Finding scholarships is easy. But finding scholarships that fit you is work. And it consumes time. It pays off to plan your approach in advance so that you don’t learn weeks or months later that you were wasting lots of time unwittingly! (That’s a bad feeling…been there, done that…so I know…). It’s best to commence scholarship searching as early as possible to find the largest number of scholarships with criteria that you can “squeeze into.” And you’ll be much more effective if you are not rushed in conducting your search. Therefore, when’s the best time to start? If you’re a sophomore, you can get by with an hour or two every month maybe. See how it goes. If you’re a junior, try an hour a week. If you’re a senior, several hours weekly may be required. Every student is different. Depending on your background and criteria you can meet, the project may go more quickly than you think, or it may feel a little like trying to find a needle in a haystack. No matter. Your trolling for scholarships has to be done and you have to fit it in.