Everyday Ethics

Now that your graduate school applications are in, it’s time to start thinking about how you are going to pay for all your expenses.  Most decent philosophy graduate programs will likely offer some kind of stipend or fellowship, with a tuition waiver, which helps but is tough to live on.  In my own program at CSU, only a few students manage to live solely on the stipend; most also have student loans.  So finding a scholarship can really make a difference in terms of your quality of life during graduate school, as well as the amount of debt that you actually graduate with.  Thus, here are some helpful tips about where to find scholarships, and how to increase your chances of getting one.

1.  Start where you live: The financial aid office of your current institution is a great place to start your scholarship search.  Some of their programs apply only to that institution, but they should have resources available to you for finding generally applicable scholarship money.  They are also likely to be more knowledgeable about how the process goes than people that administer individual scholarships.

2.  Register with online scholarship searches: It’s a huge pain to get started, but Internet scholarship sites like Fastweb and Scholarships.com are both great resources for finding out-of-the-way scholarships and grants.  Its worth it, however, to take the time to fill out your profile thoroughly, because you want to focus your time and energy on scholarships that you are a good fit for, and the options they show you are gleaned from your profile data.  Don’t get discouraged when you are deleting most of what they give you, they are constantly adding new opportunities for free money.

3.  Focus on the best fit: Some people, because of race, gender, family history, and many other seemingly irrelevant factors in a person’s educational success, qualify for a lot of scholarships.  Others of us, for the exact same reasons, are eligible for far fewer.  Like it or not, that is the way thing are, and a successful scholarship search means cutting your losses and focusing on scholarships that you really do qualify for.  If you don’t meet even one of the essential criteria, you are probably wasting your time.  Move on.

4.  Don’t be afraid to do the work: Some scholarships, especially the big money ones, require a lot of stuff from you.  This may include transcripts, letters of recommendation, and multiple essays.  Don’t let this sway you from applying.  First, they are offering you a lot of money; it makes sense that you have to do some kind of work for it.  Second, many scholarship hunters will skip anything that requires a lot of effort, preferring to cast the net broadly by completing a lot of easy applications with few requirements.  That’s all well and good, but it takes a lot of $500 scholarships to equal one $5,000 one, and if it’s a good fit for you, it’s worth it to put in the time.  Plus, the fewer people that apply, the better your chances, and having lots of requirements is a potent deterrent to receiving numerous applications.

The worst feeling with regard to scholarships is when you have spent the time, done the work, and yet come away empty-handed.  Much like the application process itself, this is part of the game.  No matter how awesome you are, some people just won’t see it.  But that doesn’t mean that someone won’t recognize you worth, and even one scholarship can ease the financial burden of being a student.  Hopefully these tips will move you a little bit closer to achieving that goal.

About the Author

Elijah Weber is a graduate student at Bowling Green State University. He holds a Master's degree in philosophy from Colorado State University, and Bachelor’s degrees in sociology and philosophy from Chapman Univerity. He currently lives in Bowling Green, Ohio with his wife Laura, his newborn son Brandon, and his feline life-partner Monte.