[Page 86] Top 2,241 No-Essay Scholarships in February 2025

These scholarships are usually faster and easier to complete than most other types of scholarship, which is great news for applicants for a couple of reasons.

First, because the shorter application saves you time. Second, because you can use the time you save to apply for even more no-essay scholarships!. Think of it as a positive feedback loop of financial aid opportunities. 

No-essay scholarships are available for every major and for every grade level—freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and grad students can all benefit from applying to a no-essay scholarship (or two, or three..).  

You can improve your chances of winning scholarships by finding the opportunities that best match your qualifications and creating a strong and unique application that highlights those qualifications.

To refine your search and find no-essay scholarships that match profile criteria like your grade level, major, home state, and more, get personalized scholarship recommendations on the Mos app. 

For an overview of just a few great no-essay scholarships, plus some helpful tips for how to find and win no-essay scholarships, keep reading! 

Ten No-Essay Scholarships that Mos Loves

1. $1,000 Scholarship for First-Generation Students

   • The $1,000 Scholarship for First-Generation Students is for students who are the first in their family to go to college and complete a four-year degree. To qualify, you must be a legal resident of the fifty United States and the District of Columbia and be at least thirteen years old at the time of entry.

2. Create a Greeting Card Scholarship

   • The annual Create-A-Greeting Card $10,000 Scholarship contest is for any student, 14 years of age or older, enrolled in high school, college, university, or homeschool. To apply, you must submit an original photo, artwork, or computer graphics for the front of a greeting card. Interested? Apply!

3. HSF Scholars Program

   • The HSF Scholars Program helps students of Hispanic heritage obtain a university degree. Awards are based on merit, ranging from $500 to $5,000. All majors and graduate fields are accepted. A minimum GPA of 3.0 for high school students and a minimum of 2.5 GPA for college students are required. Learn more by visiting the scholarship website.

4. Scholarships for Undergraduate Students

   • Feeding Tomorrow has established a scholarship program to assist undergraduate students who plan to continue their education by pursuing an undergraduate degree in food science. To qualify, you need to have a minimum high school grade point average of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. To apply, you need to submit a recommendation letter.

5. MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge

   • The MathWorks Math Modeling (M3 Challenge) offers up to $100,000 scholarships to high school juniors and seniors in the U.S. and sixth-form students (age 16-19) in England and Wales. 

6. 2nd Chance Scholarship

   • The 2nd Chance Scholarship offers five awards of $1,000 each to citizens and aliens legally residing in the USA with a High School Diploma or GED. To apply, you'll need to complete an online application. 

7. CampusReel Scholarship

   • The CampusReel scholarship offers $2,000 to students pursuing a higher education degree. To apply, you just have to watch a student-led virtual tour and fill out a short form. 

8. Schwarzkopf Professional Shaping Futures

   • The Schwarzkopf Professional Shaping Futures offers five awards of $2,000 to students who are currently enrolled in an accredited cosmetology program in the US resulting in a cosmetology license. To qualify, you must be eighteen years of age or older and demonstrate a financial need. To apply, you must submit a letter of recommendation. 

9. Harold and Harriet Plum Memorial Award

   • The Harold and Harriet Plum Memorial Award is a $1,000 award available to a student of any accredited law school. You must demonstrate scholastic achievement as well as genuine financial need. To apply you need to fill out the application form and briefly answer the questions.

10. Zwilling Culinary Arts Scholarship

    • The Zwilling Culinary Arts Scholarship offers $1,000 to a high school senior who is interested in pursuing a degree in the hospitality field and will be attending a two- or four-year degree-granting institution.

Tips and Strategies for Applying for No-Essay Scholarships 

Here’s a guide of what to consider when you’re applying for scholarships, how to apply, and a few practical tips on how to set yourself apart as a strong applicant.  

• When to Start Applying for Scholarships? Right Now!

If you want to win as much money for college as possible, you should start your scholarship search as early as possible. That way, you can avoid missing out on deadlines and give yourself plenty of time to get your application materials together. 

