Why You Must Volunteer to be Eligible for Scholarships

Feb 17 2023 | Hailey McCalla, CEO of ConfidentApplicants Services

#scholarshiptips #scholarshipguru #bursaries #volunteer #scholarships #studyincanada

This article shares why you should be volunteering and provides guidance on where to volunteer to impress scholarship committees.

I have won over $61,000 CAD dollars worth of scholarship funding and it's all due to volunteering. I volunteered for both a school club and numerous non-profit organizations.

These are the reasons why you should be volunteering:

1. To meet eligibility requirements

70% of scholarship applications will ask for an account on your community service experiences. After all, if you are to write a personal essay of normally about 500 words, what content will you add to the application if you do not volunteer? Usually, scholarship committees do not care how many volunteering hours you've gotten or how many volunteering positions you hold; the focus is the impact you made to a given non-profit organization or student club.

2. To distinguish yourself from other applicants

Just like any other award, scholarships are competitive and this is precisely why you need to be volunteering to differentiate yourself from other candidates. It's no longer enough to be getting 80-90% grade point averages; scholarship committees want to see that you are well rounded. According to an article at canadainfo.net, “The need for high marks or that a student be financially destitute — are requirements in only one-third of scholarships available". I would hand in my transcripts with a 3.15 GPA (75% average) and still win the scholarship, so please do not focus solely on the marks; focus on balancing a meaningful volunteering activity with your schooling.

Scholarship Tip

I will let you in on a secret to differentiate yourself from other scholarship applicants. The best place to volunteer with the purpose of earning scholarship dollars is to align your volunteer activity with what you are studying. Volunteering for a religious institution or food bank is not going to wow scholarship committees. For example, if you're a data student or a marketing student in Canada, maybe volunteer for Viz for Social Good. If you're studying to become a coder or software engineer, volunteer for MakerKids or Black Kids Code(Girls). These are just examples to encourage you to research community interest group websites and student clubs that focus on what you study.

In closing, I will leave you with three assessment questions to help you decide what scholarship committees and university admission offices would like to see:

* Are you learning something you wouldn’t have otherwise? * Are you working with people different from yourself? * Are you best aligned with your career goals and program of study?

Thank you for stopping by and feel free to book a scholarship information session/consultation on our page for more information.

Follow our TikTok page @confidentapplicants_inc for memes and feel free to connect with me on Instagram @confidentapplicants_ _official for inquiries.