How to get a bursary or scholarship

Students, there's free money to be had to help fund your education but you have to make the effort to apply for the funds in order to get it.

That's one of many recommendations made by Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Fastweb.com and FinAid.org and author of "Secrets to Winning a Scholarship". Though he's stateside, Kantrowitz has many useful tips for post-secondary students on this side of the border too that are seeking either financial aid or an award recognizing academic excellence.

"Apply for every scholarship for which you're eligible. Students sometimes skip the smaller awards or the ones that require writing an essay … once you've applied to a half dozen scholarships, each subsequent one is easier because you can reuse your essays," he says. "You can't win if you don't apply. Even among very talented students there's an element of luck for who wins a scholarship."

He also emphasizes smaller awards are easier to win and once you've got one to your credit, it gets easier to land others.

"It increases your chances of winning another scholarship because it adds a line to your résumé," he says. "When someone awards you a scholarship, that's essentially a vote of confidence in you; someone thought highly enough of you to invest their money in your future. That adds a lot of weight to an application."

To clarify, and in general, a scholarship is an award recognizing academic achievement. A bursary is an award that is distributed based on financial need.

Richard Levin, executive director of enrolment services at the University of Toronto, also advises students to start their searches early and to apply as to many applicable scholarships, bursaries or grants as possible.

"When we're talking about merit-based (scholarships), universities typically offer a lot of awards that students are automatically considered for and they're based on grades," he says. "There are others that take into account things like leadership, community service or other non-academic factors that generally require an application. That requires research. One thing students should do is get on this early."

There are also a number of external scholarships available that aren't offered by universities, Levin continues, such as those provided by large corporations.

"Students often don't know about these," he says. "If you simply Google 'scholarships in Canada' you'll get a bunch of awards and some are never given away because people just don't apply for them. Do some research and apply."

Know where to look

In terms of seeking out what's available, there are a number of online databases to peruse including FinAid.org. For Canada proper, look to ScholarshipsCanada.com and StudentAwards.com. Above all, leave no stone unturned during your search.

"There are a fair number of scholarships available to Canadian students. What I'd recommend with any scholarship database is to be thorough," Kantrowitz says. "There's going to be some required and some optional questions … students that answer the optional questions tend to match twice as many scholarships as students that only answer the required questions. Those optional questions are there to trigger the inclusion of specific awards."

For mature or post-graduate students, Levin says there's a whole different set of awards up for grabs.

"Graduate students in doctoral stream programs tend to get assistance and other sources of funding," he says. "Students in professional masters programs that have a fairly high expectation of income returns may be eligible for a private line of credit through a bank at a preferred rate. For instance, the U of T has an agreement with Scotiabank that provides very reasonable rates for students studying in those types of programs."

Look for unique opportunities

At first glance you might laugh, but there are unusual scholarships available too, some of which are quite lucrative.

"One of my favourites is for making a prom dress out of duct tape," Kantrowitz continues. "It does seem funny but the sponsor is a duct tape manufacturer and if you look at the winning entries, you'll see how incredibly talented these students are; the costumes are amazing."

There's also scholarships based on physical characteristics such as those for tall or short individuals, for activities like vegetarianism versus meat eaters, and even for those focused on 'the final frontier'.

"There's one for people that speak Klingon. People have particular interests and they decide they want to advance those interest by encouraging others in those areas," he explains. "It goes to show there are scholarships out there for everybody."

Awards for international students

For students heading to the U.S. to study, there aren't a lot of options and for what is available, the competition is high and you'd need to look for what's available at your school as there are few private scholarships. Otherwise, it might be worthwhile to consult EduPass.org as it provides information on financial aid for students from outside the U.S.

But for international students studying in Canada, Levin says each Canadian college or university provides some amount of funding for students from abroad.

"They vary by institution. For (the University of Toronto) we have an international scholarship and we hand out two or three of these each year," he says. "They're designed to cover all costs so they're quite significant."

Social media impacts

As a rule of thumb, it's useful to remember that the Internet never forgets. In the case of social networks, and if you're applying for a scholarship in the States, be sure to whitewash your social profile.

"We did a survey of U.S. scholarship providers and their use of social media whether it's Googling [sic] a candidate or looking at their Facebook account or other sites … we found about a quarter of the scholarship providers are using social media to review the applications of finalists," Kantrowitz says. "They're doing this for a couple of reasons: to look for red flags in terms of how that student carries themselves in public and also looking to see how the student writes in a real-world setting as opposed to what's on the scholarship application."

Interestingly, Levin says there's less risk for Canadian students when it comes to their social profiles.

"We don't look at social media profiles and I'm not aware of any other universities that do that," he says. "We do have a culture of protecting personal information and privacy and we do evaluate students on the basis of what they give us, tell us, and authorize us to look at."

Be that as it may, it's better to err on the side of caution. Whether applying for a scholarship or a job, it's best to ensure there are no questionable or potentially embarrassing photos or comments posted on any of your social networks.

"Anything you put online is at some point public. Just as you would in a face-to-face interview trying to maintain a professional appearance, you should try to maintain a professional appearance in an online setting as well," Kantrowitz remarks. "Think of the consequences of your actions. It's one thing to express yourself in a private diary, it's another thing to express yourself online where potentially the entire world can see it."

Also noteworthy, Kantrowitz warns students to beware of scholarship scams (if you have to pay money to get money it's likely a scam) and know that scholarships alone won't fund your entire education.

"Very few students win a completely free ride each year, about 0.3 per cent do," he says. "Most students that win scholarships win, on average, about $2,800 per year."