MeSearch: Start to Finding Good Fit Scholarships

Starting your scholarship search without knowing what makes you YOU?

Before you start searching for scholarships, you need to understand the student behind the application.

MeSearch: Researching ME helps you step back and take a closer look at your experiences, accomplishments, interests, strengths, and even the things that don't describe you. Because the more you understand about yourself, the easier it becomes to recognize scholarships that actually fit.

Use this guide to:

• Start with the experiences and accomplishments already reflected in your résumé
• Identify parts of your story that may not appear on a traditional résumé
• Reflect on your interests, strengths, experiences, goals, and other characteristics that could help guide your search
• Turn self-reflection into keywords and clues you can use when searching for scholarships
• Get clearer about who you are — and who you are not
• Recognize when a scholarship opportunity aligns with your experiences instead of forcing yourself to fit the opportunity
• Build a scholarship search based on your actual story, rather than simply searching for the biggest or most popular awards

Why does this matter?

One of the risks of jumping straight into scholarship searching is that you can end up searching for scholarships without really knowing what you're searching for.

You may search the same broad terms everyone else is using.

You may overlook opportunities connected to experiences you didn't realize were valuable.

You may spend time trying to make yourself fit scholarships that don't really align with you.

Or you may assume your résumé tells your entire story when it doesn't.

MeSearch helps you pause before the search begins so you can better understand what you bring to the table.

The goal isn't to create a perfect student or find a scholarship that matches every detail about you. The goal is to know yourself well enough to recognize a good fit when you see one.

Pro Tip: Don't treat this as a one-time think. Your experiences, interests, goals, and accomplishments will continue to change. Revisit your responses as you grow and use them to generate new keywords for your scholarship search.

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