If You Want Free Money...

Anycollege.com has a scholarship.

If you go to the Anycollege.com website you will see a large link on the upper right corner that says "Win a Scholarship". That is what you click to find the application. It's on the front page... not hidden at all. If there are questions you can email mail@anycollege.com and I will be able to respond to any questions about the scholarship.

That being said, I do receive a few questions each day about the scholarship: how it is paid out (directly to the college), the dates for the drawing (The 30th/31st of March, June, September and December) and whether an essay needs to be submitted (no). That's fine, those are legit questions.

Then I also receive emails from students who want an application. Again, this is fine, I'm pleased to help students who have heard of us.

I also receive quite a few emails that claim to not be able to find the scholarship application on our site. This concerns me a bit because it's pretty obvious, and anyone who has spent 15 seconds on our home page should be able to see it. One today was sent to 5-10 other places that offer scholarships, but said "I was recently viewing your web site and encountered problems finding the application section." What?! OK, that's fine that the email is sent to several places, but this clearly isn't true. Something tells me that if this student actually looked at any of these sites that he/she would have found the scholarship page on at least a few.

Now, this does not mean I won't respond to the student. He/she will receive the same email that everyone else does- "Here's the link, thanks for your interest, etc etc etc..." But I can't help at being irked a little bit that the student had to include something about not being able to find the scholarship- why couldn't the email have simply said "I am interested in your scholarship, can you please send me an application." It's a little more truthful and really, simple and direct is the way to go with something like this.

I won't get into the requests that I get for an application that have a poorly written essay attached... actually on second thought I don't know if I can resist saying a little something... I understand trying to get an edge on the competition for a scholarship (never mind that we have a random drawing), but please note: if you are going to send an essay there are three things to remember. #1: Grammar. This includes correct word usage, punctuation and CAPITALIZATION! #2 Spelling. You typed it on a computer which I'm pretty sure has spellcheck. Use it! #3: Sob Story. I'm glad you're good at dealing with adversity, that you're putting yourself through college and that you are bettering yourself. That truly is wonderful. But do I need to get 3 pages of that wonderful? As Shakespeare said, "Brevity is the soul of wit". Thankfully, I'm not doing the scholarship award based on essays, though I appreciate the literature.

So what's the moral here? Be simple and direct when asking for scholarship applications. It's OK to simply say "I need an application" without telling me that your dog died of a horrible disease and you're traumatized for life which caused you to search for three hours on our website and not find the scholarship application. I'll still give it to you, but you won't be the subject of a blog with a simple request. :)

Have a great weekend!