With the ridiculous and rising cost of education these days, scholarships can easily be a necessity for kids hoping to go to college. Take a look at some ways that you can increase your chances of winning a scholarship as taken from Mark Kantrowitz’s best-selling book, Secrets to Winning a Scholarship:

1. Prioritize: prioritize the scholarships you apply for based on deadlines, expected value of scholarship, odds of winning, etc.
2. Make an Accomplishments Resume: create a 1-page portfolio of your greatest accomplishments to date. You can include this resume with your application in a lot of cases.
3. Cater to the Scholarship Sponsor’s Goals: tailor each individual application to that specifc scholarship’s goals.
4. Practice: make a copy of the application and practice filling that one out first to make sure all of your answers fit. Then fill out the actual application.
5. Online Applications: just because you’re filling something out online doesn’t mean you should use informal abbreviations, or worse, emoticons.
6. Request a Great Letter of Recommendation: provide whoever you get to write your letter of recommendation with your accomplishments resume to help them write the letter. Also give them an addressed stamped envelope. After they’ve sent the letter, be sure to send them a thank you note.

Check out more techniques for obtaining a scholarship over at US News’ 17 Ways to Win a Scholarship.