The Best of the Best

Sallie Mae Scholarship Search (86/100)

Updated: December 26, 2019

HONORABLE MENTION

Ranks #2

Score: 86/100

After assessing the merits and shortcomings of 15 different scholarship platforms, we found that, overall, the second best scholarship platform was Sallie Mae’s Scholarship Search, which earned a total score of 86 out of 100 across all of the scoring categories. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering Sallie Mae’s reputation and decades-long involvement with education loans and student savings tools.

Currently, Sallie Mae boasts a scholarship platform that gives students access to a pool of available funding worth $24 billion, spread across over 5 million scholarships. This was the most funding of all the platforms we analyzed. Sallie Mae also earned a high score for the breadth of available scholarship opportunities, which range from traditional merit scholarships to those specifically designed for students with particular hobbies, skills, or interests.

The platform also features a variety of new scholarship opportunities and many with rapidly approaching deadlines. The scholarships can be easily sorted by amount or deadline, so that students can organize their time effectively in order to decide which scholarships to apply for and when to submit applications. The scholarship list is updated daily, which makes Sallie Mae a very useful tool for students who are in the midst of determining how they will finance their education. The scholarships range in value from several hundred dollars all the way up to full tuition.

The vast majority of Sallie Mae’s funding is not unique to that platform, as it simply provides access to a scholarship database, albeit a very extensive one. In other words, most of the scholarships listed on the Sallie Mae platform can also be found in other scholarship databases. However, Sallie Mae does have a few exclusive funding opportunities, namely the “Bridging the Dream” scholarships for undergraduate ($25,000) and graduate students ($20,000), as well as a $1,000 monthly sweepstakes open to all users and a $5,000 sweepstakes for National Scholarship Month every November.

In addition to scoring highly in terms of the wealth of funding opportunities that it offers, Sallie Mae earned high scores across all of the “Trustworthiness” metrics. The platform is entirely free to use, and Sallie Mae’s privacy policy ensures that personal data will not be shared with non-affiliates for marketing purposes. Users can also choose to limit the sharing of information with Sallie Mae’s affiliates.

The only step that is required to access the database is to register and create a short profile, which is then used to match students with relevant scholarship opportunities. After the registration process, students are taken directly to the scholarship search database, without being presented with any additional offers or having to go through unnecessary steps.

The Sallie Mae site is thoroughly modern and professional, with a clear, user-friendly design that is very easy to navigate around. Registered users can continually return to the platform to search for new scholarships, without ever having to re-enter their information, although they have the option to update and change their profile whenever they want. The Sallie Mae website does not contain any ads, and this provides a clear and distraction-free user experience, with the focus being entirely on finding the most relevant scholarships.

Because it is essentially a search database, the Sallie Mae platform does not allow students to use the same application information for multiple scholarships. Instead, students are directed to the websites of the organizations that actually administer and award these scholarships.

This means that students will have to complete a new application for each scholarship, which typically involves filling out their personal information and writing at least one essay. Unfortunately, scholarship panels will only see the applications submitted to their organization’s own website or email address; they won’t see the detailed profiles that students create on Sallie Mae.

Bold.org (93/100)

Updated: November 5, 2020

BEST CHANCES OF WINNING

Ranks #1

Score: 93/100

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Pros:

Scholarships are exclusive to the platform, so your chances of winning are higher.
Protects your data. No ads or unrelated offers.
Student profile to showcase to scholarship panels.
Streamlined applications on the platform.

Cons:

Smaller than large scholarship databases.
Creating a great profile takes ~15 minutes.

Although Bold.org is smaller than other platforms here, it provides you the best chance of winning. It offers a robust student profile to ensure you look great for scholarship panels, and it provides funding exclusive to the platform, which means lower competition.

Bold.org ranked first on our list of the best scholarship platforms, with a total score of 93 out of 100. Bold is a brand-new platform that takes a radically different approach to the scholarship search and application process.

Rather than just providing a list of the various scholarship opportunities that are available on other websites, Bold differentiates itself in 3 ways:

Bringing exclusive scholarship opportunities that can’t be found anywhere else to students.
Allowing students to apply directly on the platform.
Helping students to create profiles to showcase their experience to scholarship panels.

Combining these factors, while Bold is not among the larger sites, by managing everything in-house, Bold.org provides students the highest likelihood of winning scholarships.

Bold also simplifies and streamlines the application process. Similar to other platforms, including Sallie Mae’s Scholarship Search, students create a profile on Bold, but then can also actually apply to opportunities directly through the Bold website, rather than having to create an entirely new application to fulfill the unique requirements of each awarding organization.

This common-sense approach can save students a significant amount of time and energy. Although most of the opportunities on Bold.org require a scholarship-specific essay of 500-1000 words, that is the only additional portion of the application; the rest of the applicant’s Bold profile is already saved and ready to be shared with the scholarship panel.

Creating a profile on Bold.org is a fairly lengthy process, at least compared to some of the other platforms we analyzed. Students need to answer a series of questions about their academic interests, career aspirations, employment experience, hobbies, sports, financial resources, and more.

