 Sources Errors:
- Previous counting; it means that many search services assume previously the number of scholarships calculating the total as a result of the multiplication of the number of programs by the number of estimates scholarships given every year.
- Substitute maximum award amounts by average ones; which means that most of the services exaggerate dollar amounts because they multiply the number of scholarships by the maximum award amount, in step of the average award amount.
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- Awards counting duplications; due to these services count their scholarship by different criteria, they could do a double counting to the same award.
- Many definitions for the same scholarship; according to the types of awards, search services include federal student aid, employer tuition assistance, state student aid, college-controlled award, etc.
How to count with valid scholarships?
- When the time to go for a scholarship has become, a reliable method is comparing the offered information given by the search services. Once, you have these information, you must start with statistical techniques to calculate the number of matches for each service, in order to have the number of valid matches for a typical user.
 Make a list of the requirements that a student must have in order to get the scholarship.
Assign weights depending on the commonness of the lists.
Use these lists to look for each scholarship, counting initial matches.
Leak those programs that not match with the list, in order to obtain an exactly number of valid matches.
Check out that these programs are updated, not duplicated and not to be a scam.
Calculate the average of valid matches using population rates, as same as calculate if for each list.
- The obtained result will be helpful to find out two important terms to compare the search services: Precision (if the match is relevant) and Recall (a percentage of relevant awards).
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