Category: minority scholarships

Harvard scholarships may be easy to get if your academic grades and test are high and your therefore naturally smart or have outstanding study habits. But if they are not – don’t waste your time to apply for them. Of course this may be true about many scholarship opportunities but even more at this prestigious university who strives to have the best of the best wandering their classroom halls day and night. When a student attends Harvard they must get ready to live, eat, and breath their studies. If students don’t have this mentality coming into Harvard then they should think about going to college elsewhere.

A student who has been accepted to Harvard has already fought an incredibly academic struggle and won. As one of the most elite schools in the United States, Harvard typically accepts only the best and brightest to its institution. However, with the elite status that Harvard carries, the level of cash needed to afford education at the institution is also extremely selective. For many years going to Harvard meant that students were wealthy and able to afford the cost on their own or through direct support from their families. As a result many students who were otherwise extremely promising were simply unable to afford the basic cost of attending the school.

For a number of decades, though, Harvard scholarships have enabled students from diverse economic backgrounds to afford the education at this prestigious institution. Options are available for many students for different walks of life providing money on both standards of legacy or for new students whose families have no history at the college. Scholarships at Harvard also vary by which school a student may be attending – for instance law students have a number of programs to which they may apply to.

Not all Harvard scholarships exist for undergraduates, either, and a number of fellowships and academically merit based rewards are offered for graduate students as well. Overall, while it is not always easy to find funding to attend Harvard University, the school does offer a number of programs which should make coming across funding much easier for interested applicants. The school provides an application which, when filled out correctly, will automatically enroll students in programs for which they are eligible. There are also a number of opportunities available outside of the school which students should consider looking into, though these programs will have to be applied to separately from the financial assistance form provided by Harvard directly.

Amounts given for many scholarships from Harvard vary depending on the year offered and funding available. Despite this caveat the financial aid available is normally rather large and, in many cases, should be able to heavily dent any gap in financial aid a student may have. Fairly common at the university are legacy scholarships at Harvard built up either around direct descendants of individuals or, should such a person not be available, students from particular areas. For instance the Joseph M. Smith Memorial Fund provides those who have been residents of Allston or Brighton, MA for at least five years while participating actively in volunteer groups a Harvard university scholarship.

Another, the Baxendale Scholarship, offers as a priority funding to descendants of Alan Bedford Hudson or, should such a person not be available, to those with the name Baxendale or Hudson and, finally if nobody meets that criteria, to students from Brockston or Bourne, MA a Harvard college scholarship. These legacy based scholarships for Harvard students are fairly common at the university, so students should review them carefully when applying, being sure to indicate where they have lived and for how long.

Harvard university scholarships are also available based on previous schools attended, various other criteria, and internal nominations. As a good example of a Harvard scholarship based on previous schools attended, the Daniel A. Buckley Bequest and Eliot B. Spalding Scholarship Fund provides scholarship funding to those students who grew up in and graduated from secondary schools located in Cambridge, MA. Various criteria can be used for other scholarships at Harvard such as the John Parker Bequest which provides funding for students in the natural sciences who display exceptional academic merit.

The jack and Elizabeth Meyer University Scholarship Fund provides financial aid to those students studying the environment or conducting cross disciplinary studies involving psychology, brain science and engineering. The final common type of Harvard scholarships comes from privately nominated programs to which students cannot directly apply to such as the Vera Bellus Bequest or Dwight D. Eisenhower Scholarship Fund. These programs are only available to students who are directly nominated through the Committee on General Scholarships by the professors who make up its membership. It is important and wise to not only perform well academically but develop strong relationships with professors to better increase one’s chances of such a nomination.

The last scholarship Harvard offers is to need based students and for minority students. Of all the scholarships at Harvard this may be the easy scholarship Harvard has to offer, but there is still much work to get one. It’s a low income scholarship. These are based on a family’s income and other merit qualifying criteria such as needing strong academic grades, excellent records towards personal pursuits and a strong essay expressing their themselves so as to convince the selection committee they are a good fit for Harvard university. If you do this you’re going to Harvard on one of their their Harvard minority scholarships.

From the above you can see that Harvard scholarship offerings seem similar to many other college’s. It’s just that the competition for them may be severe because of the extremely high academic pool of students to choose from and the selection committee may have their own set of scholarship guidelines which may be difficult to understand. Never-the-less academic talent may flucuate year to year making some years better then others to be granted a coveted Harvard university scholarship. Never count yourself out and always apply to any scholarship which you seem to fit a colleges qualifying criteria.