There are many myths about Indian scholarships, some of which are persistent and which never seem to go away. It is frustrating to have to live with them, as I have done for the last 29 years.

Indians should look for Indian scholarships. This is the most persistent myth. In fact, Indian students should look for scholarships, period, which is a much bigger category than Indian scholarships. There are only 150 or so Indian scholarships, plus the tribal scholarships, or about 350 altogether. But when you divide 350 by 3,000,000, the total number of scholarships in the U. S., the result is just above zero. In other words, Indian students are looking at one hundredth of one percent of scholarships and ignoring the other 99.9%! Students should take a lesson from Marianne (Angel) Ragins. She was a Black girl from Macon, Georgia who finished high school in 1991. She started looking for scholarships in the seventh grade, when there were no computers to help her. She found 200 scholarships, finished high school with a 4.0, planned to go to medical school, scored very high on the SAT, and won all 200 scholarships. She is apparently still the all-time champion. She has since written at least three books on how to find and win scholarships, which every Indian school library should have.

Indian students should use the booklets on Indian scholarships published by the colleges to find the scholarships they are eligible for. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get any of the dozen or more colleges that publish these directories to stop publishing them. Students will get these lists and think these are the only scholarships they are eligible for. This is just wrong.

Indian scholarships are based on financial need. While a few are, most are based on merit. In other words, students have to earn them.

Indian scholarships are easy to earn. Ironically the few Indian scholarships are over-subscribed. Students will find them harder to earn than the non-Indian scholarships. The Gates Millennium scholarship is notoriously hard to win. Three years ago I helped three girls to refine their eight essays (yes, eight) and none of them won. Unfortunately, this is the last year students will be able to apply for the Gates. Thirty years ago the Navajo Nation was giving 75% of its applicants a scholarship. Then in 15 years the percentage dropped to 50%. In another ten years it had dropped to 25%. This is very competitive. We funded 100 % of our applicants this year.

Indian students should start applying for scholarships as soon as they finish high school. This is in fact almost a year late. They should start before they start their senior year in high school. They should have their essay written and make sure it is at the A or A+ level. They should do their scholarship search before the start of their senior year.

Scholarships are hard to find. In fact, with the advent of the internet, they are amazingly easy to find. We recommend that students go to three websites—Fastweb, Scholarships.com, and Sallie Mae Scholarships to find them. There are dozens of other scholarship websites. But after about three searches students find lots of repetition and duplication. Students can still make errors. For instance, while I was working with a high school three years ago, one of the students put down “first year high school” on her Fastweb profile. She was a senior in high school, and should have put down “first year college.” When she fixed it she found lots of scholarships. There are a dozen ways to make mistakes with the profile, most of them having to do with intended field of study. Students will put down one intended field, and they should put down all related fields. For instance, if they are intending to go to medical school they should put down biology, science, medicine, health, and so on. All websites are simply word searches. If you do not have that word in your profile, the website will not bring up scholarships in that field.

Scholarships are all individual and require separate and different essays. I hear this all the time and have to tell students what they have seen on two or three scholarship sites does not hold for all of them. I estimate that students can apply to 80% or more of all scholarships using the same essay. The other 20% or fewer will require an individual essay. For instance, the Daughters of the American Revolution will require students to explain how they are good patriots and support the Constitution. The norm is for students to write a five-page essay, narrow that down to two pages, and narrow that down to one page. Those three will meet about 85% of applications. If the scholarship does not set a word limit, submit the five-page essay. If they say 500 words, submit the two pages. If they say 250 words, submit the one page.

The essay should be about the student. We had a classic one of those 25 years ago. He said he wanted to go to college so he could have a good job, a nice house, a nice family, and a nice car. My whole board said “Throw that one in the trash can. We want people who are going to help Indians in some way.” He didn’t win any scholarships.

A C level essay is good enough. A student contacted me in September with a request that I critique her essay. I said sure. She sent it to me and I told her it was about a C-, not good enough to win. I told her how to fix it and send it to me again. She sent it to me a week later and it was still a C-. I then asked her if she had submitted it anywhere and she sent me her list of 40 scholarships. She had submitted that C- essay to all of them, and had not won any scholarships. It broke my heart, and I’m sure it broke her heart, her mother’s heart, and her father’s heart.

My English teacher or counselor can help me with the essay. Unfortunately this is rarely the case. Most of the time, the teacher or the counselor has not been a scholarship winner. So they may think they know how to do it, but they may not. So if you are going to use them, make sure they know the process. Don’t be afraid to ask if they won any scholarships.

My first draft of the essay will be good enough. Isaiah Rodriguez came to us seven years ago to try to win scholarships. He was from Laguna Pueblo and had been a high school dropout from the ages of 16 to 21. On his 21st birthday he asked himself as he worked at his restaurant job, “Is this what I’m supposed to do for the rest of my life?” The answer was, of course, “No, you’re supposed to get an education.” So he took the GED and started back to school. After a year at SIPI he had a 3.86 GPA. I helped him find 102 scholarships and told him to send me his essay. His first draft was a C+. But by his fifth draft he had an A level essay, which won him 70 of the scholarships. Almost none of the essays we get as first drafts is good enough. They usually need to be critiqued and edited. The mistakes they make are very similar. They will say “My mother” without giving her name, age, tribe, occupation or location. They will not put their high school name, their GPA, or ACT score, or name of high school, or date of graduation. They will give an ACT or SAT score without giving percentiles. Almost no one knows what a 1600 on the SAT means. But if they put percentiles everyone will know what they mean.

I can win scholarships without trying. Too many Native students think they will win scholarships just because they are due to win. The concept of competing for them, of putting forth their best effort all the time, is foreign to many of them. Most of these students are frustrated in their attempts at winning scholarships, if they try at all. We want them to try very hard.

I don’t need scholarships. I can get financial aid and that will be enough. Unfortunately, it is not. The typical Indian student on financial aid will get a degree only 18% of the time. Dr. Ted Jojola, Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, Dr. Susan Faircloth and several other researchers have demonstrated the very high dropout rate for the typical Indian student. In high school 50% of Indian students drop out. In college, 82% drop out, as I document in my next book on the Indian dropout. In contrast, students who are tough enough to complete our application process at Catching the Dream have a 78% chance of completing college. The differences are startling.

We really want Indian students to succeed. They are sorely needed in Indian Country. Doctors, nurses, biologists, pharmacists, teachers, social workers, business managers, accountants, lawyers, and many other professionals are sorely needed. And we want them to win enough scholarships to avoid loans. They will be employed the rest of their lives. The unemployment rate of our graduates is zero.


Dr. Dean Chavers is Director of Catching the Dream, a national scholarship program for Native college students. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. His latest book is “Racism in Indian Country.” His book before that was “Modern American Indian Leaders” from Mellen Press.