Post-Secondary Scholarships and Bursaries

Authored By: Manvi Pant, October 27th 2022

It’s well known that university can be quite an expensive endeavor! To support themselves through university, students often apply for student loans or take on a job to pay tuition and fees. However, because of misinformed guidelines, missed deadlines, or simply for lack of awareness, one crucial source of income is often overlooked: scholarships, grants, and bursaries! Here is a brief guide on how to prepare for, identify, and apply to university awards.

STEP 1: A Self Background-Check

There seems to be a misconception that scholarships are only awarded to students who are gifted academically, are being recruited for athletic performance, or fit a certain criterion (i.e., persons with disability, Indigenous peoples). While these types of scholarships do exist, the world of scholarships is much, much broader! Scholarships exist for people from all backgrounds, in all areas of study, with all sorts of skills, interests, and experiences.

In an application, what’s important is to communicate your growth as an individual and your passion to keep learning. It’s easy to undermine your own life experiences if they aren’t traditional, or don’t feel “legitimate.” However, your “dull” or “non-traditional” experiences could be the ones that set you apart from any other candidate, and showcase your growth, journey, and character as a person in the best way possible. The first step is to identify your skills and experiences—these are your armory!

“Traditional” Examples of Student Experiences: Have you ever…

• Participated in a club?

• Helped your community?

• Tutored someone?

• Helped out in a class you enjoy learning about?

• Been a part of a Student Council, or participated in school activities?

• Been on an athletic team?

• Been in a school band?

“Non-Traditional” Examples of Student Experiences:

• Do you have any hobbies you thoroughly enjoy and spend a lot of your time towards?

-This can be anything: reading, gardening, woodworking, hiking…the list is endless!

-What have these hobbies taught you?

-How do you manage your time around these hobbies?

• Are you close with your family and friends?

-What have these relationships taught you about yourself and about others?

• Are you a part of any visible minority groups or federally-designated equity-seeking groups?

-How do you think this has shaped your experiences and opportunities in life?

• Have you ever experienced adversity? Felt a loss?

-How did you rise above a challenging time in your life, or help others do the same?

• Have you ever traveled? How did that shape your perspective as a person?

An experience that seems “dull” to you could actually convey a beautiful story and illustrate an integral part of who you are. If possible, sit down with your family, friends, and any mentor-figures (i.e., teachers, guidance counselors, volunteer coordinators etc.) to brainstorm some of these defining experiences before you start applying to scholarships so you have a clear idea of your strengths and weaknesses.

*Tip: Create an ‘Activity Record’ of your experiences, preferably in an excel sheet. This record will be very useful to refer back to whenever needed and it should keep your experiences organized in a way that is easy to read and interpret. You can build this record up over the years, and refer back to it continually throughout high school, university, and even before applying to grad school as needed. You can attach this record when requesting a reference letter too. This would give your reference a comprehensive view of your involvement throughout the years (include dates and location). You can use this record to build your Personal Portfolio and resume/curriculum vitae.

What is a Personal Portfolio? It’s a binder (or equivalent) representing all your achievements in life that you take with you to interviews and share with the hiring committee as evidence of your accomplishments. The Personal Portfolio is a collection of all your certificates, awards, essays, manuscripts, samples of work, samples of code, letters of offer, photos, testimonials, report cards, transcripts, and reference letters etc.

STEP 2: Identifying Scholarships

The next step is identifying scholarships to apply to. When starting off, you may have a broad idea of certain scholarships to apply to, from specific activities (i.e., school band, sports), or simply by word-of-mouth. A lot of students may stop their search for scholarships here; however, you can dramatically broaden your understanding of available scholarships by searching within scholarship portals. Below are some general types of scholarships, or portals/platforms that display scholarships.

1. University Portals

Each university has their own, internal university portal/catalogue that offers scholarships to students expressing specific vocational interests or service interests from many degree backgrounds. These scholarships are either funded by the university, sponsors, and/or alumni, and are offered to students currently attending or applying to the university of interest.

General Scholarships: Most universities will automatically include scholarship applications as an optional portion of the online university application. The application portal will present a general scholarship application section, where you list all your skills, experiences, grades, vocational interests etc. Based on the provided information, you’ll be matched with scholarships that fund your interests. You can find individual descriptions of each of the scholarships encompassed in this general application, or on your university website.

