What Major Canadian Scholarships are Available?
It’s amazing how much free money is out there for graduating high school students if you just look. Although there are literally hundreds of scholarships out there for Canadian students, I will be focusing this article on the background for some of Canada’s largest scholarships. That is, scholarships with a value of at least ~$5,000 x 4 years (this means $5,000 per year for 4 years = $20,000 in total). The main reason I am doing this is because these are obviously the most difficult to win (because so many students apply) and have the most intensive processes (which would probably require more advice).
The great thing about one of these major scholarships is that often if you just win one (or two), you have your entire undergraduate education paid for. How amazing would that be?
The focus of the article is just to introduce you to Canada’s largest scholarship programs. Knowing what scholarships to apply to is the first step – and unfortunately, many students don’t even get this far. There are many deserving students who do not know about these scholarships, so it’s my hope that you’ll now have the opportunity to give many of them a shot.
Advice on applying for these scholarships will be provided in future articles. This article is simply an introduction to help you learn about the great opportunities out there.
Major Scholarships are Almost Always Application-Based
There is an unfortunate stereotype in a vast number of schools that scholarships are completely mark-based. It’s true that most universities hand out automatic entrance scholarships only based on grades (i.e. all graduating high school students who go to York University with a 95% average will receive a $3,000 x 4 years scholarship automatically). There are also some fairly large scholarships that are completely mark-based (e.g. York University hands out President’s Scholarships worth $5,400 x 4 years to the 18 students with the highest entrance averages).
What most students don’t realize (because they don’t look!), is that York University’s largest entrance scholarships are not mark-based. And this is true for almost every university.
Most Canadian Universities have their Own Major Scholarships
The largest, most prestigious scholarships at most universities are in fact application-based. These scholarships not only require high marks (usually 90+ averages), but require a list of your awards/accomplishments and extra-curricular/volunteer activities, and often essays about leadership, volunteerism and/or creativity.
The reason why major scholarships are not completely mark-based is because universities (and private organizations) recognize that marks are not the only factor for future success, both in the academic world and outside of it. Marks only take you so far in life, and once you are out in the real world, you are rarely asked for your marks. Therefore, other qualities like leadership, communication, teamwork, and character are important. In addition, high school averages vary from school to school, with some schools being much tougher than others.
Here are some examples of major university scholarships:
York University – Governor’s Awards of Distinctions
University of Western Ontario – National Scholarships
Queen’s University – Major Entrance Scholarships
University of Toronto – National and Arbor Scholarships
These are just a few of the many out there. Make sure you check the websites of the universities you are applying to (in particular, the website’s finance/scholarship sections) and find out if there are any scholarships you can apply for – remember, these aren’t automatic, so if you don’t apply, you aren’t considered!
Major Scholarships from Non-Post-Secondary Institutions
There are also major scholarships handed out by private organizations/businesses, including the ones described below, which are considered some of Canada’s largest and most prestigious scholarships. Because these scholarships are provided by private organizations/businesses and can be used at any accredited post-secondary institution, you are competing with thousands of students across Canada, making the process very competitive and fairly intensive. Here they are:
TD Canada Trust Scholarships for Community Leadership
Worth up to $60,000, the TD Canada Trust Scholarship for Community Leadership awards 20 young Canadians who have shown strong leadership and commitment to their communities. Unlike other scholarships, academics are not as significant (75+ average). They are looking for students genuinely passionate about improving the community and world around them, and have clearly demonstrated this.
I am actually a 2006 recipient of this scholarship, so it should be no surprise that I am promoting it first. But to be honest, I am very happy with the TD Canada Trust Scholarship program, and would encourage anyone and everyone to apply.
The breakdown of the scholarship is up to $10,000 per year for your tuition, a $5,000 cheque a year for your choice to use (I used it to live on campus for two years), and an offer of summer employment at TD Canada Trust during your summers (this is optional).
The application process involves a 500 word essay about your community leadership, three letters of reference regarding your community involvement, and one letter from your school. Quite a lengthy application but definitely doable and worth trying. ~60 finalists are invited to interviews, and 20 are ultimately selected as scholarship recipients.
Since the 60 finalists are selected out of an applicant pool of 3500+ based on only the application, this scholarship is heavily interested in what you have done so far as an indicator of what you will do in the future.
Loran Award
Formerly known as the Canadian Merit Scholarship, the Loran Award is worth up to $75,000 and handed out to 30 top students every year. The organization also hands out one-time awards of $2,000 and $3,000 to provincial and national finalists, respectively.
