A professional review and opinion of Scholarships.Com 10


Approved Scholarships and Grants, and Educational Courses

In a nutshell, Scholarships.Com is a scholarship search service. Scholarships.Com claims that &#34 since 1999, we have helped millions of students, parents and counselors search 2.7 million local, state & national college scholarships & grants worth over 19 billion dollars…&#34. Scholarships.Com claims to have a database of at least 1.5 million scholarships as of the time this article was first published.

In order to carefully review Scholarships.Com, we must review Scholarships.Com with the same set of criteria we use for other scholarship search databases. We review the scholarship history of Scholarships.Com, the scholarship database creativity of scholarships.com, their scholarship published claims of scholarships.com vs. documented facts by government or independent agencies concerning scholarships.com. We review other factors about Schlolarships.Com also. We review factors as their Scholarship Yield, Scholarship Quotient, Facebook habits, their receptivity to competitive scholarship listing sources, the quality of their scholarship listings, their scholarship advertising claims, their duplicate scholarship listings, their excluded scholarship listings, their association with other scholarship listing services, and the success rate of their scholarship recipients, as well as what third-party agencies or organizations that Scholarships.Com is associated with.

Purpose of the Scholarships.Com review.

The purpose of the scholarship review of Scholarships.Com is to assist scholarship seekers and educators evaluate the merits and services of Scholarships.Com. This report additionally concerns the quality, credibility, integrity, and legitimacy of the Scholarships.Com scholarship search service amongst its peers in the scholarship search service industry. We conduct a detailed review of all major scholarship search service companies, and post our reviews without charge on our websites and scholarship blogs.

Login Requirements for Scholarships.Com

Scholarships.Com was tested in June 2012, July, 2012, and again in March 2013. Scholarship students were recruited to contact Scholarships.Com via their social media channels. Scholarships.Com reportedly either rebuffed their efforts, or incorporated Facebook blocks. Any scholarship search service that blocks, censors, or obstructs the objective of students seeking financial-aid is probably a scholarship search service that you do not want to rely upon.

Students need to know that all scholarship search services are the same, but many rely upon the same scholarship database. Scholarship Search services, including Scholarships.Con, do differ from one another in several respects. Some scholarship search services are open to the public, and some scholarship search services are closed. For example, FastWeb was tested during this time period, and we were not blocked, censored, or obstructed. Scholarships.Com, on the other hand, appears to have varying criteria for its database of scholarship, grants, or financial-aid, as well as who is entitled to visit and participate on its social media channels. The &#34criteria&#34 that is used appears to be arbitrary, capricious, selective, and certainly not uniform. Beware of Scholarship Search companies that create their own so-called &#34criteria&#34 to justify having a censored scholarship database, or censored social media channel.

Scholarship Yield of Scholarships.com

We will use the term Scholarship Yield. Scholarship Yield is a term invented by National Academy of American Scholars. A Scholarship Yield is a mathematical calculation using Calculus that helps to determine and measure the robustness of a scholarship database. In simple terms, Scholarship Yield helps to determine if a scholarship database is all fluff and no meat, and whether its data is fresh relative to the population-age it is serving. For the mathematical equation of the Scholarship Yield, please contact an NAAS Specialist.

We illustrate the concept of Scholarship Yield as it applies to Scholarships.Com. Let’s go back to 2003. A total of 49.6 million children attended public and private school in 2003, beating the previous high mark of 48.7 million, set in 1970 when the baby boom generation was in school, claims U.S. Census records.

More than one-fourth of the U.S. population, 72 million people, were in school throughout the United States in October 1999. Of that 72 million, 16 million were in high school,and 15 million were in college.

If we use the figures provided by Scholarships.Com, and their reported claims, then over the span of 10 years, the Scholarship Yield of Scholarships.Com has been flat.

History, Founding, and Business model of Scholarships.Com Search Service.

By its public announcements, Scholarships.Com was admittedly created in or about 1999. According to the Illinois Secretary of State, Scholarships.Com LLC is a registered entity in that state and has a corporate file number of 00305995. The file date is 07/14/1999.

