Lisa Freedland is a Scholarships360 writer with personal experience in psychological research and content writing. She has written content for an online fact-checking organization and has conducted research at the University of Southern California as well as the University of California, Irvine. Lisa graduated from the University of Southern California in Fall 2021 with a degree in Psychology.
Updated: September 3rd, 2024
Cheerleaders are an impressive bunch, making their stunts, backflips, and tumbles look easy, all while smiling! If you’re a cheerleader and are looking to continue cheering through college, you’re in luck – there are many cheerleading scholarships available for you.
Get pepped and keep on reading to find out about the top cheerleading scholarships! Just remember: you’ll probably have the best luck finding cheerleading scholarships at the college you plan on attending.
Like any scholarship, cheer scholarships are competitive. To earn money for your education, you’ll have to stand out. Make sure that in your applications, you go beyond cheer. Discuss how your experience as a cheerleader has affected your work ethic, your values, and your morals. Be sure to emphasize how you have balanced cheer with schoolwork, other extracurriculars, and your personal life. This helps to indicate that you will be successful balancing many responsibilities in college.
Writing scholarship essays is no easy feat, but we are here to help! Try out our resources on starting and ending a scholarship essay, responding to a “Why do you deserve this scholarship?” prompt, writing about yourself, and writing a 250 or 500 word essay. Once you’ve got those down, try our complete guide to writing a winning scholarship essay. Good luck!
The NCA has been connecting cheerleaders around the country since 1951, and it’s a great resource to plug into if you are in the field. They run competitions, offer staff jobs, and run choreography camps. They also have free resources available for coaches, so if you are considering coaching at some point, this can give you some insight into what the profession involves.
Cheerleading in college works somewhat differently from sports like football or basketball; most universities have no recruiting process for cheerleaders. Instead, cheerleaders typically choose a school they would like to attend (after going through the typical college application process), then contact the cheerleading coach once they’ve arrived at the college. From there, they can try out for the team, and hopefully will make it in.
Great question! If you’re looking to cheer in college, there’s a bunch of great universities to choose from – spread out all over the country. Some of these include the University of Kentucky, the University of Hawaii, University of Minnesota, and the University of Southern California.
Yes! UCLA offers the Spirit Squad scholarship to its cheer team, as well as the dance team and mascots. These scholarships help cheerleaders balance cheer with academics and lighten the load of earning money at a job to pay for their education.
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