Applying for Scholarships

Searching for Scholarships

First things first! Complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)!

If you have not completed it, please do so.
Because:

  • The application is quicker and easier than a scholarship search
  • The grants are far larger than most scholarships
  • It is required for a lot of State and private scholarships

For information on Federal financial aid, please visit Santa Fe College's Financial Aid Office. 

For assistance in completing the FAFSA, you may visit the Records and Registration Computer Lab in Building R, Room 226.

The Bad News

  • Searching for scholarships is not easy - You should expect to spend several hours doing research, on the phone, on the web, writing letters, filling out applications, writing essays...
  • It's not quick either - It usually takes 4 to 6 months to receive any scholarship money
  • There are No Guarantees - You could do a lot of work and end up with no scholarship money.
  • There are a lot of scams on the web using "Scholarship!" as the bait.  Beware!

Good News

  • There are many scholarships available.  Thousands.  If you do a good search and follow up well, one or more of them might be yours!
  • The Career Exploration Center offers personalized assistance to you in your scholarship search.
  • This page provides links to a number of legitimate sources of scholarship information.

Scam Warning

The links below are legitimate to the best of our knowledge. Please let us know if you find out otherwise!

Watch out for the words "Quick," "Easy" and "Guaranteed" - These words are clues that the link might be a scam. FinAid.org has a good page on the topic of scholarship scams.

Scholarship Websites

Santa Fe College Scholarships

This page includes applications for:

Other SF specific scholarships

SF International Education Scholarship

  • For SF students who wish to do one of our Study Abroad programs in another country.
  • These scholarships are intended to help students afford the costs of the trip.
  • The student must apply to the Study Abroad program before accessing the scholarship application.

SF Fine Arts Scholarships 
For students majoring in Dance, Music, Theater, or the Visual Arts

SF Career and Technical Education Scholarships

For students in:

To see a list of these programs of study, check out our Academics page. 
To see the occupations for which these programs train, check out Career Coach.

SF Bachelor's Degree Scholarship 
Specifically for students completing a Bachelor's degree program at Santa Fe College

Other sources on Santa Fe pages:

SF Financial Aid Handbook
lists a number of scholarships available to SF students. 
These are automatically applied-for when you submit the Santa Fe College application and FAFSA. 
Further descriptions of these scholarships are available in the College Rules Manual, sections 7.14 and 7.14P.

The Santa Fe College Financial Aid Office maintains a "Ways to Pay" page which contains some scholarship links not listed elsewhere.  

SF Student Life
This office maintains a list of private scholarship opportunities that are sent to us by various businesses and other organizations.

SF Tuition Waivers and Exemptions 
Some of students do not have to pay tuition. 
Check the list to see if you might be one of them.

End of list for Santa Fe specific scholarships

Scholarship Search Engines
For everything else, near and far!

College Board Scholarship Search

  • It's a good way to "get your feet wet" with scholarship searching.
  • You answer the questions, and the program will show a list of scholarship leads for which you might qualify.

Peterson's Scholarship Search

  • The Santa Fe College Library licensed Peterson's Test Prep which included a search engine for the Peterson's scholarship collection. It is open to students through Library Database.

    Follow these steps:

    1. Go to the Santa Fe College Library Databases
    2. Select:  Peterson's Test Prep
    3. Check in with your Office365 credentials
      1. User name format:  12121212@sfcollege.edu 
      2. Password:  same as you use for eSantaFe
        You will be directed to the Peterson's Test Prep home page
    4. If you are not yet registered with Peterson's Test Prep
      1. Scroll down to find the Register button and select it
      2. Complete all blanks on the form to create your account
    5. If you have already registered with this service
      1. Scroll down to find the Login button
      2. Enter your user name and password.
      3. Be sure to save your user name and password
    6. Select: Find a School
    7. Scroll down and select:  College and Scholarship Search
    8. Scroll down and select: Undergraduate Scholarship Search
      You may now start searching the Peterson's database of over 800 scholarships.

      If you are not a Santa Fe Student, here is another way to use the Peterson's database.

Scholarships for International Students

State of Florida Scholarships

Transferring to a State University in Florida?

Most Financial Aid Offices at Florida Universities include lists of scholarships available at their school.

Here are links to their Financial Aid Offices/Scholarship pages:

Going to a private or out-of-state school?

Find your school's website, navigate to their Financial Aid pages, and look for a listing of their scholarships. 
If you have difficulty finding a school's website, try:

College Navigator

This program can also be useful in searching for colleges that offer your major in your desired location.

A few other legitimate scholarship resources

Professional Associations

Every profession has at least one association.  They support their profession in many ways, one of which is to offer scholarships for students entering their field.  Here is how to find them:

  1. Run a web browser
  2. Do a search for:  "professional association abcdefg"  where "abcdefg" is replaced by the profession you have in mind.  (e.g. "professional association accounting" or "professional association physical therapy")
  3. Pay the most attention to .org and .edu sites.  The .org sites are mostly for non-profit organizations, the .edu sites are colleges and universities who maintain collections of legitimate sites relevant to their programs of study.  Be careful about .com sites. Some are good, but they usually have a profit motive and so may be biased.
  4. Upon finding an association you like, check for a search box and enter "scholarships"  Sometimes the scholarships will be listed under "Education" or "Careers"

One more scholarship search engine

MyCareerShines.org 

This is the State of Florida's official career guidance program, which contains a scholarship search program.  This program uses the same database as College Board, so may be redundant if the College Board search worked well for you.  

To use MyCareerShines, you must create an account.  Here are the steps:

  1. MyCareerShines Website.
  2. Scroll down to MyCareerShines and select Register or Log In.
  3. Be sure to specify Santa Fe College as your school.
  4. Home page... in menu to right select "[ ] Find Financial Aid"
  5. Then: "Find and Apply for Scholarships and Grants"
  6. Then: "Search a National Database of Scholarships and Grants."
  7. Enable Filter Options, and fill in all the blanks that are relevant to you.
  8. Read each scholarship description. If you qualify and would want it, visit the website and read whatever else they provide.
  9. If you STILL want it and believe you qualify, call or write and request an "Application Package"

So what do you do with all these scholarship leads?

Our Financial Aid Office has several excellent short videos on how to deal with scholarship:

  • Applications
  • Essays
  • Letters of Reference

If you would like further assistance in your scholarship search, please Contact the Career Exploration Center to make an appointment.

rev. 9/2/21 JY

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