Scholarships.Com has a business model similar to many scholarship search listing companies. The basic business model is that it acts as a lead generator for institutions associated with NASFAA (National Associaton of Student Financial-Aid Administrators).

Students are requested to complete detailed forms, and the information supplied by students appears to sold or bartered to participating institutions. The scholarship database offered by Scholarships.Com IS NOT an open source database. Students or applicants must be willing to exchange their personal information, login into a secure area, and each student may be bombarded by telemarketers, and inappropriate colleges or universities after registration.

Scholarships.Com Association with Controversial Organizations.

Aside from using a business model essentially identical to other scholarship search agencies, Scholarships.Com is also associated with the National Scholarship Providers Association (N.S.P.A.), National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, and Carnegie Mellon University. All of these entities are also associated with Mark Kantrowitz; Kantrowitz is a former student of CMU; he created the first website for NASFAA; he helped draft the idea for N.S.P.A., and he is one of the original board members of this controversial entity.

With respect to Carnegie Mellon University, consider this quote that appeared on the Scholarships.Com website as of the creation date of this article:

Working with Scholarships.com has been a pleasure. They have always contributed time and effort into ensuring that we had exactly what we wanted submitted on the site. Any questions that we had were immediately handled. From a customer service stance, Scholarships.com has been fantastic and I really appreciate all of the help that they have given me in the process of managing our online and email campaigns.

Andrew McMillen
Assistant Director of Admission
Carnegie Mellon University

Scholarships.Com relies upon a commendation letter from Carnegie Mellon University, which is the same university that skirted the rules in 1996 and allowed a mere student, Mark Kantrowitz, to use university servers, university equipment to run and operate his student-formed FinAid.org page. rampant through CMU. Kantrowitz was allowed complete, total, and unfettered free reign of CMU resources and computing equipment. Scholarships.Com should know that under the leaderless ship of CMU, Mark Kantrowitz was allowed to create, host, and use his newly created FinAid.org website on state-funded CMU servers, and use a CMU phone numbers as his business office phone. Nonetheless, Scholarships.Com modeled itself largely after Finaid.org.

Being the &#34best&#34, as it claims, Scholarships.Com should also have known and researched the facts and circumstances surrounding the person that it has modeled its business after.

Needless to say, when Scholarships.Com uses a commendation or praise letter from the likes of Carnegie Mellon University, then such a communication should be viewed with skepticism. As demonstrated with Mr. Kantrowitz, and its own internal controversies, the credibility of CMU is suspect, and its standards are not comparable with many Division I schools. However, these facts are apparently unimportant to Scholarships.Com.

Furthermore, the published association of Scholarships.Com with the N.S.P.A., is also a red-flag for concern. The National Scholarship Provider’s Association is a third-party middle-man organization that seeks to increase the leverage for exclusing scholarship listings; i.e., censoring popular scholarship programs. Since its inception and creation, some persons believe that N.S.P.A. has been stacked with persons and institutions connected with NASFAA and/or Kantrowitz. Scholarships.Com apparently was unaware of the fact that the consensus running theory is that the central purpose of the N.S.P.A. is to CENSOR legitimate scholarship information and financial-aid programs and instead to steer students towards entities connected to members of NASFAA or its paid advertisers.

Growth of Scholarships.Com Search Service

The growth of Scholarships.Com is parallel to the growth of numeroua othwe scholarship search services, and similar scholarship search services. This should be no surprise since both entities are associated with NASFAA, The growth of Scholarships.Com has been fueled by members of NASFAA, and its association with N.S.P.A. who in turn recommend Scholarships.Com to its students, and administrators.

FaceBook Censorship by Scholarships.Com

Scholarships.Com admits that it was created in 1999. However, judging from some of its habits, you would think it was created a few weeks ago. Rule#1 is to NEVER censor an established entity like National Academy of American Scholars. When you censor us, we will repost more ways, and more times, and more venues than if you had simply left the single post untouched. So, Scholarships.Com is the &#34best&#34. The &#34best&#34 at what?

