Going Merry Alternatives: Where to Search, Track and Apply Now

You open the bookmark you've used since sophomore year. It held your saved scholarships, a half-finished essay for an award due next month, and a profile you filled in once so you never had to type your GPA twice. Instead of the dashboard, you get a shutdown notice, or nothing at all. If you're here, you're probably trying to answer three questions at once. What actually happened to Going Merry? What happened to the applications you'd already sent? And where should you go now so you don't lose momentum halfway through your application year?

This guide answers all three, starting with the facts from the primary source and ending with the tools that now cover finding, tracking and applying.

What happened to Going Merry

The student lender Earnest acquired Going Merry. It announced the deal on September 15, 2021 and ran Going Merry as a subsidiary. In early 2026, Earnest posted a closing notice and FAQ.

A lot of articles get confused here. Some say Going Merry shut down on March 5, and others say the end of March. Both dates come from the same source. According to Earnest's official Going Merry closing FAQ, you could log in until March 5, 2026, and the site became inaccessible from March 6, 2026. The same notice also says the platform would "officially shut down at the end of March." For you as a user, March 5 is the date that mattered. After it, Going Merry accepted no new applications and no edits.

Why did it close? Earnest didn't say. Its notice gives no public reason and announces no successor or relaunch. Any article that tells you the "real" reason is guessing.

What happens to your applications, awards and data

Most write-ups skip this part, and many simply claim everything you saved is "lost." The real picture is more specific than that, and some of it is good news.

Applications you submitted before the cutoff are still in play. Earnest says each scholarship's sponsor can still access the application data, evaluate it and pick a winner, and sponsors will contact winners directly. Watch the email address you used on Going Merry, and check your spam folder too.

Incomplete applications were deleted. Drafts that weren't submitted by March 5 won't be considered. Earnest's advice is to contact the scholarship provider directly and ask for a new application. That's worth doing if the deadline hasn't passed. Something like this works:

Hi, I was preparing an application for the [Scholarship Name] on Going Merry when the platform closed on March 5, and my draft was deleted before I could submit. Is there another way to apply for this cycle? I'm still within your deadline of [date] and would be glad to send my materials however works best for you. Thank you, [Your Name, school, graduation year]

If you won a Going Merry-sponsored award, Earnest says Navient issues the tax statements and mails them to the address on the W-9 you submitted. Award funds may take up to four weeks to arrive. If you've moved since you filled out that W-9, it may be worth contacting Earnest. Whether a scholarship counts as taxable income depends on how it's used and on your own situation. Check with your school's financial aid office or a tax professional rather than assuming.

Your data. Earnest says it will handle Going Merry user data securely and won't sell it or share it with third parties. You can ask for your data to be deleted by email. If you want that, a short email is enough: "Please delete all data associated with my Going Merry account, registered under [email address]. Please confirm once this is complete."

There's one more loss to know about. Going Merry's own no-essay awards, including Dream Big, Open Doors, Monthly Merry and Close the Financial Gap, all ended with the shutdown. If those were part of your routine, the replacements are covered below.

What Going Merry got right

It's worth naming what you're actually replacing, because it was more than a list of scholarships. At the time of the acquisition, Going Merry said students used it at more than 50% of US high schools. It offered one place to apply for government grants, private scholarships and institutional aid, and it said its users submitted nine times as many applications as the national average. It also had tools for analyzing aid offers, comparing the true cost of colleges, budgeting and learning about loans.

By 2025, Earnest said 360,000 students used Going Merry in 2024 to secure $8.8 million in scholarships. It highlighted auto-fill for applications, estimated completion times and personalized lists of vetted scholarships.

That "nine times as many applications" figure is the real point. Going Merry's value wasn't that it knew about more scholarships than anyone else. Its value was removing the friction that stops students from applying. The profile filled itself in, and you could see how long an application would take before you started. That's what most former users actually miss.

Why people are looking for an alternative

Most former users fall into one or more of these groups:

• You want one profile, not five tabs. The search-only databases are fine, but they send you to a different provider's site for every application, which is exactly the friction Going Merry removed.
• You had applications in progress and need somewhere to rebuild your list and deadlines quickly.
• You relied on the no-essay awards and want the low-effort entries back.
• You're in Canada, and many US-focused tools don't cover Canadian awards well or at all.
• You're a parent or counselor who needs something free, or at least predictable in cost, that you can recommend to a whole group of students.

How we weighed the options

We judged each tool against the three jobs Going Merry did, plus two practical questions:

1. Search: does it match scholarships to your profile, or just list them?
2. Tracking: can you save scholarships and keep up with deadlines?
3. Applying: can you apply on the platform, or does it send you elsewhere?
4. Coverage: US, Canada or both.
5. Cost and transparency: what's free, what's paid, and whether the price is clear.