Applicants require a 85+ average, and must demonstrate character, service and leadership. There are two pools (sponsored and direct), which you can read more about on the website. Essentially sponsored candidates are recommended by the school (up to 3 candidates per school), while direct candidates apply on their own. Both pools are evaluated separately, and a specific number of national finalists are selected from each pool.
As mentioned before, unlike the TD Canada Trust Scholarship, the Loran Award is less application-based (at least for the sponsored-pool). For sponsored-applicants, there are two possible levels of interviews. First you are interviewed regionally (if you make it that far), and then if you do well, you move on to the national level interviews.
In my opinion, it seems that the Loran Award is more concerned with the potential they see in you during the interviews, whereas the TD Scholarship is more accomplishment-based.
Millennium Excellence Awards
This is the final major scholarship I will be mentioning in this article. The Millennium Excellence Awards recognize Canadian students on the basis of leadership, good citizenship and community service, innovation, and academic achievement. It requires an application with essays, and some of the finalists will have a short phone interview in the spring.
There are three levels of scholarships handed out to students: National ($20,000), Provincial/Territorial ($16,000), and Local ($4,000).
The great thing about this scholarship program is that significantly more students are awarded than with other major scholarship programs (over 1,000 students will be award recipients!).
What to do next?
The most important thing to do at this point is to read up on the different major scholarships available (starting with the ones mentioned here is probably a good idea). Make sure you visit the websites of the universities you are considering, and see what major scholarships they have are available.
Once you figure out which scholarships you want to apply to, begin preparing your applications, asking your references for their support, etc.
Also, keep a calendar or list of the different deadlines. With so many scholarship applications on your plate, it’s very easy to forget the due dates for the applications – don’t let this happen to you!
Good luck!
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- Lunch with Alex
- So I didn’t get into medical school… what now?
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Comments
No problem! You should definitely apply to as many of these scholarships as possible. I’m actually going to write some advice articles specific for each of these scholarships soon, which I think you will find helpful.
For my TD scholarship essay, I wrote mainly about my involvement with a youth science network I started called SMARTS, as well as my involvement with the Canadian anti-poverty movement.
Good luck with your applications!
Great article! Though I’m sure you may not has us much first hand experience with this since you’ve already received enough money going in to university, I was wondering if the blog could have an article that focuses mainly on the scholarships available to current university students entering their second, third and fourth years.
Hi Sofie,
Thanks! That’s a good question. I don’t have any experience with in-course awards, and I am kind of reluctant to write about anything I feel I don’t have a good grasp of. I will look into it though, and I’ll see what i can do!
Hey Joshua, Thanks for this great informative article. I have looked into all of the scholarships that you mentioned before i ended up here. I was wondering if you could help me, i really need some money for my university education, I am currently in grade 12. I have done a lot of leadership work at school but thats about it my marks aren’t that great either but they have been in the low 80s. I was wondering if you know about some scholarships for someone like me.
Thanks, it would mean a lot if with your help i could get some help.
Hi Simran,
Where are you thinking about applying? I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those universities have scholarships specific for community leadership, which you should definitely apply to.
With a 80+ average and some good leadership activities, you seem like a good candidate for the TD Canada Trust Scholarship. And you are probably also a competitive candidate for the Loran Award.
Hope that helps. I apologize but there are so many scholarships which you should apply for, but I don’t know all of them. Keep looking!
Good luck!
Hey its Simran again.
I was planning to apply at york, western, waterloo, utm and McMaster. I Thought i would be eligible for the TD Canada Trust Scholarship and the Loran Award, but when I looked at the previous recipients they were so much involved in the community. My leadership skills have only stayed inside the school, although they have been good as i received an award in school, but do you think that is enough ?
Thanks a lot for your help, I really appreciate it. I do not know many people that can help me in this as they lack knowledge and experience, so this is great !
Hi Simran,
While the scholarship profiles you read are good for giving you a sense of what the judges might be looking for, I wouldn’t worry so much about trying to compare yourself to them and others. I think everyone goes through that phase at some point while applying, and it’s just not healthy, and affects your confidence in a negative way.
The best advice I can give is you’ll never know unless you try. Community leadership is still community leadership, whether it was through your school community, church community, or any other type of community. I think you should absolutely apply to both the Loran Award and TD Canada Trust Scholarship. As I’ve mentioned in some of my articles, how you market yourself on your applications counts for a huge part of doing well, and at this point, that’s what you need to focus on.
