How Do You Know if a Scholarship is Legit?

Initial Scholarship Vetting

If the scholarship you’re considering includes any of these items, do not proceed with the application

• Request personable banking information
• Requires Social Security Number (SSN)
• Requires an application fee
• You are “guaranteed to win”
• Scholarship funds are sent to winner via a wire transfer (Wester Union, Paypal, etc)

Detailed Scholarship Vetting

If the scholarship you’re considering includes any of these items, do not proceed with application

• Hosted on blog site
• Include grammatical inconsistencies or unprofessional language
• Requires sharing on social media for “likes”
• Contains invalid or out-of-country phone number or email
• Provides no contact information for follow up
• There is no evidence of previous winners
• Requires you to send detailed financial or tax information to an secure email
• URL does not match company’s (search WHOis.net)
• Address given doesn’t list the business information listed
• Requires applicants to come up with solutions to a hypothetical legal or business scenario or create a new product that would otherwise be considered the applicant’s intellectual property