I’m sorry I don’t have any fun photos for this post, it’s just cold, hard facts.

Let me just say that if you google “graduate school scholarships,” the search results are disappointing. Has it not occurred to anyone to create scholarship websites that at least appear legitimate? Honestly, when your google advertisements take a more prominent position on your scholarship website than the scholarships, it says something to me. It says, you’re not in it for the kids. After a few initial mishaps, I did come across some valuable information (though, not nearly as much information as I would have liked.) Stay tuned to my Dollars for Students Page for any worth while websites that may allow you to actually win some scholarship money.

Exhibit A

Free Scholarship Guide: This free e-book is virus free! (You laugh, but with these scholarship websites being as questionable as they are, I was concerned.)

Exhibit B

Scholarship Experts : It takes 20 minutes (if you’re lucky) to register for this site. Yes, it’s tedious, but if you can remember your login information, it’s smooth sailing from there. (That’s assuming you have no problem with writing essays for scholarship money.) Some of the scholarships are as easy as providing your contact information for a scholarship sweepstakes, others may require a bit more thought. The site adds new scholarship based

Exhibit C

CollegeNet: If you can handle hanging around this forum for long enough, you’ll win the $4000 weekly scholarship sooner or later. The first time I won, I won it sooner. I will be eligible for the scholarship again on the 29th of this month. If you want to support me in my quest to win another scholarship vote for me weekly.

Of the three scholarship resources for graduate students that I’ve featured here, CollegeNet has definitely been the most time consuming and frustrating. I know that I might be shooting myself in the foot by insulting the source that funds my education, but it’s not exactly like that. The concept of CollegeNet is brilliant. You post topics, you reply to other people’s topics and if what you say is informational or inspirational or elicits some strong emotion from your peers, they vote for you. Each week, he with the most votes wins. My gripe with the website is that it can be a black hole of intellectualism. I don’t even need to go into it, you’ll see what I mean if you just visit the site. CollegeNet’s motto is “It Pays to Think,” yet the most “thought-provoking” thing on the front page is “Advise for the College Virgin.” Are you kidding me? People who can’t even spell are winning thousands of dollars a week! It really gets to me sometimes.

Edit September 2nd 2010 – I was just brought back to reality by a fellow College Net user. At the time that I wrote this post I was particularly frustrated with College Net, but reality is that even I make spelling mistakes and I was totally right about shooting myself in the foot by insulting the source that funds my education. You live, you learn.

Hopefully exhibits D through F will manifest shortly.