College Board’s BigFuture Scholarships award $500 to 90 students every month, just for completing basic college-planning tasks on the BigFuture website. No essay required. Complete all six tasks, and you are entered into a drawing for a $40,000 “Complete Your Journey” grand prize. For the Class of 2027, the program runs through November 30, 2026. Most students who’ve heard of this treat it as a nice-to-have side scholarship. The mechanics actually make it worth prioritizing.
The most important detail buried in College Board’s official rules is that: unselected entries automatically roll over into the next month’s drawing, all the way until the final drawing. That means a task you complete in August doesn’t just earn you one entry for August. It keeps earning you entries in every subsequent monthly drawing until it is finally selected or the program ends. Complete a task in November instead, and you have missed every single monthly drawing that came before it. The math is straightforward: the earlier you finish each task, the more cumulative chances you get, at zero additional cost or effort beyond doing the task once.
The Second Prize Pool Almost Nobody Mentions
Most coverage of this program says “90 winners a month” and stops there. That’s only half the story: there is a separate pool of 90 additional monthly winners specifically for students who qualify as Lower Income Students. In practice, that means up to 180 total $500 winners selected each month across both pools combined, not 90. If you qualify for the lower-income pool, your realistic odds are meaningfully better than the headline “90 winners” figure suggests, since you are competing in a smaller, separate pool rather than the full combined applicant base.
One Deadline Has Already Passed
Worth being upfront about: for the Class of 2027, the “Start Your College List” task deadline was June 30, 2026, which has already passed as of the day I am writing this post. If you haven’t completed that specific task yet, you’ve missed its window. That said, don’t let one missed task stop you from joining now. Five of the six tasks remain open, with deadlines running through October 31 and November 30, 2026. Getting started today still gives you real, compounding entries across the months remaining, which is meaningfully better than waiting and losing more rollover months.
The Six Tasks, In Order
- Start a College List – save at least 3 colleges (deadline passed for Class of 2027)
- Strengthen Your College List – build a list with at least 1 safety, 2 match, and 3 reach schools, by October 31, 2026
- Start a Career List – save at least 3 careers you’re considering, by November 30, 2026
- Start a Scholarship List – save at least 3 scholarships through BigFuture’s search tool, by November 30, 2026
- Apply to Colleges – mark applications as submitted, by November 30, 2026
- Complete the FAFSA – mark it done once filed, by November 30, 2026
That last step is worth pairing with real preparation rather than treating it as a checkbox. Since you are tracking six separate deadlines spread across several months, each feeding into a different monthly drawing, a simple wall calendar or desk planner dedicated to these dates helps you actually front-load task completion instead of losing track and finishing everything in November, right when the rollover advantage disappears. And since two of the six tasks involve genuine research into colleges, careers, and scholarships, keeping notes in a dedicated research notebook as you go makes your eventual college and scholarship applications easier to write, since you’ll already have specific reasons documented for why each option appealed to you.
For more scholarships and financial aid guidance, check our Education section.
Ready to start? Log in and complete your first task at bigfuture.collegeboard.org.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Do I need to write an essay for College Board’s BigFuture Scholarships?
No. Entries are earned by completing straightforward college-planning tasks on the BigFuture website, not through essays.
- How many students win the $500 monthly scholarship?
90 winners are selected monthly from the general applicant pool, plus a separate pool of 90 additional monthly winners specifically for students who qualify as Lower Income Students.
- What happens to my entry if I’m not selected in a given month?
It automatically rolls over into the following month’s drawing, continuing until the final drawing date, so completing tasks earlier increases your total cumulative chances.
- What is the $40,000 prize for?
Students who complete all six required tasks are entered into a separate drawing for a $40,000 “Complete Your Journey” grand prize.
- I’m in the Class of 2027 – is it too late to participate?
No. While the earliest task’s ideal window has passed, five of the six tasks remain open with deadlines through October and November 2026.
- Is there a cost to participate?
No. Participation is free through your College Board account on bigfuture.collegeboard.org.
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