Scholarships?!

[breezy7, BSN, RN]

Anyone know of legitimate scholarships for pre-nursing and nursing students? I'm not talking about sites like FastWeb... it's incredibly difficult to weed through the ads and other crap they suddenly have on there. Have any of you had success with applying to scholarships? I keep hearing that there's so much funding out there, but despite my hours of searching, I'm still coming up dry. Basically, I'm looking for applications that aren't scams. I don't want to waste time, you know?

[chicagoing, ADN, RN]

Have you been accepted into a program already? If so, I would check out scholarships that are offered by the college or university.

I applied for 15+ scholarships through my community college, but was not awarded anything, despite having a high GPA. I do know that persons with lower GPAs were awarded scholarships, so I have no idea what "they" were looking for. For many scholarships, essays and interviews were not required.

17 years ago, I was awarded an almost full-tuition scholarship for 4 years to a university that I ultimately did not attend. That scholarship was awarded based on high school GPA, ACT/SAT scores, and an in person interview.

Good luck!

[UVA Grad Nursing]

At the undergraduate level, most financial aid nowadays is need-based (looking at FAFSA and EFC). There are some merit-based aid, but the great majority of aid for undergraduate education in the US is based on financial need. The major exceptions to this are ROTC and athletic scholarships.

Most graduate aid, on the other hand, is merit based.