Are you looking for a college scholarship and can you find websites that offer easy applications without an essay? Caution. Applicants may not realize that they are exchanging their personal information for what is essentially a raffle ticket.
Unlike traditional scholarships, non-essential awards are often not based on a student’s academic performance or other achievements. Rather, they are awarded by random drawing, with the chances of winning depending on how many students apply. Private student lender Sallie Mae, for example, offers $2,000 in monthly, essay-free scholarships through its Scholly search site. The official rules describe the process as a “sweepstakes.”
The same wording can also be found in the no-essay scholarship rules on other scholarship matching sites, including ScholarshipOwl – where the odds of winning for those who click through the online rules are about one in 140,000.
Why offer drawings for scholarships? Online applications can serve as “lead generators” for products like private student loans, said Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid expert who helped develop early scholarship and financial aid search websites years ago.
Essay-free scholarships grant awards. The websites are full of pictures of lucky winners. Jackie Bright, executive director of the National Scholarship Providers Association, said in an email that “low-burden” applications could reduce barriers for students who may not have additional time or writing support at home.
But their potential value to the sites is that applicants provide personal information that the sites sell — “monetize” in digital parlance — not just to obvious buyers like colleges and scholarship providers, but also to companies that want to promote products and services to students and their families.
“The idea of getting a scholarship is a very tempting reason to give your personal information,” said RJ Cross, who leads the “Don’t Sell My Data” campaign for the US Public Interest Research Group.
How has scholarship marketing changed?
Student data has long provided the breeding ground for colleges and external grantees—those that offer scholarships not offered directly by colleges and universities—that want to find interested students. Anyone who has taken the SAT knows that college brochures are sure to end up in the mailbox. But marketing has become more sophisticated in the digital age.
“It’s a really clear example of a power asymmetry between individuals and big data companies,” said Caitriona Fitzgerald, deputy director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington research group that aims to protect privacy.
Applicants and their families may not know to what extent the information they provide on scholarship search sites will be shared or how long it will be retained, privacy experts say. As technology advances, the data could be reused in ways that were not foreseeable at the time it was collected, Ms. Cross said.
ScholarshipOwl’s privacy policy states that the site may sell users’ personal information to “other parties.” However, David Tabachnikov, the site’s chief executive, said the site did not sell data to third parties because it generates revenue from users’ subscription fees. The site’s basic services are free, but users can pay — typically $15 a month — to receive more detailed scholarship information.
Ms Fitzgerald said it was possible that some websites were not currently selling personal information but might do so in the future.
Concerns about the use of student data were expressed in a lawsuit that Christopher Gray, who co-founded Scholly as a college student, filed against Sallie Mae in Delaware Superior Court last month.
In July 2023, Sallie Mae announced that it had acquired the “key assets” of Scholly, which is now part of the company’s SLM Education Services unit. Mr. Gray joined Sallie Mae as an executive but was fired in October 2024 — after, he said in his complaint, he raised privacy objections to the company’s plans to sell to third parties information provided to Scholly by students, many of whom were under 18. He said the company “deliberately” concealed such plans from him.
The lawsuit says Mr. Gray was wrongfully fired and is seeking damages, including salary and benefits. The lawsuit was previously reported by TechCrunch, which targets technology startups.
In an interview, Mr. Gray said he was concerned that the data might be misused to promote “predatory” credit cards or loans. “It makes me very angry,” he said. “These are students who are very at risk.”
Sallie Mae is seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, saying in a brief filed May 1 that Mr. Gray was fired because he invested too much time in a new start-up. The letter also said he was spreading “misleading and unfounded accusations” as part of a strategy to “unlawfully exploit media pressure to reach a financial settlement.”
Sallie Mae added that it was “fully compliant with all applicable privacy laws and regulations.”
Richard Castellano, a spokesman for Sallie Mae, said in an email that Education Services tried to sell limited student data as part of a pilot last year but discontinued that strategy in mid-2025. “We do not currently sell personal information to third parties and have no plans to do so,” he said.
Nevertheless, the privacy policy that applies to Education Services lists a variety of personal information that the company may collect, starting with basic elements such as your name, email and mailing addresses. But it may also include things like your date of birth and more sensitive information like your Social Security number, driver’s license number, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation.
The policy states that the site may share this personal information with partners and business customers, including those “who wish to market to you,” and may enter into arrangements with third parties to “sell or license information to them for their own purposes.”
Sallie Mae — which now calls its entire company Sallie — recently launched its own advertising arm, Backpack Media, which helps turn consumer data into targeted advertising. The unit has hired digital advertising specialists and said its “proprietary training and audience insights” could help companies reach students at crucial moments, such as graduating high school, choosing a college and starting a first job. “We know who students and alumni are, where they are going and what they need next,” the website says.
Backpack Media does not sell individuals’ data and its partners do not gain access to personal information, Mr. Castellano said.
Can I check how a website uses my information?
Take the time to read a scholarship site’s privacy policy, experts say. Look for words like “collect,” “sell,” “share,” and “disclose.”
Such laborious, location-based research wouldn’t be necessary if the United States had a national, comprehensive digital privacy policy, Ms. Fitzgerald said. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act 1998 only applies to children under 13 years of age. States are starting to enact their own privacy laws, she said, but the protections vary.
If you are uncomfortable with what you learn on a website, see if there is a way to opt-out of sharing or selling certain information. If you cannot opt out, try another site whose policies restrict the sale of information.
In general, it’s best to limit sharing your information, Ms. Cross said. The more widespread it is, the more vulnerable it is to being compromised.
What further steps can I take?
Creating a separate email account specifically for scholarship search sites can be helpful. That way, if your information is shared or sold, promotions or pitches will be sent to that email address instead of clogging up your main email account.