cover image The Scholarship Scouting Report: An Insider's Guide to America's Best Scholarships

The Scholarship Scouting Report: An Insider's Guide to America's Best Scholarships

Ben R. Kaplan, Benjamin R. Kaplan. Collins Reference, $23.95 (384pp) ISBN 978-0-06-093654-9

Guides to finding and applying for scholarships are plentiful, so ambitious high-schoolers might as well get one penned by someone who managed to pick up enough award money to put himself through Harvard. Kaplan wrote How To Go To College Almost For Free (he garnered""nearly $90,000 in scholarship winnings,"" he notes proudly), and now he moves on to examine the most attractive scholarships nationwide. Kaplan winnows them down to those available to the largest pool of people (e.g. scholarships not based on region, race or financial need), and then picks the most lucrative of the bunch. The result is an odd collection of benefactors, from America's Junior Miss to the Ayn Rand Institute, but the book is jammed with useful information for the college-bound. In addition to the necessary procedural details, Kaplan adds anecdotes, tips and past entries or essays that caught judges' eyes. The lively, graphics-filled format is pretty goofy, but this is a valuable resource for scholarship-hungry kids looking for the inside scoop. B&w illus.