Sallie surveyed 511 U.S. scholarship applicants (both students who won at least one award and students who applied but never won) and published the results as The Scholarship Winner Playbook. The findings point to a short list of behaviors that consistently showed up among winners: starting early, applying in volume, getting essays reviewed, and reapplying after rejections. It’s a useful data set for anyone working through how to find college scholarships right now.
The headline numbers: 63% of winners started applying during high school or earlier, about 1 in 3 winners (34%) collected 3 or more awards, and winners applied to roughly twice as many scholarships as non-winners. The number of scholarship applications you submit matters, which is one reason scholarship search websites that surface lots of matches quickly have become a standard part of the process.
If you’re looking for a free tool to find college scholarships, check out The College Investor’s Scholarship Search Tool. Our team curates the scholarships listed.
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Why It Matters
Scholarships are free money in an era when college keeps getting more expensive. Families spent $34,019 on college last year, up 10%, according to Sallie’s own spending research, and the average cost of college continues to climb faster than inflation.
Every scholarship dollar is a dollar that doesn’t have to be borrowed. With student loan debt statistics showing borrowers collectively owe well over $1.7 trillion, the difference between a $4,250 in scholarships and $12,750 in scholarships isn’t trivial (that’s the gap that “Winner’s Circle” recipients had over the median winners). It can meaningfully shrink what a student borrows in student loans over four years.
The Habits That Separate Scholarship Winners
The five most common self-reported habits among winners, compared with applicants who never won:
- Starting before or during high school: 63% of winners vs. 49% of non-winners
- Having someone review their essay before submitting: 61% vs. 53%
- Targeting awards below $5,000: 59% vs. 42%
- Researching the scholarship organization before writing: 41% vs. 31%
- Applying to 11 or more scholarships: 27% vs. 17%
The essay review piece is important: 42% of applicants who never won had no one look at their essays, compared with 36% of winners. And 24% of winners had their essays reviewed regularly, versus just 14% of non-winners. A second set of eyes is one of the cheapest edges available, and it applies whether you’re chasing local awards or a full-ride scholarship.
I can tell you firsthand that when we review the essays for our Side Hustlin’ Student Scholarship here at The College Investor, it becomes very clear who had people look at their essays and who didn’t. The number of scholarship applications we disqualify for very basic issues like formatting, file type, or following the directions is mind-boggling.
Just as telling is what didn’t matter. Winners and non-winners spent nearly identical time per week on applications (2.9 vs. 3.0 hours), customized essays at the same rate (75% vs. 74%), finished applications at the same rate (85% vs. 86%), and skipped AI tools at the same rate (75% of both groups).
The gap wasn’t effort per application. It was volume, timing, and persistence, the same themes that come up across the scholarship strategies we cover.
Where students searched mattered too. Applicants who never won were twice as likely to lean on social media to find scholarships (10% vs. 5% of winners), while winners more often went to the sponsoring organizations directly and to their school’s financial aid office.
Inside the Winner’s Circle
Sallie’s “Winner’s Circle” (the 34% of winners who took home 3 or more awards) earned a median of $12,750, three times the $4,250 median for winners of 1 or 2 awards. Their playbook looks like an amplified version of everyone else’s, and it echoes what we’ve seen from students who treat finding money for college like a part-time job.
Top winners applied to 11 or more scholarships at 2.7x the rate of other winners (47% vs. 18%), reapplied to rejected scholarships at nearly 2x the rate (49% vs. 27%), and were more likely to start applications the day they found them (55% vs. 46%).
Notably, 66% targeted awards under $5,000: smaller prizes, less competition, more wins. They were also 1.6x as likely to keep a master document of reusable essay paragraphs (28% vs. 18%), a tactic that works for both undergrads and for students pursuing graduate school scholarships and fellowships.
The time investment barely differed: top winners spent a median of 3 hours per week on applications versus 2 hours for other winners.
Rejection Isn’t the End
One of the more surprising findings: 11% of all winners eventually won a scholarship they had previously been rejected from, after reapplying in a later cycle. Among winners who reapplied after a rejection, 32% eventually broke through. Many scholarships reopen annually or semi-annually, so a “no” this year is often just a “not yet”, which is something students should keep in mind.
Both groups shared the same top regret: not applying to more scholarships. Winners’ top advice for first-timers was blunt: “Don’t give up after your first round of rejections.”
How This Connects
The playbook lines up with what the broader data shows about paying for college. What families really pay out of pocket depends heavily on grants and scholarships, and with colleges now discounting tuition a record 56% on average, free money (institutional and private) is doing more of the lifting than sticker prices suggest.
Private scholarship wins stack on top of that.
The tactics that we see students doing, such as starting early, having someone review their essay, and focusing on smaller-dollar scholarships, all go a long way to boosting odds of success. This comes on top of simply just applying to more scholarships.
It’s important to remember that this survey is observational and self-reported, so these habits are just associated with winning, not proven to cause it. Still, the behaviors are low-cost to adopt: start earlier, apply to more (especially sub-$5,000 awards), get essays reviewed, and reapply after rejections.
Editor: Colin Graves
Robert Farrington is the founder of The College Investor and is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading voices on student loan debt and saving for college. He holds an MBA from UC San Diego Rady School of Management and has spent over 15 years researching, writing, and advising on student loans, 529 plans, financial aid programs, and saving and investing for young professionals.
Robert has been featured in the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NBC News, and Forbes, where he has been a regular personal finance contributor for over a decade. His work combines both professional expertise and personal experience – he successfully navigated his own student loan repayment journey and has helped thousands of readers do the same.
He is committed to making the intersection of personal finance and education transparent and accessible. You can learn more about Robert on the About Page or on his personal site RobertFarrington.com.