International Student Forum/ Message Board

Hopefully I have your attention now - I wanted to create a post that addresses the question that we see a thousand times on our forums and that is:

1 - How can I get financiald aid?
2 - I want a scholarship, where can I get one?

We all know that finding funding to study at an international school is very hard - but posting message after message and emailing companies asking for financial aid and scholarships simply does not work!!!

What I want to do with this post is arm you all with information on how to go about securing financial aid so I am going to walk through the main steps you should be doing instead of just pleading or asking for money.

STEP 1 - International Loans
This area of funding will not apply to all international students, but if you do have access to a US cosigner then you can apply for the international student loan. This will provide funding for your time in the USA and is a great way to fund your entire education like most US students do!

STEP 2 - Schools that offer aid
Why not look for schools that offer more financial aid to international students than other schools? There is a great resource that shows you what financial aid schools offer to international students and you can use this for free at:
http://www.internationalstudent.com/sch ... rding_aid/

STEP 3 - Searching for Scholarships
The only way you are going to find a scholarship is to look for this on your own - a scholarship is not going to fall out of the sky and into your lap so do the groundwork. A few places you can start are:

http://www.internationalscholarships.com/
http://www.iefa.org/

These are free resources that are dedicate just to international students so take your time and browse the site - just spend as much time looking for all the possible scholarship options. If you need help on how to use these sites try this resource out:
http://www.iefa.org/resources/scholarsh ... _tips.html

The second place that you should be looking at is any search engine:
http://www.google.com
http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.msn.com

These are great tools to look for scholarships and you need to know how to search. To give you an idea, if you are an international student and are you are looking to study biology you might try search terms such as:
"international scholarship biology" or
"international student scholarship biology" or
"biology scholarship for international students"

You get the idea.....

The third place you should be looking for scholarship are the main domestic sites that run scholarship search for students in the USA. Although these may be geared towards student in the USA, you may find that some scholarships will not restrict you because you are in international student - the advice is to search and find out! Some sites you can look at are:

http://www.scholarships.com/
http://www.fastweb.com/

The fourth place you should be looking for scholarships are governmental and non-profit organizations that are set up to promote education and exchange between countries. To give you a few examples:

http://www.daad.org/ - promotes Germany
http://www.britishcouncil.org/ - promotes the UK
http://educationusa.state.gov/ - promotes the USA
http://studyinaustralia.gov.au/ - promotes Australia

Most of these sites give detailed information about financial aid for those countries so check them out to learn more about the requirements.

I hope this provides you with a good starting point - if you have any other resources that you use or advice for students please post them here!

Thanks

StudentGuru,
this is such a good overview!

I would only add that when you choose the University check their funding sources...

simulation credit auto
Take some action! That's a great tip
Thanks StudentGuru a lot

Yes, I agree with StudentGuru about taking action. One of the techniques I make in finding scholarships is putting a &as_qdr=m at the end of the search result URL in google. What it does is show only the results that have been posted in the past month.

For example, Since I'm from a developing country, I would like to search using the keyword "scholarships for developing countries". I would enter this keyword in google. When google returns with the results, i place &as_qdr=m at the end of that url then I press enter. It looks something like this:

http://www.google.com.ph/search?q=schol ... =firefox-a&as_qdr=m

In this way, I can search for scholarships that has just been updated or had just opened. You can also search entries in the past 24 hours, week, 1 year. Whatever suits your needs.

If I may add, many people from developing countries are unaware of the number of scholarships available specifically for them. So in addition to the superb list that StudentGuru has made, I'd like to share websites that can help one find scholarships for developing countries:

http://www.advance-africa.com - scholarships for african students searching for scholarships abroad
http://www.scholars4dev.com - scholarships for developing countries

I am entering a contest for a five grand scholarship. You have to paint a picture, I need some ideas for what to paint! Please don't say people!

Thanks a lot for scholarship links!
But i tried to find some info to my options and there was any matches.
I am from Ukraine and plan to try Oxford University in 2010 (Experimental psychology) but im really newcomer to understand all system at once...
If somebody has advices or experience - i would be really grateful to all
oxana_taurus@hotmail.com

I do not havea scholarship question but saw alot of activity so I hope some one can give me help.

France and review classes for this spring, SciencePO admissions testing. I saw a few classes offered in Paris for Spring Break, our French exchange student wants to take a review class over spring break and we need to find a few options and I cannot find on line.