When a legitimate scholarship sponsor has important information to share with a student, and administrative audience, then the ultimate sign of a low-class scholarship search service is to censor the information. For example, student volunteers operating on behalf of Scholarship Watch, have post important information on certain social networking sites, including the FaceBook page of Scholarships.Com. Instead of sharing the information, operators of Scholarships.Com routinely censored, deleted, and deprived students of valuable information.

What other information is Scholarships.Com depriving students and parents of? If we can be praised by CNN NEWS, mayors, governors, U.S. Senators, and many distinguished educational entities and government leaders, then what is Scholarships.Com intimidated by?

Why would an organization that claims to be the &#34best&#34 be afraid to share the same stage with another organization?

Summary of the Scholarships.Com Review

In summary, Scholarships.Com Scholarship Site is a decent scholarship search service. It is certainly not the &#34best&#34 as it claims. No censored scholarship database or social media page can be the &#34best&#34 in a democratic society when it practices censorship. It is impossible for Scholarships.Com to substantiate such a claims, and furthermore such claims appear to be a clear violation of the FTC Act which specifically prohibits any company from using false, deceptive advertising claims.

Scholarships.Com is also a member of the Better Business Bureau, and publishes such claims. This is also a red flag. Membership into the BBB is often a red flag for corruption, and use of the BBB name to disguise poor service.

Over the course of 25 years, my experience has been that my experience with BBB member companies is almost like dealing with criminals in a candy store. The BBB logo and BBB membership status is the candy craved by criminals.

If the BBB were to pay National Academy of American Scholars $10 million dollars, then National Academy of American Scholars would still REJECT membership into the BBB. There is no amount of money, or extortionist BBB Reliability Reports that the BBB can create to justify membership into such an aweful organization.

If Scholarships.Com were the &#34best&#34, then it would NOT need any membership into the BBB. Scholarships.Com NEEDS the BBB as a crutch for credibility. No great company needs the BBB.

Scholarships.Com collects student information and shares this data with its partners. The practice of sharing data with advertisers or sponsors is not unusual or atypical.

When students log into their respective Scholarships.Com profile area, students are immediately bombarded with an array of choices and possibilities. Some of these scholarship choices are irrelevant and may be considered irrelevant.

The Scholarship Yield of Scholarships.Com is not impressive. Many of the concepts and practices of Scholarships.Com are duplicated by other scholarship search databases. Many of the scholarship listings of Scholarships.Com can be found in other scholarship databases.

Lastly, Scholarships.Com should cease its practice of censoring, deleting, and/or blocking important information that can be shared with students administrators. Censoring information is an admission of inferiority and poor service.

Our recommendation to Scholarships.Com is to cease its controversial and unsubstantiated marketing claims. We also recommend that Scholarships.Com act more mature, and cease deleting, censoring, and blocking success stories posted by student volunteers of National Academy of American Scholars on social networking sites operated by Scholarships.Com.

That’s my opinion, and scholarship review of Scholarships.Com. Please log into our Scholarship Blog and leave your reply comments.

Do you need Scholarships.Com ?

Do you need Scholarships.Com? No. Not really. There are many scholarship search services out there. The main reason for using any scholarship search service is the understanding that you are using a legitimate, complete, and non-censored scholarship database. If your scholarship search service is filtering scholarship entries then you will miss out on valuable scholarships. Scholarships.Com has a history of even blocking comments on its Facebook channel.

For more on this article, and a detailed comprehensive table of Financial-aid Scholarship Points, please visit the Scholarship Points Table link below. Act fast to earn Scholarships before your Scholarship Points expire!!

A comprehensive table of Financial-aid Scholarship Points:
Scholarship Points

Is Scholarship Points a Scam?
Is Scholarship Points a Scam

Degradation of National Scholarships
Degradation of National Scholarships

For a detailed review of Scholarships.Com, please visit this link:
Scholarships.Com Reviews

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Scholarship Bob

About Scholarship Bob

NAAS Administrator for 10 years. I joined National Academy of American Scholars straight from College. I am not a paid employee. I am a volunteer.


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