How to Find Great College Scholarship Web Sites

As college tuition continues to skyrocket and loans become tougher to get (thanks Wall Street meltdown), you need all the scholarships you can get. Lucky for you, there's scholarship Web sites galore on the Internet. Unlucky for you, wading through all of them can be a chore. Scams also await eager college students. Even if a Web site is reliable, the individual scholarships they list may come from unsavory sources. You must always be vigilant. This article details five noteworthy scholarship sites to get you started, and gives you tips on how to use the Better Business Bureau's Web site to perform your own safe searches. Search smart and search often!

What is the Better Business Bureau?

Before beginning your search, you should know some basics about the Better Business Bureau (BBB), which will be discussed. The BBB is a consumer watchdog group that accredits businesses and lists complaints against companies. For each of the five Web sites listed in this article, there's a rating from the Better Business Bureau. If a business isn't accredited that does not necessarily mean that they're shady. Sometimes a company isn't accredited because they haven't sought BBB accreditation (perfectly legal), not because of any unethical practices.

1. Fast Web (www.fastweb.com)

Registration: Required

BBB: While Fast Web is not BBB accredited, the BBB has not received any complaints about the company, and it has a satisfactory rating.

One of the most popular scholarship sites, Fast Web boasts over 1.3 million scholarships, which totals over 3 billion dollars. After registering, you'll complete a profile that details your heritage, planned major, activities, honors, SAT score - basically anything that will help find you a scholarship. Using this information, Fast Web will match you with the scholarships in its database. Each result will have a summary of who qualifies, what you must do, and the scholarship amount. Fast Web will also remind you of deadlines for scholarships. You can even search for jobs and internships too.

Advertising, however, can be a nuisance. Whenever you log in, a full page ad pops up asking for personal information. Just click "No Thanks," which is usually in smaller font below "Submit."

2. College Net (www.collegenet.com)

Registration: Not required

BBB: College Net is accredited by the BBB, and the BBB gives College Net an A for its reliability.

Uncomfortable with providing personal information on the Internet? College Net is here to help. You can either do a keyword search (and look for scholarships on your own) or a profile search (and allow College Net to find scholarships for you). You can fill as much detail as you want in your profile. Want to search for scholarships based solely on your ACT score? No problem. Want to give them your address, school, and place of employment? Go ahead. Clicking on a result brings you a scholarship summary, contact information, and sponsor information. With over 1.5 billion dollars' worth of scholarships, you're sure to find something.

3. College Data (www.collegedata.com)

Registration: Not required

BBB: College Data (registered under 1st Financial Bank USA) is accredited by the BBB, which gives it a satisfactory rating.

Like College Net, College Data allows you to plug as little or as much personal information as you want into its search engine of over 500,000 scholarships . When you hit search and click on a scholarship, you'll see its sponsor, eligibility requirements, and award information. If you want to save your results, you must create an account. You can then organize your saved scholarships in your "data locker," and you can make notes and create labels to keep everything in order.

4. Scholarship Monkey (www.scholarship-monkey.com)

Registration: Required

BBB: Scholarship Monkey is not accredited by the BBB. However, the BBB has not received any complaints about the company, and it has a satisfactory rating.

If talking monkeys don't freak you out, Scholarship Monkey is a solid source for scholarships with over a million on its site. After registering, Scholarship Monkey will locate scholarships based on your profile. By double-clicking a result, you'll get all the standard information: the sponsor, deadline, amount, and contact information. This site lacks features like a personal calendar and scholarship organizer. But if you love simplicity, then Scholarship Monkey is for you.

5. America's Career Info Net (http://www.acinet.org/)

Registration: Not required

BBB: As this site is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, it does not have a BBB profile. Unless you deeply distrust the U.S. government, you should be fine with this site.

While ACINET doesn't have nearly the number of scholarships as other sites (only 5,000), it's the site that is the most hassle-free. Your search is based on only four criteria: award type, residence preferences, study level, and affiliation (e.g., religion, military, ethnicity, etc.). After you hit search, your results will appear, and it will tell you the scholarship's name, study level, purpose, focus, qualification, funds, and duration. Since there's so few scholarships, ACINET is best coupled with another scholarship site for your search.

How to find even more resources

If you want to find even more scholarship sites for your search, "College Scholarships, Colleges, and Online Degrees"-as its very descriptive name suggests-compiles a comprehensive listing of colleges and college scholarships at http://www.college-scholarships.com. Click on the right sidebar link labeled "Free Scholarship Searches" (located about halfway down). They provide a long list of scholarship Web sites. They also provide a brief commentary on each one.

If you choose to browse the sites listed on this Web site or to do your own searches, tread carefully. If it's a company that's compiling or offering the scholarship (and not a non-profit organization), check out the site on the Better Business Bureau. When you enter the site, the first screen will ask you for your zip code. Instead, just click USA Site (or Canada Site if applicable). Near the top right you'll see "I am a..." and you need to choose "Consumer." Then click "Check out a Business." In the search field, type in its name, not its Web address (e.g., Scholarship Monkey, not scholarship-monkey.com).

If it doesn't show up in the results, do a Whois search. This time, you should type in the Web address. Information such as who owns the site, its registrar, its security, etc., will pop up. Then you can look up who owns the site (called the registrant, not registrar) on BBB. You should now find the appropriate information.

As mentioned before, if they're not accredited, that doesn't necessarily mean it's illegitimate. Regardless of accreditation, the BBB will list complaints filed against the company. If you see that the company does have unresolved complaints, stay away. But even if a site is reliable, the scholarships listed on the site may not be. If you feel a scholarship offer sounds dubious, check out the sponsor's BBB profile. And remember, legitimate scholarships should never charge you a fee to apply. Never give out your credit card or bank account information.

Conclusion

With these resources on your side, finding a scholarship that fits should be a whole lot easier. Keep up with your search and you're bound to find something for which you qualify. Good luck!