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I have found only ONE left-handed scholarship. It is available to students who attend Juniata College, in Huntington, PA. Being left-handed is only part of the requirements to apply for the scholarship - you also have to have academic achievement. It's for somewhere around $1000 a year - not nearly enough money to cover the costs of Juniata (roughly $25,000 a year) - but hey, $1000 does help! This is NOT to say there are not other scholarships that require you be left-handed to apply, but in over 7 years of running FreSch!, so far, this is the ONLY left-handed scholarship I have found. So why does "everyone" think that there are so many scholarships for left-handed people? Why is this one of the most common questions I receive?
Because companies that make money from selling scholarship books and searches have found that by "promoting" the really odd scholarships THEY SELL MORE BOOKS AND SEARCHES. It's a marketing technique to get people to believe that "everyone" can win a scholarship. While I have no problem with companies making money, I find this heavy marketing emphasis on the "odd" scholarships is misleading - not to mention causes me to receive about 200 emails a week asking "Where do I find the left-handed scholarships?" The simple truth is that the overwhelming majority of scholarships depend PRIMARILY upon two basic requirements: Academic achievement and financial need, even though they may have other requirements. The "wacky" scholarships often have other restrictions - like what major you are studying and what religion you practice - but "most" students don't want to hear that. They want to hear they can get "free money" for things like being left handed, or having one blue eye and one brown eye, or being born with nine toes. Many student do not want to hear that finding - and winning! - scholarships TAKES A LOT OF TIME AND WORK. So book publishers and search companies will heavily promote the very few, very limited, "odd-ball" or "wacky" scholarships, instead of being honest and telling you that if you are REALLY going to win a scholarship - you have to go for "everything" about you, not just ONE thing that makes you different. Think of it this way: How many left-handed students are there in America? Millions, I guess, if not hundreds of millions. A student or parent sees on a book cover that they can "win free money for college JUST by being left-handed" and thinks "Gee, wow, cool!!" buy the book, just to learn that, well, maybe it's not so simple, that maybe they need a lot MORE than JUST being left-handed to win a scholarship. If the book said that "up-front," a student or parent would probably have NOT bought the book, right? Honestly, it is NOT my intention to "slam" companies that produce and sell scholarship books - these books can be VERY helpful and useful in your search. I do admit to "slamming" their marketing techniques a little, however! I - and the others who have helped build FreSch! - want to help you MAXIMIZE your opportunities and avoid the "scholarship traps" that can lead to so much frustration: traps like wasting hours and hours looking for the elusive left-handed scholarship, when there are hundreds of other scholarships that you could have found in the same time that you spent looking for that one left-handed scholarship. When looking for scholarships, REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE MUCH MORE THAN "JUST" LEFT-HANDED. That you have MANY other attributes that make you worthy, unique, different, and attractive to a scholarship committee. Being left-handed is something to be proud of, but it is not the ONLY thing that you are. You are MUCH MORE than that. If you are serious about applying for scholarships, do NOT limit yourself to "only" left-handed scholarships: look at yourself and define EVERYTHING about you that could be used to find scholarships.
List all your personal features and look into scholarships that match any or all of them. For example, some "categories" about yourself might be:
The object of searching for scholarships is to find *AS MANY* organizations as possible to apply to - to MAXIMIZE your possibility of winning a scholarship, any scholarship. It's so very difficult to win a scholarship - and it takes SO MUCH TIME to find and apply for them. Limiting yourself to looking "only" for scholarships for left-handed people is limiting your possibilities of WINNING MONEY.
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