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Apply For $50,500 Worth Of Scholarships In 70 Minutes

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The budget doesn’t add up. In the simple equation of money minus time, there’s not enough of either. Personally, it’s the single greatest reason why graduate school is hard. As a graduate student in a traditionally debt-laden field, those around me seem to treat debt as the norm. But this de facto acceptance of debt – the status quo – is no longer tolerable. Maybe, despite all my efforts, I won’t be able to balance the budget. Maybe, despite all my efforts, the loans will grow – building on the principal and metastasizing into financial prison.

Time to excise this. I’m done with debt.

As the semester wraps up, this is an inherently challenging time to look for funding opportunities – especially scholarships. But I’m desperate, and thought a look would be worth it. Most of what I found appeared to be junk or spam-related entities looking to get your email address and have you register to signup for a “No Essay” scholarship. Nonetheless, I decided to apply to everything I could in one day. Here’s what happened.

My search started and ended at FastWeb.com (Link). While this may be a great resource for a scholarship search, it’s congested with spammy advertisements for companies and colleges that will bleed you dry. In between the advertisements, there are decent scholarships. The end of spring semester is hardly a great time to start applying for scholarships, but that is all part of the experiment (look back in the fall to see what new numbers I put up!). There are very few scholarships for those in graduate studies. This, with the bad timing of the application cycle, made for a rough start.

After a little while I narrowed it down to a few scholarships that were relevant and I could actually apply to. Then, I began. In the course of 70 minutes, I applied to 7 different scholarships, which totaled $50,500. Most of the applications were short, no essay, monthly giveaways that felt like I was entering a hopeless sweepstakes. But a few of them seemed to have potential, and even made me think about what I truly believed via the essay. Over the next few months I will be scanning the web for new scholarship opportunities, and I’ll keep you posted if I receive some good news.

Scholarship Applications:

Gotchosen.com (Link)

  • $40,000 Gotchosen No Essay Scholarship
    • Time: 2.5 minutes (registration)
    • Difficulty: Easy
  • $1,000 Gotchosen Monthy No Essay Scholarship
    • Time: 2.5 minutes
    • Difficulty: Easy

College Prowler Scholarships (Link)

  • $2,000 “No Essay” Scholarship (Monthly)
    • Time: 5 minutes (mostly to register for site)
    • Difficulty: Easy
  • $1,000 College Survey Scholarship
    • Time: 15 minutes
    • Difficulty: Easy

Cappex High School and College Scholarships (Link)

  • $1,000 A GPA Isn’t Everything Scholarship
    • Time: 5 minutes (mostly for site registration)
    • Difficulty: Easy

Do Something: Don’t Be a Sucker Campaign (Link)

  • $4,000 Don’t Be a Sucker Scholarship
    • Time: 20 minutes (registration and taking pictures of unplugged appliances)
    • Difficulty: Easy to Moderate

Delete Cyberbullying (Link)

  • $1,500 Delete Cyberbullying Scholarship Award
    • Time 20 minutes (essay = 500 words or less)
    • Difficulty: Moderate

Total time: ~70 minutes

Total Scholarship Potential: $50,500

Gigwalk Your Way To Free Travel

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When you’re in college, people will tell you that school comes first. You’re here to learn and get educated. Shape up or ship out. Tune in or drop out. I couldn’t disagree more.

Going to university is exceptionally complicated, it isn’t for everyone, and it comes with serious financial burden. As a student, the financial and time constraints can be frustrating. The urge, for the motivated, is to work more. The reality is that there just might not be enough time in the day to hold another job – nor is that always a psychologically healthy decision.

If anything, college is about learning to prioritize what’s important and balancing work with life (check out the Tailored Freedom blog for re-defining balance). Sometimes, to make a buck and free up time, you have to get creative. That’s where Gigwalk comes in.

Gigwalk was founded on the principles of crowdsourcing work. Large companies need minions to do local work. From pictures to surveys to secret shopping experiences, Gigwalk bridges the gap. If you have an iPhone in your pocket and live in a city, you can start. With little more than an iPhone and a PayPal account, you can begin applying to Gigs and making $4-80 (depending on availability).

Unfortunately, there’s a catch: It’s not easy or intuitive. Take the most popular Gigs that are available these days by Bing Business Photography. Bing has a dream, and that is to photograph the country’s businesses – inside and out. Unlike Google, who has its own employees doing this, Bing decided to crowdsource the project and pay people $5 to $7 per storefront. Most Bing Gigs require 4 photos of the store and a Photosynth (360 degree picture of the inside). This can get hairy when you walk into an open business, spin around three or four times, and start taking pictures. Let’s just say, it’s creepy. Employees give you strange looks and patrons wonder if you’re casing the joint. But as a natural extrovert, I just go out there and socialize. I get paid to spend about 10-15 minutes at a business.

In about an hour, I made $28 in my own city. Bing approves the Gigs in a day or two and then the money magically appears in my PayPal account. Couldn’t be easier.

The real secret comes in the possibility of traveling on Gigwalk’s dime. You see, you can apply for Gigwalks anywhere they’re available in the States. Let’s say you want to take a roadtrip to Chicago, and you know where you’ll be staying. Just apply for a variety of Gigwalks in that area, complete the pictures and 360 pano, and you could just about pay for the entire trip in a couple hours. Chicago alone has thousands of dollars in Gigs!

Gigwalk in the App Store: Download here

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