Right Choice for Scholarship Hunters?

Right ChoiceRight Choice

http://rightchoice.net

Right Choice is a web portal operated by the Student Loan Finance Corporation, an iHELP student loan-servicing company working with the Independent Community Bankers of America, holders of the loans. The site includes college planning tools (starting in the 8th grade), a college search and comparison feature, career path help, and a scholarship search function. You can save your search results by registering for an account. (The account consists of various social tools such as messaging, adding photos and videos and sharing them with your friends, and has a Favorites page where you can save your search information. No profile information is required.) Registration is easy and just asks for your name and email address.

The search function allows you to search for scholarships by keyword or by using the drop-down menus to create search parameters such as enrollment level, gender, race, state, and major. You can also search by rank: type of award and sort categories. Each scholarship listing includes eligibility requirements, award amount, application deadline, sponsor contact information, and website address. On the initial search list, the “Show All…” link beside the scholarship sponsor’s name will return all the scholarships offered by that organization (pretty handy, right?).

When we used our school enrollment year and gender from the drop-down menus, we received 27 results—not terrific. Limiting the search to “Women Only” and “Scholarships” (under Search Rank) gave us 238 results—better. The keyword search will give you even more opportunity to focus your search. Clicking on the Scholarship Directory button will allow you to search by sponsor affiliation, general focus, and applicant circumstances. The Matching Sponsors button will give you their list of scholarship sponsors with a “Show All…” link.

The overall feel of the site is a little on the hokey side, and some of the search features are cumbersome and hard to interpret. Even more unfortunate, there seems to be no way to save any of the scholarship search information to the Favorites page, and one has to wonder about this oversight. Despite these drawbacks, we liked this site. The sheer number of ways to search for scholarships and the ready access to the sponsoring organization’s site will give you ample material to search for your scholarship gems.

Note: This is one of a number of sites that uses the Wintergreen Orchard House database. You may see some crossover in the results of your scholarship search between these sites.

We give Right Choice 3.5 out of 5:

Right Choice Rating