Are you Afraid to Apply for Scholarships?

Recently a young man told me he hadn’t applied for any other scholarships because he was scared. He’d already received one nice scholarship, but still he was afraid to apply for others.

He explained he was afraid of being turned down. He was afraid of being told “no”. This is not an uncommon thought, students often hesitate to apply for scholarships for fear of the word “no”.

It may sound silly for a student to be afraid. After all, nothing bad will happen. No one will come to the student’s house and beat him up. No one will take an ad out in the paper announcing a student didn’t receive a scholarship. Nothing happens except a student doesn’t receive a particular scholarship. But, to a student the fear stops some from applying for college funds.

There are several reasons students fear scholarship applications. They may have succeeded at everything they’ve attempted to date, and don’t want a scholarship to be the first things they didn’t receive. They may think there will be too much competition which lessens their chances. They may think they don’t qualify for a scholarship and are afraid scholarship committees will look down on them for applying.

Are you one of those students? Are you afraid to apply for a scholarship? Here’s the thing, you won’t receive scholarships if you don’t apply. Let’s look at each fear.

* Fearing the first “no” – First “no”, really? You’ve never been told “no” before? No, what you’re really afraid of is failure, you’ve never failed and you have no intention of starting now. But, not receiving a scholarship is not failure. It simply means they didn’t have enough funds for every student who qualified and they had to make a choice. Not applying for a scholarship qualify to receive is failure. Go ahead, complete those scholarship applications, you might be the one to receive them. In that case you’ve double succeeded.

* Fearing the competition – Do you think too many students will be applying, which will limit your chances? Sure, many scholarship committees receive a large number of applications. There’s no reason to believe yours can’t shine as much as any other. You can’t get the scholarship if you don’t apply. Think about this, there are probably hundreds of other students thinking the competition is too tough and not entering. When you apply for a scholarship, you’ve already beat all of them. Remember, scholarship committees don’t know about you if you don’t tell them. Apply for every scholarship you qualify to receive.

*Afraid of their image – Afraid “they” will think less of you? Who are “they”? Scholarship committee? They admire the students who apply for their scholarships, it is often a difficult decision for them. They aren’t going to think less of any student who doesn’t receive their award. Are “they” people around you, people you know? They aren’t going to think less of you for not receiving a particular scholarship. If anything, their opinion of them will rise because you took the chance and applied for all the scholarships you qualified to receive.

Don’t let fear separate you from thousands of dollars. Apply for every scholarship you qualify to receive.