So many students have been there before.
They filled out their application to the best of their abilities, they applied to every internal scholarship imaginable at their hopeful college, and they calculated their odds of winning certain awards ad nauseum.
And then the acceptance letter comes in, and it’s cause for such a wonderful celebration. Getting into university is incredibly difficult, and you’ve done it.
But then there’s the second letter—the financial aid award letter. And for so many students, that award just isn’t enough to keep a student from navigating debt for many years to come.
Even for those students who can utilize internal, university-wide funding to mitigate their tuition costs, having external funding sources will always make a big difference in one’s attempts to finance their education.
But there are a lot of scholarships out there. And many of them will provide wonderful opportunities, but in order to make the most of one’s scholarship hunt to ensure they will receive enough external aid to impact their tuition costs, they’ll need to apply for a lot of scholarships.
School, work, and attempts to make the most of one’s teenage/early 20s can make the prospect of writing dozens of scholarship essays and answering a plethora of scholarship questions daunting.
But there are scholarships out there that provide actual money, which one can apply to in mere minutes. And although the odds of winning such scholarships can be slim, it never hurts to cast as wide of a net as possible.
And no-essay scholarships are a simple addition to one’s list of scholarship applications that increase one’s chances of receiving funding without increasing the number of hours one spends on the scholarship hunt.
As such, this article will break down 10 of the best no-essay scholarships out there.
In making this list, attention was given to the legitimacy of the scholarship organization, the amount of funding each scholarship provided, and the range of students who would be eligible to apply for the scholarship.
In no particular order, here are the ten best no-essay scholarships that will make easy additions to your scholarship list.
Big Future’s $40,000 Scholarship
Big Future is an organization that helps students with the step-by-step process of applying for college.
Big Future is a service offered by the larger College Board website, a non-profit organization that seeks to aid students in their quest to both attend college and succeed while there.
In order to apply for the $40,000 scholarship, students must make an account on the Big Future section of the College Board website and subsequently begin steps to plan for college.
Completing steps to prepare for college on Big Future include making a list of potential colleges, preparing for a standardized test, applying for colleges, and more.
Each year, roughly 25 winners are selected to receive the $40,000 scholarship. Winners’ profiles can be found here.
“Be Bold” No-Essay Scholarship
Bold.org is a scholarship website that hosts a wide array of no-essay scholarships. Many of the no-essay scholarships on Bold.org are not available elsewhere and are centered around various themes (i.e. international travel, the arts, etc.).
One of the largest of Bold.org’s many exclusive no-essay scholarships is their Be Bold, $25,050 scholarship.
This scholarship is awarded annually to a Bold.org user, and previous winners can be found at the bottom of the scholarship’s page.
In order to increase one’s likelihood of winning this scholarship, students attain “bold points,” which can be gained by watching advertisements, providing feedback to the website, or otherwise.
Niche No-Essay Scholarship
Niche is a trusted source for all things college.
They provide rankings for the world’s best universities in a wide array of subject matter, they collect data on acceptance rates, and they are a hub of information for anything a student may need to know regarding their school of choice.
And alongside this, they also aid students on their scholarship hunt.
As part of this, they provide a $2,000 no-essay scholarship which is given to students on a monthly basis.
In order to apply, students need only create an account on Niche.com via the scholarship application.
Previous winners of the no-essay scholarship can be found on Niche’s website.
Nitro College No-Essay Scholarship
Nitro has a remarkably easy no-essay scholarship.
In order to apply, students do not even need to make an account on Nitro’s website, but instead merely have to provide the school they hope to attend and their contact information, and they are set to apply.
Each month, Nitro selects a winner of the $2,000 no-essay scholarship. Previous scholarship winners can be found at the bottom of the scholarship application page.
Nitro is a website dedicated to helping students understand all things financial regarding the college experience. This includes information on scholarships, loans, and tools to help calculate one’s cost of college.
CollegeXpress $10,000 No-Essay Scholarship
CollegeXpress hosts an annual no-essay scholarship competition, where one winner will receive a generous scholarship worth $10,000.
By making an account on the CollegeXpress website via the no-essay scholarship portal, students are automatically enrolled for the chance to win the $10,000 scholarship.
CollegeXpress is another organization that does not merely offer one no-essay scholarship but several.
For example, after applying for the $10,000 no-essay scholarship, students can apply for the $2,000, “Favorite Color” scholarship—where students only need to answer what their favorite color is in order to apply.
College Covered $5,000 No-Essay Scholarship
College Covered is an organization owned by Discover that seeks to aid students in financing their education while simultaneously promoting Discover’s student loans.
Because College Covered seeks to aid students in all things financial, it is no wonder that they also host a variety of scholarship competitions.
One of the largest of these scholarship competitions is the $5,000 no-essay Discover student loans no-essay scholarship.
In order to apply, all a student needs to do is provide their basic contact information.
$1,000 Dorm Survey Scholarship
ULoop is a hub for all odds and ends associated with college preparation.
Whether it be finding a roommate, a tutor, or finding a place to live, ULoop strives to be a marketplace for all of one’s miscellaneous college needs.
To best achieve this goal, ULoop naturally needs to harvest a fair amount of data regarding a wide array of colleges to provide accurate and up-to-date information.
This is where the $1,000 Dorm Survey Scholarship comes in.
To apply for this scholarship, students fill out a brief questionnaire regarding their experiences living in dorms at their particular university.
Alongside the dorm survey, students can also enter the off-campus apartment survey scholarship contest, which has an award of $1,000.
Winners of both scholarships are announced annually, and previous winners can be found on ULoop’s website.
Tallo $1,000 Scholarship
Tallo is an app where students can update schools, scholarship competitions, and employers regarding their various academic or professional achievements.
Through this platform, professionals and students connect to develop meaningful relationships.
By joining the Tallo app, students join a network of over 1 million students and professionals and have access to a scholarship database that includes over $20 billion in scholarships.
When a student joins Tallo, they are automatically enrolled in the $1,000, no-essay scholarship contest.
Joining Tallo and completing a profile is considered the application for this scholarship.
Scholarship Owl $7,000 Scholarship
Scholarship Owl is a scholarship database that both seeks to connect students with scholarship opportunities and to provide education to students regarding how scholarships work during the process.
Their $7,000 scholarship does not require an essay and merely requires that students create a profile on the Scholarship Owl website.
Although only 1 in 140,000 students win, approximately every applicant is considered equal during the scholarship drawing.
As such, no one student has a significantly greater chance of winning the no-essay scholarship compared to another.
ScholarshipPoints $10,000 Scholarship
ScholarshipPoints hosts a variety of no-essay scholarship contests, with the largest of these having a $10,000 value.
ScholarshipPoints operates by having students gain “scholarship points” by doing things like surveys, watching ads, or engaging with website sponsors.
Then, students spend these points to enter scholarship sweepstakes.
One point spent is the equivalent of 1 entry in the random drawing of scholarship winners.
The more points one spends in entering a scholarship, the more likely it is that a student will win the said scholarship.
As such, not only do Scholarship points offer the large, $10,000 no-essay scholarship, but several no-essay scholarships in which spending scholarship points takes the place of writing a formal scholarship application.
Even if the chances of winning can be slim for some of these scholarships, it is real money that real winners have received in the past.
