I am going to be honest… I avoided scholarships for the longest time because of essays.
Like every time I'd open an application and see write 500–1000 words about your goals I'd instantly close the tab. Did that for years and just told myself scholarships weren't worth the effort.
Fast forward to a few months ago when tuition reality hit hard and I figured I'd at least try again… but this time I had one rule: No essays.
I started digging specifically for scholarships that:
Didn't require essays (way more common than I thought).
Were sweepstakes style or quick entry.
Only needed basic info or short answers.
Had fewer applicants because people assume they're not worth it.
Instead of spending hours writing, I spent that time applying to a lot of these low friction ones.
My process was super simple:
Filter out anything with long writing requirements.
Apply in batches (like 10 to 15 at a time)
Reuse profile info so I wasn't retyping everything.
Prioritize active deadlines so nothing was wasted.
Some options I had which surfaces scholarships one can match with and shows which ones are quick apply. I didn't realize how much time I was wasting before just scrolling random sites. Over a couple months it stacked up… and yeah, it ended up being around $50k total.
Won $50k in scholarships with zero essays, my lazy hack changed everything.
byu/Additional_Twist_595 inFrugal
Posted by Additional_Twist_595
4 Comments
That seems like more work than writing a 500 word essay.
this makes sense, it’s a numbers game more than anything. people ignore low effort scholarships so competition drops. still, feels like survivorship bias a bit since most won’t hit 50k doing this alone, but solid strategy overall
AI slop?
Even if not it feels like it was written by someone that uses got a lot
This doesn’t work. Millions of seniors do this every year and don’t end up with a dime. And thank goodness you don’t write essays. You absolutely did not write this yourself, and it sucks that someone like you will be going to college instead of someone more worthy. You act like you’re the first person to discover Unigo.