Basically, even if you don’t have to worry about an essay requirement, the best time to start applying to scholarships is right now!

• Research Your Scholarships

The fact that you’re reading this guide means that you’re already doing your research. Great work! 

Plenty of organizations and foundations offer no-essay scholarships for students in different fields of study, belonging to different demographics, or experiencing different life circumstances. 

Use this page to search for no-essay scholarships that fit your profile, your financial goals, and your academic interests. 

It pays to be strategic about the scholarships you apply for instead of just applying for every single listing without checking the requirements first. For example, if you’re majoring in photography, it would be a waste of your time to apply for a scholarship that’s only for political science majors. 

• It’s a Numbers Game 

Ultimately, the best way to boost your odds of winning scholarship money is to apply for as many opportunities as you can. 

This might seem to contradict the last point, but it’s all about hitting the right balance between narrowing down your search and maximizing the amount of applications you actually send. 

Think about it this way: 

• Applying for one scholarship you qualify for is better than applying for ten scholarships you don’t qualify for. 

• Applying for ten scholarships you do qualify for is way better than applying for just the one.

• Make a Game Plan   

Being a student can be overwhelming. 

You’re busy all the time with commitments that include—but aren’t even limited to—class, clubs, studying, homework, social events, and jobs. It can be difficult to set aside time to apply for scholarships, which is why lots of students end up missing deadlines for scholarships they'd have a great chance of winning. 

To avoid falling behind on your academic and financial goals, be intentional about how often you apply for scholarships, what time you work on your applications, and much time you spend on them. Think of it as starting a new, healthy habit—like flossing your teeth or meditating. 

Set a personal goal for how many scholarships you want to apply for a week. 

Then, find a time in your schedule where it would be easy to integrate your new scholarship habit. For example, if you study in the library every Tuesday night from 7-8, spend 15 minutes of that study time for scholarships. If you use Mos, that’s enough time to apply for 5 or more scholarships! 

• Track Your Scholarship Applications   

Once you identify all the opportunities you qualify for and make an application plan, keep track of your scholarship journey. The Mos app makes this easy by letting you save scholarships and track your application status, but you can also do this on your own with a physical list or a spreadsheet online. 

However you want to keep tabs on your scholarship applications, make sure to track their deadlines and application requirements. 

• Tailor Your Application 

Every scholarship will ask for its own set of application materials. For example, a no-essay scholarship for athletes might ask for a letter of reference from your coach. 

Because of this, you should be careful to check the requirements of every scholarship you apply to. 

When you submit an application, you should have a good idea of why you’re applying for the specific scholarship you’re applying for, beyond just wanting to win the award money. 

Keeping that in mind will help you focus on scholarships that align with your career or educational goals. In turn, that will help you improve your odds of winning scholarships, because it will narrow your focus down to opportunities you’re a good candidate for. 

• Highlight Your Achievements and Leadership Skills 

A scholarship application isn’t the place to be humble. 

A lot of scholarships ask for examples of your leadership skills, community involvement, or other achievements. Scholarship committees don’t know anything about you outside of the contents of your application. If there’s a certain accomplishment or quality you’re proud of, the only way to make sure they know about it is to tell them. 

That might seem obvious, but some students default to downplaying their own accomplishments. When you’re reading over your application form or your essay, make sure you include all of the (relevant) stuff you’d want the scholarship committee to take into consideration. 

If you’re having trouble with this, try doing a brain dump on a sheet of paper. Write down every single extracurricular activity, school event, hobby, volunteer position, and leadership role you can remember having. Then, circle the ones you’re the most proud of in red and circle the ones that are relevant to the scholarship you’re applying for in blue. Anything you circled twice should definitely make its way into your application. 

If that’s too hard, ask a friend, parent, teacher, or mentor to help you brainstorm a list of your accomplishments. The people who care about you will often be able to list a ton of amazing things about you that you might write off as “not that impressive.”  

• Prepare Your Documents and Transcripts 

A lot of scholarships require you to submit financial documentation, academic transcripts, or both.