As for scholarships at those universities you are applying to, definitely check out their university websites and see which ones you can apply to. If you have the time, apply to as many as possible, because you’ll never know what you might get!
To help you get started searching those university scholarships, you might find this university scholarship search engine useful:
http://tools.macleans.ca/scholarships2007/default.aspx
Hope that helps. Good luck!
Alright, i will look at that site. I have printed out the application for the loran award but I dont think I can apply for that it says 85 average. I only got like around 81, do you think i can still apply :S ?
Hi Simran,
When you say your average is 81, do you mind for Grade 11, or from Grade 9 to 11? The Loran Award website says you need a minimum cumulative average of 85, but I’m not sure if they mean cumulative for all your Gr. 11 courses, or cumulative throughout high school.
Whatever the case, I think you should email them and explain your situation. If you can get an 81 average, I think you are definitely capable of getting an 85 with some more hard work, and for all I know, you may have some very good reasons why you were not able to obtain an 85 in the past few years. I hope they will be able to accommodate your situation, but there are no guarantees.
But I would definitely ask first before filling out an application that would not have been looked at in the first place. There’s no point focusing on the Loran Award application if you could’ve been better off filling out some different applications, because the essays are quite extensive for that one!
Good luck.
hallo again!
I took your advice and decided to try out for scholarships. I applied to be sponsored by my school for the Loran Award – just found out that I was 1 of 3 people chosen from my school! I honestly think your site is one of few on the web that actually cleared up the whole scholarship application process and gave me the confidence to try out.
I’m still unclear about what the Loran Award is looking for, though. Looking at past recipients of the TD Award, their accomplishments are usually quite clear and substantial in terms of community service. When I look at past Loran award winners, though, their accomplishments are not as clear-cut… is the criteria much different? Are people chosen more on the vibe they give during interviews than the achievements they list on paper? I mean, what do you mean by ‘potential’?
Understanding more about this would definitely give me a clearer view of where I stand.
Thanks a lot!
Hey Raha,
Congratulations on being selected! I’m really glad to hear that the articles motivated you to give it a shot =)
Because I wasn’t ultimately selected for the Loran Award (I made it to regional interviews, but no further) and don’t work with the scholarship organization, this is just my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.
The feeling I get is that the Loran judges use the application as a way of weeding out who could have strong leadership potential – when I say potential, I mean in the future or long term. They then interview as many candidates as possible via regionals and then nationals to see who really fits the bill in person.
I believe the Loran’s philosophy is that students are still quite young in high school and have miles to develop, but they can determine in person who they believe is the most likely to significantly succeed in the future in terms of leadership, service, and character. I think that once you reach the interview stage, the application has very little weight anymore – but I could be wrong.
Conversely, I think TD Is mostly concerned with past/current accomplishments as an indicator of who has the greatest potential for the future. That’s why they interview much fewer students than the Loran.
Hope this helps!
Hey Joshua,
Its Simran again. i have written my essays for the loran award and i do not know if my school is gonna sponsor me or not. But i was wondering if u can quickly glance through it. I would highly appreciate it. I know you are probably very busy so it is ok if you cant. I will e-mail it to you, It’s not very long and wont take you much, as i made it very straight forward.
Thanks, a lot. You and this website have helped me a lot : )
Joshua, it definitely did!
Your words gave me a clear understanding of the differences between the scholarships.
Thanks again.
Hi Joshua,
Thanks for all your help! Your posts are unbelievable. Will you be doing a video on interview tips for the TD Canada Trust Schoalrship interviews? I just found out I am a finalist. I am so excited!
Thanks, Scarky
I just read the Loran winners’ bios for 2009 and to be honest, they sounded quite fake. I have a feeling that these people aren’t actually as great as they appear. Sure, they were in 5 different clubs, but how much time did they actually spend in each of them? Personally, I know a lot of people creating/ being president (or an exec) of clubs, or being editors of yearbook/newspaper, or volunteering overseas. But many of the presidents at my school don’t do anything and spend <1 hour on their club per week. A lot of times, it’s the execs doing most of the work and the president basically just tells everyone else what to do. And then there are the stupid clubs created solely for the purpose of increasing one’s chance of a scholarship (like the ones with less than 5 real members).
And even stupider are the people claiming to be in 10 different clubs at once. Personally, I’ve tried it for a year or two until I realized that there’s no way you could be active in 10 clubs at once. You miss 2 practices a week to attend 2 different club meetings and you try to rush to 3 different meetings one after another… At the end of the day, you spend less than 15 real min. per club per week AVERAGE.
