Scholarship Scams?
June 4, 2009 • written by Ryan Tyler
High school seems to go by in a breeze and before too long you’ve got to start making plans to enter the workforce or pursue higher education through college. As we all know, college can be a financial pain. Well, scholarships have proven to be an excellent alternative to paying for school. There are thousands of scholarships in the area of academics and athletics and every year billions of dollars in scholarship funds go unspent. So, money is out there for people who need it and deserve it, you just have to know where to look.
What people need to be aware of is that scholarships aren’t the easiest thing in the world to get; you usually have to put hard work into them in order to be competitive and have a chance of receiving scholarship funds. Many high school students plunge into a trend of procrastinating when it comes to applying for college scholarships. So, what these loose-minded students end up doing is applying for scholarships that seem too easy and have no required hard work to be done in the application process. This is the students’ desperate attempt at “easy money” after they have let time escape from them. For instance, a student applies to a scholarship, there was no work required in the application process, just a name and a $50 deposit, and a scholarship is guaranteed to follow.
Students beware. These scholarships are too easy because they’re scams created by scam artists who take advantage of people in desperate need of money. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t an actual scholarship. The following are the tell tale signs of scholarship fraud about which the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cautions students:
“The scholarship is guaranteed or your money back.”
“You can’t get this information anywhere else.”
“I just need your credit card or bank account number to hold this scholarship.”
“We’ll do all the work.”
“The scholarship will cost some money.”
“You’ve been selected by a ‘national foundation’ to receive a scholarship.”
“You’re a finalist” (in a contest you never entered).
First off, a scholarship doesn’t require you to put money down or hold it to a credit card or bank account. Second, most institutions offer their scholarships through a variety of different ways, so the phase, “you can’t get this information anywhere else” wouldn’t apply for a real scholarship. Lastly, and most importantly, all scholarships require you to prove yourself a worthy candidate through your hard work and dedication. If you’re going to try to get easy money, avoid scholarships that are promoted in these fashions because they might be scholarship scams.
Also, be careful when dealing with athletic recruiting services, as these, too, may be part of a scam. Often, legitimate recruiting services are required to collect a fee in order to help promote the student athlete, which means it is much harder to detect a recruiting service scam.
What several coaches and recruiters advise is that student athletes self promote to protect themselves the trouble of trying to detect a scam. To self promote, make sure you talk to your coach; most coaches are more than willing to help you out. Write a letter to the head coach of the school you want to draw attention from; make sure you address the coach formally and make yourself stand out. Also you should submit a video of your performance to try and draw the eyes of top recruiters. Once again though, self promotion requires a lot of hard work and dedication and isn’t something to be put off until the end of your senior year; start the self-promotion process as soon as possible.
If you choose not to self promote, be careful and weary of whom you trust. The best solution is to do the work yourself and avoid these fake organizations from “doing the work for you,” because it could turn out to be a scam. Top recruiters can notice you; you’ve just got to put some hard work into it.
Scholarship fraud and recruiting service scams are very real. Before anyone begins to apply for scholarships or invest in recruiting services, they should arm themselves with knowledge of what to look for; if a fraud is presented to a student, the student should know how to deal with it or avoid it. Don’t become another victim of scholarship fraud.
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