However, while the initial onboarding takes time, students are rewarded with an impressive profile that showcases their full achievements well for scholarship panels.

Thus, it’s important for students to craft an excellent profile that expresses who they are and encapsulates their interests and aspirations. Rather than having to repeat any information, students benefit from having a single, comprehensively-detailed Bold profile that they can continually edit and improve and which will be shared across all of their applications. Additionally, students can earn “Bold Points” for completing all of the sections of their Bold profile, which gives them access to further scholarship opportunities.

Having been launched as recently as 2019, the Bold brand feels entirely modern and relevant, with an understanding of the challenges faced by today’s college applicants. Bold’s user interface works seamlessly and the platform earned high ratings for clarity, ease of navigation, and user-friendly design.

There are many very specific scholarships on Bold that are aimed at individuals of diverse backgrounds, educational experience, and interests. This nearly always increases a student’s chances of submitting a successful application, as there will be fewer overall applicants who meet the criteria for that scholarship. High school students, current undergraduates and graduate students, and prospective medical students will all be able to find opportunities on Bold.

Furthermore, all of these scholarship opportunities are unique to Bold, so students won’t find them on other platforms, which increases their likelihood of winning. Students who have created a Bold profile will be automatically notified whenever there is a new scholarship match — and this happens regularly, as the list of scholarships is constantly being updated.

Another factor that sets Bold.org apart from many other platforms is its commitment to protecting users’ privacy and personal data.

Student data on Bold is never shared with other users, affiliates, or third parties. There are no fees at all on Bold, nor will users ever receive any marketing communications. The only emails that Bold sends to its users are updates about new scholarship matches with approaching deadlines.

And because the sole focus of Bold is to provide access to scholarship opportunities, users never see advertisements or offers for any other products or services. For example, unlike Sallie Mae, which provides a detailed list of scholarships but is also in the business of arranging private student loans, Bold was established specifically to make it easier for students to find unique scholarship opportunities and for individuals and organizations to create those opportunities.

Chegg (80/100)

Updated: December 27, 2019

Ranks #3

Score: 80/100

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Strong breadth and depth of opportunities.
Easy user experience.
Good data privacy and limited unrelated offers relative to other platforms.
Save scholarships to apply later.

Funding isn’t exclusive to platform.
Applications are off-site.

Rounding out the “Best of the Best,” Chegg Scholarships earned a score of 80 out of 100 across our Funding, Trustworthiness, and User Experience categories.

Like Sallie Mae, Chegg is essentially a database that connects students with a multitude of scholarship opportunities, most of which are advertised on multiple platforms. With scholarships worth over $1 million in total, Chegg matches students with a wealth of funding opportunities spread across hundreds of scholarships.

The list of scholarships appears to be updated on a regular basis, and there is a wide variety of scholarships that cater to students with various backgrounds. These scholarships are designed for current graduate and undergraduate students, as well as high school students working on their college applications.

Students can filter the scholarships by deadline and award amount, and they can create a saved list of scholarship opportunities in order to apply later. Helpfully, Chegg allows students to peruse a general list of scholarships without having to create a profile, although students are encouraged to make one in order to find specific scholarships that match their interests, background, education, and financial status. Creating a Chegg account is free and is a very straightforward process, and students can do this even more easily by linking their Google or Facebook profiles.

However, in contrast to Bold.org, Chegg does not appear to offer any of its own scholarships, which means that students across the country will be seeing and applying for the same scholarships on Chegg as on many other websites.

As with Sallie Mae and most other scholarship platforms, Chegg’s list of scholarships contains links to the awarding organization’s webpage, which is where students find out about what is needed to apply. This typically involves filling out personal information about age, gender, location, interests, intended field of study, and more, in addition to the required scholarship essays.

The profiles that students create on Chegg.com aren’t shared with the various scholarship panels, so students will find themselves repeating the same information on every application. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help students to stand out from the crowd when their applications are reviewed by scholarship panels. In contrast to how Bold.org simplifies the application process for its scholarships, Chegg’s functionality seems limited as it is first and foremost a database of links.

Chegg scored highly in most of the “Trustworthiness” categories, as the website is committed to keeping users’ personal information private and safeguarding their privacy.

However, during the registration process to create a Chegg profile or to sign into their Chegg account, students are likely to see advertisements for related services, such as student loans offered by Discover. Unfortunately, this decreases the platform’s overall impression of reliability and trustworthiness.

It’s also worth noting that Chegg.com is a for-profit website that offers a variety of educational tools, such as textbook rental, equation solvers, grammar checkers, flashcards, test prep, and access to online tutors. Although the scholarship section of Chegg.com is a free service, it is apparent that scholarships are not the primary focus of the website.

That being said, Chegg is certainly a modern brand that offers a wide variety of both free and subscription-based services, many of which may be useful for high school and college students. In addition to the scholarship search tool and the various academic aids, students can use Chegg to prepare for the SAT and apply for internships.

The website is very clear, straightforward, and easy to use, with faultless technical functionality, and Chegg also offers smartphone apps to improve the convenience and delivery of its many services.