I still can’t believe I used to be one of those stupid people trying to join 10 clubs just because it looks better. Even stupider, I can’t believe that scholarships would actually believe those people claiming to be in 10 clubs at once.
I think the difference is why people are doing those things. The way how they worded the bios make it sound like the people were doing it just for the sake of scholarships and don’t actually care about what they do.
I expected more dedication to a few clubs rather than “spreading yourself too thin.” Like stuff that actually shows your passion. More like 10 hours on music, 10 hours on running ONE club, and perhaps another 10 hours on volunteering at the homeless shelter per week. Because chances are, you wouldn’t kill 10 hours on one thing a week unless it’s really your passion.
Sorry about that huge rant…
Woah, really? You were never simultaneously in more than one club??? Now, that’s impressive. Other than SMARTS, did you take any leadership positions in those clubs?
I wouldn’t say that I was “concluding too much from the short biographies that scholarship websites post.” I think it was more of a comment that they don’t seem as impressive as they sound. The way how they described a few of the winners as “and was involved in several other clubs”… it may sound impressive to naive people who think being in all these clubs while doing X and Y is almost impossible.
Hi Joshua,
I just recently found out about this blog and it has been extremely helpful in guiding me. Thanks so much. I am just entering grade 12 this year. And I haven’t been involved in anything really till this summer. And so far I’ve only volunteered at a couple of events. But I have planned to do a whole bunch of activities that will REALLY keep me busy throughout the school year. Because I don’t have a good history of involvement, I realize I have no shot at the big scholarships, however, I’m trying to get involved as much as I can now so I can at least get something. I still haven’t really discovered anything that I’m passionate about. But I’m doing a lot of volunteering this year. I don’t know what else I can do at this point. Is there any advice that you can give on what I should do so that I can get the best scholarship possible?
Thanks again.
Hey,
Other than just getting involved in a bunch of activities during the school year, is there anything else that I can do in extra to increase my chances of getting a better scholarship? I am simply involved in 5 long term activities and many short term ones that come up throughout the year. And I am aiming for very high marks, hopefully around 95+ avg. What amount in scholarship do you think I would have a good shot at?
Hi,
Thanks for the reply. But after talking to some other big scholarship recipients, they told me that when scholarship judges see that I just started doing a lot of stuff in grade 12, they will think I am just getting involved for scholarships and don’t have any passion, but if I want to have a good chance at the big scholarships, I have to have a good history of doing stuff like this, having done them throughout high school and having concrete leadership positions I’ve acquired overtime.
But clearly I don’t have any of that, so do you think that can seriously hinder my chances at good scholarships?
And as you said of what I’m gonna start in the fall, I haven’t planned anything THAT big, because if I had the capacity to do something big, I clearly would’ve started on something like that already. All I’m doing is volunteering at my church, hospital, involvement in school as much as possible, and also volunteer with another organization as well as volunteer in events in the community that come up throughout the year. Thats all I’m really doing. And people that win big scholarships, such as yourself, go way beyond. And I doubt that such experiences of mine can really make for a strong essay.
Sorry if I keep repeating the same thing and bug you. But I highly value your input =]. So please reply if possible. Thanks so much.
Hey,
Thanks so much for your response. I finally understand what you were trying to say, to not be stressed about what my chances are. But what still worries me is that I don’t know if I am doing everything I can to present myself the best way possible, compared to what others are doing. I always think I should be doing more, but I don’t know what it is exactly that I should do, for example I’m doing a lot of volunteering, but I don’t know what more to do than that. That’s what really stresses me at this point. So is there any advice you can give me on that?
Thanks so much.
Hi Josh,
Are there any scholarships that are only based on Academics and Financial Need?
I did research, but all of the scholarships, regardless of amount, required leadership or other involvements.
I have a 92% average, minimal volunteering, and since both my parents are unemployed, I’m a great candidate for financial need.
Thanks for you help josh, and please let me know if you know anything!
Regards,
Gab
Hi Josh,
I’m just wondering if you know where I can read the profile/bio of past TD Canada Trust scholarship recipients. On their website, they only have the current 2008-2009 recipient profiles.
Thanks Josh,
Ben
MedHopeful @ Premed101
Joshua, thanks for the lovely article. I’m a high school senior who would really love to have the burden of university tuition taken off my back, and these ideas are great. I was originally most interested in the Loran award, but by the way you’ve written it, the TD and Millenium Excellence awards seem just as great… not to mention plausible!
One of my friends won the TD scholarship last year. That’s great that you won! What community project did you do/