frustration level is worth in the long run. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s a great article I came across from Newsweek Magazine http://www.newsweek.com/id/135371 that beautifully sums up the experience of getting "caught up" in those automated Internet scholarship search sites.
Yes these search engines like FastWeb do provide some scholarship opportunities that might indeed fit some of your need, but they fall very short of providing you a personalized and comprehensive list of legitimate foundation/scholarship opportunities. Sure these free search sites might be one of the places you visit to get started, but be prepared for all sorts of "junk" offers and endless "opt-outs" from credit card companies and colleges trying to get you to sign up with them! Be careful that you do indeed OPT-OUT or you will be deluged with aggressive email, snail mail and phone marketing activity. These sites are also home to those marketing scams that appear to be "Contest Scholarships", of which some are legitimate but the underlying goal of the contest provider is to gather your information for their database to be sold and used in a number of ways that ultimately does little more than compromise your privacy.
Do you have a question about Grants or Scholarships that you would like to see a post on? Send it our way!
Unfortunately many of the social sites that advertise free sources of scholarship and grant information are ultimately busy hives for scholarship spammers, so be careful not to get stung. Be sure to measure what your time, energy and frustration level is worth in the long run. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s a great article I came across from Newsweek Magazine http://www.newsweek.com/id/135371 that beautifully sums up the experience of getting "caught up" in those automated Internet scholarship search sites.
Yes these search engines like FastWeb do provide some scholarship opportunities that might indeed fit some of your need, but they fall very short of providing you a personalized and comprehensive list of legitimate foundation/scholarship opportunities. Sure these free search sites might be one of the places you visit to get started, but be prepared for all sorts of "junk" offers and endless "opt-outs" from credit card companies and colleges trying to get you to sign up with them! Be careful that you do indeed OPT-OUT or you will be deluged with aggressive email, snail mail and phone marketing activity. These sites are also home to those marketing scams that appear to be "Contest Scholarships", of which some are legitimate but the underlying goal of the contest provider is to gather your information for their database to be sold and used in a number of ways that ultimately does little more than compromise your privacy.
Do you have a question about Grants or Scholarships that you would like to see a post on? Send it our way!
jenny lynn
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