Applying for Scholarships
Updated 7th September 2021
Most students believe that scholarships are only for the top few students across the country, however the reality is that there are hundreds of scholarships for a whole range of reasons available for students who are applying for tertiary study. Spending a couple of hours checking what’s available and applying could save you thousands of dollars (particularly when lots of other students won’t bother!)
What are scholarships for?
There are two main categories of scholarships, but I like to add a third for good measure - Merit, Equity or Access, and what I call your “perfect benefactor”.
Merit scholarships are the ones that most students are aware of, and they are awarded based on your results. Because of this, they’re usually easier to apply for, and most of them are awarded automatically when your results are released at the end of the year.
Equity or access scholarships are for students who are disadvantaged in some way to help them get to university. It might be that they are financially disadvantaged or have overcome difficult circumstances, or maybe they come from an underrepresented group such as Indigenous Australians, women in male-dominated fields, or regional students.
My “perfect benefactor” category technically fits under the equity umbrella, but I like to add it in because these are the scholarships that can come from left field and might be completely relevant to you. Remember that scholarships are offered by a person or organisation, so anyone can decide how specific they want to be when they are awarding their scholarship. This means that a scholarship might be specific to where you live, what or where you want to study, the specific community groups you’ve been involved with, etc. It’s the type of scholarship where you read the eligibility criteria and it feels like they’ve created it just for you based on your life and circumstances.
How do I find them?
VTAC has a comprehensive list on their website split into 2 categories - ones you can apply for through VTAC and ones where you apply directly to the tertiary institution. The ones through VTAC are super easy to apply for, as you just submit one application and you are automatically eligible for all of them. You can complete this application as soon as you’ve started your preference list.
Once you know which courses you want to apply for, you can then go to the uni websites where you’re applying and see what they have to offer. There’s usually a search function you can use to narrow it down on the uni website, however it doesn’t hurt to quickly read through all of them - it’s often very obvious which ones you are eligible for and which ones you’re not by the name of the scholarship.
Lastly, there may be some scholarships that are offered by other organisations that are not specific to a particular university, so it’s worth doing a google search to see what’s out there.
How do I apply?
Every scholarship is different. For some you might need to provide some sort of written statement to show that you’re eligible, so make sure that you check all of the information for each scholarship you’re applying for so that you don’t miss out simply by not following the instructions.
Applying for scholarships doesn’t have to take up too much of your time, and the worst that could happen is that you’re not granted one. Why wouldn’t you throw your hat in the ring and see what happens? Good luck!