Faculty Specific Scholarships: Faculties may offer degree-specific scholarships that require you to fill an external application that is usually essay-question based. Make sure to view and understand your faculty website, and pay close attention to any emails sent out by your faculty, to identify these faculty specific scholarships or they may fly under the radar! Don't miss these deadlines.

Example: The Faculty of Science may provide a scholarship for students interested in a particular field of research (i.e., Microbiology), or the Faculty of Medicine may provide a scholarship for students pursuing medicine as a career.

High-achieving Scholarships:Your university may also have a separate application for high-achieving scholarships. These scholarships are worth a large sum ($25,000-$100,000=enough to pay for your degree!), require more rigorous displays of your skills (i.e., leadership, innovation, community volunteerism etc.), and have higher academic cut-offs (GPA=3.3+). Go for it! You can do it!

Example: The Prestige Scholarships at University of Calgary.

Clubs: Universities also have many clubs that operate throughout campus. Based on the overall presence and funding of these clubs, they may also present scholarships to their club members, or external students that are aligned with their interests.

Example: A Cultural Student Society could offer a scholarship for students from a certain cultural/ethnic background, or a service-based club could offer a scholarship to students who show a strong sense of volunteerism.

2. Affiliate Scholarships

These are scholarships awarded to students based on their own personal affiliations or their family’s affiliation to a particular group. The scholarship criteria will assess your merit (i.e., academic achievements, community volunteerism, leadership etc.), but the applicant pool would be much smaller, increasing your chances at securing the scholarship. If you…

• Work or volunteer for a certain organization (i.e., McDonalds);

• Have parents that are past employees or currently work for a company (i.e., ATB Financial);

• Have parents or grandparents that are veterans (i.e., Veterans Affairs Canada); and; and

• Are or have parents that are a part of a regional union (i.e., AUPE)

…then you may be eligible for a scholarship at one of these organizations/institutions! Oftentimes these companies, organizations, or unions will not explicitly broadcast such scholarship opportunities to the public because they are limited to their members only. To avoid letting these scholarships fly under-the-radar, make sure you and your family inquire with the designated youth services coordinators or company/organization/union representatives to identify some of these scholarship opportunities.

3. Other Expansive Scholarship Portals

Lastly, many scholarship portals exist outside of universities and personal affiliations that are provincial/territorial based or federally-operated.

STEP 3: Streamlining your Applications

Now that you understand your skills and strengths, and have identified specific scholarships you want to apply to, you’ve undergone half the battle! As the basis of each scholarship varies, the specific content of scholarship applications will also look different. Here are some of the information artifacts that you may be required to include in your application, so you have a heads up. Scholarships may ask you to…

• Specify your grades or general academic standing

-Attach a transcript and disclose your GPA.

-Scholarships offered through university portals should already have your grades.

• Specify your financial standing

-Includes financial details, tax invoices, and house expense/income information.

-Based on financial need, you may be eligible for certain grants or bursaries.

• List your professional work experiences

-For each experience, you’ll likely need to include the general time commitment, a description of your role, and a verifier/reference. There may even be a request for reference letters.

• List your volunteer experiences

-For each experience, you’ll likely need to include the general time commitment, a description of your role, and a verifier/reference.

• Recall a time you demonstrated...

-Leadership;

-Community volunteerism;

-Determination and resilience when overcoming a challenge;

-Entrepreneurship/innovation;

-Teamwork, collaboration, and effective communication; and

-Patience, care, and consideration for others.

*Tips:

• Organize all the scholarships you want to apply to in a timeline.

• Do your best to not leave scholarship applications to the very end.

• Organize reference letters WELL in advance.

• Write your scholarship applications and essay answers on a separate document. Not only will this allow you to review and edit your answers thoroughly, but you can recycle the contents of one application to another application with similar demands.

• As an undergraduate student, apply to as many small-sum awards as possible. Do this over the duration of your four- or five-year program and you will have bolstered your resume/CV for a thesis-based graduate program. Even listing awards you had applied for, but not successfully received, is seen as favourable by recruitment committees (this is part of the hidden curriculum).