I’ve been looking around for equestrian scholarships for a bit now. Just wondering if anyone knows of any that are available to canadian citizens/residents that dont require you to be majoring or minoring in equine science itself. I feel as though I’m not the only one who has had trouble finding such scholarships so I think this thread could help other future college/university students as well.
Are you looking at Canadian or American universities?
I would assume that as a Canadian, if you were accepted to an American school you would be eligible for any sports scholarships. I know a young rider who went to an American university on a lacrosse scholarship.
But I don’t know if any American schools have equestrian sports scholarships.
I doubt any Canadian schools have them. I’ve never heard of any, and I do know a bit about higher ed (being a professor in Canada).
I’m going to a canadian university. There are a few scholarships for specific universities like guelph has a small equine science scholarship I believe but I’m unsure and won’t be going to a university with an equine science course anyways.
Don’t know in Canada, but the ones here generally are for all kinds of designations.
The kind you are looking for would be those for animal science major students, not especially equestrian majors.
There are several in most colleges around here, many in memory of some salient citizen or alumni, that donors can add money to all along to honor that person and help students.
An discipline specific equine science or animal science academic scholarship would be a very different thing than an equestrian sports scholarship.
A discipline specific academic scholarship would be awarded to someone entering the field for some combination of grades, need, and other factors. Possibly it wouldn’t be worth that much.
A sports scholarship is awarded to an outstanding athlete who will compete for the university and at American schools can pay tuition plus living expenses. I don’t think any Canadian university offers full scholarships to people on their equestrian teams.
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Seems to me that several of the equestrian associations and organizations offer scholarships to riders - and not necessarily equine associated but I don’t know that the scholarships themselves are that substantial, though USHJA has a $25K scholarship. I would check Canadian equestrian organizations to see what they have to offer in terms of scholarships and see what you might eligible to apply for.
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Yes, there are “full ride” academic scholarships out there (mostly from very prosperous American private universities) where excellent grades and poor family finances will get you tuition plus living expenses. That kind of scholarship offer can determine where you attend (especially if you can’t afford it otherwise).
Then every university has a whole scattering of smaller academicn scholarships in the $500 to $1000 plus range, some very precisely targeted and funded by private donors (The Susan B Jenkins/ Dooblydoop memorial scholarship offers $500 to an incoming student who plans to study early childhood development and whose parents worked for Dooblydoop Corporation). Nice to be able to collect a few of these, but they aren’t going to be lifechanging or determine where you attend.
Then as the poster noted above, there can be scholarships actually given by an organization outside the university to someone who applies or is perhaps already a member of that organization. For that you’d need to look at the organizations you belong to. For instance, my credit union has a competition process for small scholarships to the children of members. They always seem awarded to kids going into studying socially useful things.
Some independent scholarships to be applied to college expenses by horse associations:
Thanks for the advice I’ll apply this knowledge to my scholarship search
