90 of 92 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty much a waste of money, February 24, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Graduate Student's Complete Scholarship Book (Paperback)
This book has only three types of scholarships in it: 1.) Offered by specific school, i.e. medicine at the University of Oklahoma-if you want to go there for medicine anyway you don't need this book to know there is a scholarship. 2.) Scholarships offered to women only. 3.) Scholarships offered to minorities only. If you're a white male looking for a scholarship don't waste your money on this book. I didn't find a single scholarship I could have applied for.
Also, the book is not organized by field of study. If you want a scholarship in history, you first have to read through scholarships offered in Forestry, Marine Biology, Ancient Egyptian Literature, etc. Once you sift through the rubble you will probably find that the entire book only contains three of four of the types of scholarships you are looking for.
Bottom line - two thumbs down
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
WASTE OF MONEY!, December 12, 2002
This review is from: The Graduate Student's Complete Scholarship Book (Paperback)
I checked this book out from the library and WHAT A WASTE OF TIME!!! I'm glad I didn't buy this book. Just like the other review said, its organized by course of study, scholarship qualification type (i.e. woman, minority, religion), or study. All of the scholarships listed are for individual colleges and you can't get those scholarships if you don't attend that school. DON'T BUY THIS!!!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Poor organization means severe aggravation!, June 22, 2004
This review is from: The Graduate Student's Complete Scholarship Book (Paperback)
The scholarships here are arranged alphabetically by the name of the scholarship. Icons (see the flags along the top edge of the front cover) are next to each listing to alert you to specific types of scholarships. You would have to look at all 1,100 listings to use the icons alone and they are so similar that it is difficult to quickly distinguish one flag from another. It seemed like a good idea but was poorly designed and therefore not useful.
A decent index creates entry points for quickly finding the information you need, and the utility of the index is what separates great reference books from mediocre or nearly useless books. This book has three indexes: "Major/Career Objective", "Special Criteria", and "Schools". This sounds specific, but the index terms are very broad.
For example: In the 2nd Index, the heading for scholarships based on 'Disability' is one of the few Index Headings that give you subheadings to narrow down your selections. It gives you 3 options: 'Blindness', 'Deaf[ness]', or 'General Disability'. Guess what? Each of the scholarships listed under 'general disability' are very specific about what 'disability' qualifies you for it. The lack of subheadings means that you cannot rule out any entry until you flip to the page and read the description of the scholarship.
My instinct was to look under the heading "Women" in the 2nd index. There are zero subheadings under that broad term (I would have appreciated subheadings even so broad as "Women: Arts and Humanities" or "Women: Texas residents", but no, I had to look at every single entry to determine if it would apply to me. None of them did -- either because they are only awarded to residents of a specific city, students enrolled in a specific school, or those pursuing degrees unrelated to my field. Looking under other index headings also proved to be as frustrating. About 140 different pages later and with no good leads, I gave up.
The book would have benefited from having one THOROUGH index (instead of three bad ones) with fields of interest, schools, and careers as main headings. These main headings then could have been broken-down with subheadings (such as special criteria) and cross-references (to alternate occupation titles, for instance).
My initial impression was that this would be a user-friendly reference book, but shortcuts were obviously taken in the organization. Even the information about each scholarship is relatively vague and insufficient. I do not consider it useful tool -- not because I did not find any scholarships for myself, but because it took so long to explore the options. If you have already decided on a career objective and/or a school to attend, both your time and your money would be saved by looking for a different source of information on scholarships.
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