Scholarships are everywhere, inside and outside of all college institutions, but how many universities combine all sorts of opportunities into one place, where you can AUTOMATICALLY apply to the majority of them?
Upon your acceptance to the University of Iowa, your financial aid offer will come soon. Maybe the number you see scares you (especially for out-of-state students). Maybe you didn’t get all of the automatic scholarships you hoped for. Maybe you just have a little bit more funds to round out, or maybe your tuition is covered. No matter what kind of bill you are looking at, you are going to want to check out the University of Iowa Scholarship Portal. These scholarships will help you cover tuition, housing, books, and more.
Open only to University of Iowa students, you can’t apply within the scholarship portal before you are admitted to Iowa, but let me tell you what it’s like! Every student is able to fill out the general application. This is just a handful of questions to get to know you, your background, and the town you grew up in, but no question is extensive! The biggest requirement on your part is to list the three most meaningful activities you have been or are engaged in. With all things considered, this general application can take five to ten minutes. Why wouldn’t you want to apply to scholarships that are so easy?
However, it does not stop there! The more you are planning to be involved on campus, the more opportunities come your way. For example, once you declare your major, you know what “college” you are a part of. This decision comes with a corresponding scholarship application to the college you are in. For example, I am a part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as a Microbiology major, so for me, I have a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences scholarship application. On the other hand, my friends who are Biomedical Engineering majors are a part of the College of Engineering, so they have the College of Engineering scholarship application. The same goes for other majors and the other colleges on campus. This is the application that is typically where you get to show your passion for your major or showcase what you have been doing to follow your academic goals. These scholarships are only available to undergraduate students in your “college” so the competition level is much lower. For example, even as a first-year student, I received a scholarship offer that was open to all ages of undergraduate students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Therefore, these scholarships are by all means obtainable, so take your time responding to these questions.
Like I said before, the more involved you are on campus or the more you are planning on being involved, the more opportunities apply to you. If you are in the University’s Honors Program, there is a special application open to you as well. This application is the most extensive one I have heard of. Recently it involved an essay, a letter of recommendation, and an honors-oriented resume.
No matter how many applications are available to you, you are not required to do any of them. They are purely there as a resource for you. The more time you dedicate to them and the more applications you fill out, generally the better your results get. If you don’t want to work alone on filling out any part of the scholarship application, there are plenty of resources to turn to once on campus. One resource is the Pomerantz Center. You can get help writing your resume by looking at this guide for help, or even schedule a one-on-one appointment session to get feedback on how to improve or maybe even start your resume. Another resource is the campus writing center, where you can make individual appointments to get writing advice, submit documents for review, or even register for weekly writing one-on-one advice sessions.
One final thing to talk about regarding the University of Iowa scholarship portal is that there are scholarships posted that are not affiliated with the university’s undergraduate programs. These are called external scholarships or external opportunities. Most are related to the university in some way, shape, or form though. For example, one that was posted for the 2020-2021 academic year was from the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, but for undergraduate students. It took into consideration a general application, but also a few additional materials.
Needless to say, the scholarship portal is a good start to your scholarship search because of how diverse it is. There are tremendous amounts of opportunities specialized and available to you because many scholarships award multiple winners, many are specified greatly to limit the competition, and many scholarships just require a little bit of effort. The University of Iowa’s scholarship portal has this and more. Good luck with your scholarship search!
