Two years ago, I registered as a member of FastWeb, a popular student-oriented web site that matches user profiles against an 'expansive' database of college and scholarship information. Indeed, FastWeb is widely viewed as the leader in college-bound student scholarship searching, and many revere its utmost reliability. Personally, I find it useless.
When I first entered FastWeb.com, I was quite impressed. Although the process was tedious and quite lengthy, I was able to create a personalized profile packed with a profusion of information about me and my would-be academic endeavors. I signed up as an international, high school student seeking a scholarship for studying at an institution of higher education in the United States. The web service instantly surprised me with nearly 20 opportunities in my FastWeb inbox. Unfortunately, all of them were irrelevant.
FastWeb casts a deep doubt on whether it really is a scholarship searching or a scholarship listing engine. A proof positive of this concept is easily attained. FastWeb bombarded me with scholarship offerings which are way apart from my profile specifics. Since I registered as an international high school student, I expected to find competitions open to international high school students. I was dead wrong. FastWeb was sending me scholarships open only to U.S. citizens, or to already enrolled undergraduate or graduate students.
Is FastWeb worthy? Probably, for some limited circle. International students will definitely find the service unusable. There is a substantial number of financing opportunities for foreign nationals, yet FastWeb offers none. In addition, high school students will get virtually stuck with irrelevant "suggestions" like the Microsoft General Scholarship, which is only open to college and university students. Deplorable it is, but Microsoft's scholarship is just a drop in the ocean. On top of that, FastWeb has adopted the practice of regularly notifying (via e-mail) its users of unapt scholarships 'waiting for [them].'
When you draw the bottom line, you grasp that FastWeb is all about listing impertinent scholarships by requiring you to complete a detailed, multipage questionnaire, which would never produce tangible results. Next time, save your time and wangle over a Princeton Review book at a bookstore near you.
