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Kristina Ellis, author of Confessions of a Scholarship Winner, wants high school students (and college students as well) to think about applying for scholarships as the best paying part-time job they'll ever have.

If you put the time and effort in to filling out a scholarship application and you win even a little bit of money, you end up getting a lot of money in return for very little time.

Ellis also reminds students that scholarships are awarded for things other than being a straight-A student or star athlete. She suggests starting with college scholarship databases. These databases ask for basic information about the student, and then filter the results down.