Where Scholarships Meet Everyday Sanity
Let me start with a confession: the first time I typed “scholarship deadline” into Google, I ended up in a rabbit-hole of broken links, pop-up casinos, and one very angry forum thread from 2011. Sound familiar? That irritation is exactly why we built Scholarshipsi.com—a tiny, stubborn attempt to keep the search for free money from feeling like a second job.
We began as three broke grad students in a Minneapolis basement, pooling ramen noodles and PDF bookmarks. Fast-forward six years and the site now helps 1.3 million visitors a month. The secret sauce? We refuse to gate-keep. Every listing is free to view, no “create an account to see more” nonsense. But somewhere along the way we noticed another pain point: once the celebration email arrives (“Congratulations, you’ve been awarded…”) real-life math kicks in. How much will I actually owe after that grant?
So we tacked on a toolbox—twelve little calculators that live in the footer, no download, no e-mail capture. They aren’t glamorous, yet they have already saved users a cumulative 48,000 hours of head-scratching (I tracked it last spring; yes, I’m that nerdy). Below is the tour, told in plain English, the way I’d explain it if we were splitting stale fries in that same basement.
1. Loan Calculator – or, How I Learned to Stop Panicking and Read the Fine Print
“Nine-month grace period,” she smiled. What she forgot to mention: interest capitalizes daily. Our Loan Calculator would have shown me—before the pen hit paper—that “daily” adds $412 to the balance by graduation. Type principal, interest rate, term length, hit enter. In 0.4 seconds you see the monthly bite, total interest, even an amortization chart if you’re the visual type. No judgment, just numbers.
2. Mortgage Calculator – Because Some of Us Day-Dream About Keys, Not Diplomas
My cousin Leila finished her PhD last May and immediately started house-hunting in Columbus. Pre-approval letter in hand, she still had no clue what a 7.1% rate would feel like on a $235k townhouse. Knowledge equals leverage; leverage equals a shorter daily commute.
3. Discount Calculator – Black-Friday-Survival Mode
I’m that person standing in Target doing long division on my phone. Our Discount Calculator lets you stack coupons, tax, and “buy-one-get-one-half-off” without crying in the kitchen aisle. Fun fact: 63% of last November’s traffic spike came from Turkey Day itself. I still don’t know whether people were calculating turkey prices or sneaky laptop mark-ups, and honestly I don’t care—just glad nobody paid $1,199 for a $999 door-buster.
4. GST Calculator – For When Your Roommate Says, “Just Venmo Me the Tax”
We added this after a flood of e-mails from Singapore, India, and Ontario—turns out plenty of international students land scholarships that cover tuition but not the 7–18% tax on campus housing. Plug in the base rent, choose the province or country, done. If you’re the roommate who always rounds down, this tool will out you; fair warning.
5. Percentage Calculator – The Swiss-Army Knife
Need to know what 18% of your stipend is so you can finally hit that “save” goal? Or maybe your essay is 147 words over the limit and the portal warns “maximum 10% overage.” One box, two clicks, zero excuses. I use it at least twice a week to figure out what portion of ad revenue goes back into server costs (answer: roughly 34%, coffee addiction not included).
6. Temperature Converter – From Lab Work to Lab-Made Cookies
Chemistry lab wants 77°F but your incubator reads Celsius; Grandma’s cookie recipe says 350°F but your Montreal flat only knows Celsius. Toggle among Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin faster than you can say “thermodynamic equilibrium.” Bonus: the page background changes color with the scale, a tiny Easter egg that makes at least one user giggle each day—my mom, if you must know.
7. Roman Numeral Converter – Because Thesis Page Numbers Are Petty
I once spent forty-five minutes fixing page-number formatting after the grad-school office declared “Appendix must be numbered i, ii, iii…” Our converter would have saved me a table-flip. Type 49, get XLIX. Great for crossword cheats, tattoo double-checks, or pretending you paid attention in Latin.
8. Voltage Converter – Keep Your Hair Dryer Alive
Study-abroad kids, this one’s for you. A 120V U.S. straightener plugged into 230V European outlets becomes an expensive paperweight—possibly a flaming one. Select country, see voltage, pack the right adapter. We logged 28,000 visits the week study-abroad approvals dropped; coincidence? I think not.
9. Random Number Generator – Fair Is Fair
RAs dividing lab shifts, roommates choosing who buys toilet paper, D&D club picking initiative order—enter a min, max, and let entropy decide. Cryptographically solid, no browser storage, so even the paranoid chemist trusts it.
10. Text to Binary Converter – When You Want to Feel Like Mr. Robot
Secret messages in the group chat? ASCII art that only the CS majors understand? Type “I love scholarships,” get 01001001… Copy, paste, impress, repeat. One user proposed in binary; the fiancée said yes after she decoded it—relationship goals, honestly.
Why Free?
Short answer: because paywalls are tacky. Long answer: our revenue comes from unobtrusive scholarship-provider ads and the occasional affiliate book link.
Imperfect on Purpose
The tools run on vanilla JavaScript—no tracking cookies, no chat-bot “support” that loops you back to the FAQ. They won’t file your FAFSA for you, and they definitely won’t tuck you in at night. What they will do is spit out honest numbers faster than you can open Excel. Sometimes the layout breaks on an ancient Blackberry; sometimes the mobile keyboard hides the calculate button. We patch bugs on Thursday nights, usually over cold pizza. Real life, remember?
Micro-Opinion Time
I personally think every high-school senior should be required to pass a “calculate your future loan payment” test before they’re allowed to order a graduation gown. Until that utopia arrives, the least we can do is park the calculator one click away.