Need-based scholarships are aimed at students who don’t have the financial means to pay for college. The federal and state governments are two major sources of need-based aid, which they offer through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). 

The FAFSA is a form that asks for a fair amount of personal information and financial info. Learn what documents you need for FAFSA on the Mos blog.  

Merit-based scholarships are meant to reward a student’s accomplishments—usually academic accomplishments, but there are plenty of merit-based scholarships that reward things like artistic talent or sports prowess too! A merit-based scholarship might ask for a transcript of your grades. 

If you’re in college, your transcript will probably be on your student portal. If not, email your academic advisor or registrar to ask for a copy of it. 

If you’re in high school, check out PrepScholar’s guide on how to get your high school transcript. 

Make sure you have all necessary documents ready before a scholarship’s deadline. Ask for your transcript a few weeks in advance to avoid missing out on money you qualify for.

• Follow Directions Carefully 

Scholarship applications often have specific formatting requirements. 

A few examples of requirements you might run into: 

• File format. Example: A scholarship that only accepts application forms that are uploaded as PDFs. 

• A portfolio. Example: An arts scholarship that requires you to include 3-5 charcoal drawings you’ve done, all scanned and uploaded as a single file. 

If you don’t submit an application that matches all of the submission requirements, you run the risk of being disqualified, no matter how strong of an applicant you are. 

Think about it from the scholarship committee’s perspective: if they get a lot of strong applications from students who are all equally deserving of the award, they might end up falling back on technicalities to decide who to eliminate from the candidate pool. Don’t give them any reason to throw out your application. 

Carefully read over all of the submission instructions when you’re putting together your application. If it helps, make a list of every separate requirement and check them off as you apply. Before you hit submit, check your application over one last time just to be safe. 

• Ask for Strong References 

Some scholarships will ask you for letters of recommendation from professors, teachers, mentors, or other figures in your life. 

When you’re deciding who to ask for a letter of recommendation, think about the people who you’ve known for a longer time and who have witnessed your accomplishments firsthand. A professor who’s seen you work hard and improve over the course of three years is probably a better option than a professor who only had you for one class two years ago. 

You can set up your recommenders to write you the best letter possible by telling them what kind of qualities or achievements the scholarship provider is looking for, and by sending them a polite email reminder about your recommendation a couple weeks before the scholarship’s deadline.

You can also set yourself up to get a stronger recommendation by building your relationships with your potential references. Regularly going to a professor’s office hours is a great way to distinguish yourself as a diligent student to them.

• Pay Attention to Deadlines 

Scholarships usually have firm deadlines, and it’s pretty rare for them to accept late submissions. 

We already mentioned the importance of tracking deadlines earlier, but one more tip to avoid missing deadlines is to set yourself a personal deadline that’s a day or two before the official deadline. That way, you can avoid the frantic race to finish your application before midnight on the due date, and you have a grace period of a few days to work on your application if life gets busy. 

Other Sources of Financial Aid that Don’t Require Essays

Scholarships aren’t the only way to fund your college education. 

For information on other financial aid resources, check out The Mos Financial Aid Roadmap: 8 Ways to Get Money for College. 

Apply Faster on the Mos app 

When you apply for more than one scholarship, you have to fill out the same information over and over again. Even if it only takes a few minutes every time, those minutes add up. Plus, it can make the whole process feel like a mind-numbing slog instead of an exciting chance to spotlight the achievements and qualities that make you special as an applicant. 

When you sign up for Mos, you only have to fill out your information once. Then, every time you apply for a scholarship, the app auto-fills your information into the application. This means that applications can take as little as a few seconds! With every scholarship you apply to, your odds of winning money for college from one of them go up (remember, it’s partially a numbers game). And with every scholarship you apply to on Mos, the amount of time you save goes up right alongside those odds. 

Related Scholarship Categories

• Easy scholarships

• Scholarships for high school students

• Merit scholarships

• Computer Science scholarships

• Arts scholarships