The alternatives at a glance

Here's what each one is like to use.

Award Scholar

Award Scholar is our product, so read this section with that in mind and compare it against the others.

Award Scholar matches active listings against your profile (GPA, school year, major, location, citizenship, activities) and tracks your deadlines. Its AI scholarship essay writer drafts essays from your own details and writing samples. The feature closest to Going Merry's auto-fill is Apply with AI. On scholarships that support it, and only after you choose it for that specific scholarship, it can open the provider's form, fill supported fields, upload your saved documents and submit. When a form asks for something it doesn't have, it stops and leaves the rest for you. It won't make up personal facts.

For scale, our undergraduate scholarships page lists 6,130 open scholarships with a median award of $2,750, and 4,119 of them don't require an essay. You can read how we verify scholarships before you trust any listing.

Who it suits: former Going Merry users who want searching, tracking and application help in one place. It fits especially well if you're applying to a lot of essay-based scholarships or you're a student in Canada.

Limitations: Apply with AI is a paid subscription, and we don't publish a price. It only works on scholarships that support it. Once a run starts, some provider forms may be submitted without a second preview, so review your profile and drafts first. Some scholarships ban AI-written material, so check each one's policy and don't submit AI-generated text where it isn't allowed. Our guide on whether you can use AI for scholarship essays goes deeper. Award Scholar is also a newer product, with less of a track record than a database like BigFuture.

Price: free to set up a profile and see your matches. Apply with AI is paid and comes with a guarantee: if the student actively uses it for a year and wins less than was paid, everything paid is refunded.

Bold.org

Bold.org is a marketplace where donors fund exclusive scholarships, which are managed and paid out on the platform. You apply with a reusable profile, which feels a lot like Going Merry for the awards Bold.org hosts. Its how-it-works page says 451 exclusive scholarships are open and more than $17.7 million has been awarded.

Who it suits: US students who liked applying in one place and want awards that are live and run on the platform itself.

Limitations: it's US only, and it lists only its own scholarships, so it won't cover the outside awards Going Merry gathered from other providers. Bold.org also says vetted partners may pay for placements and sponsored listings, so keep that in mind when you see featured spots.

Price: free for students, with no application or subscription fees.

ScholarshipOwl

ScholarshipOwl combines matching with an application engine that applies for you automatically, including re-applying to recurring scholarships. If high-volume applying was what you valued most in Going Merry, this is the most direct paid substitute.

Who it suits: students who are comfortable paying a subscription for automated applying.

Limitations: applying on the platform and full tracking require a paid plan. Pricing is spread across an offer page and an older help article, so confirm what you'll be charged before you start. Put a reminder on your calendar before the trial ends.

Price: the offer page advertises a 7-day free trial, then $20 a month. The help center lists Monthly at $20, Quarterly at $45, Half-Yearly at $60 and a VIP plan at $69 a month, but that article is several years old.

BigFuture Scholarship Search

College Board's BigFuture Scholarship Search says it matches you against more than 24,000 programs worth over $1.5 billion a year. You'll need a free College Board account to save scholarships to a list.

BigFuture also helps fill the gap left by Going Merry's no-essay awards. It runs monthly drawings for $40,000 and $500 scholarships. You earn entries by completing six planning steps, with no essay and no minimum GPA or test score. BigFuture says it has awarded over $23 million to more than 24,000 students since 2019.

Who it suits: US high school students who want a broad, free search.

Limitations: it only lets you search and save, so you apply on each provider's site. Its own pages also give different program counts, which is a good reminder to verify each listing yourself.

Price: free.

ScholarshipsCanada.com

For Canadian students, ScholarshipsCanada is the long-running default. It has been part of the SchoolFinder Group since 1997 and charges students nothing. Once you create an account, it matches you to awards and offers deadline alerts. It makes its money from banner ads, opt-in emails and featured scholarships.

Who it suits: students in Canada and anyone looking for awards tied to Canadian schools.

Limitations: it's search only, and the volume of listings means a lot of filtering. It says it aims to update listings once a year, so double-check dates on each provider's page.

Price: free.

Fastweb

Fastweb is a long-standing name in scholarship search. Like Going Merry, it has you build a profile to get matches. Unlike Going Merry, it's a search engine: once you find a scholarship, you apply on the provider's site.

Who it suits: students who want another broad database to cross-check against.

Limitations: it has no application tracking or drafting help like Going Merry had. We couldn't verify pricing on Fastweb's own site, so check before you sign up for anything.

Which one should you pick?

• You want the closest thing to Going Merry's all-in-one setup: start a free Award Scholar profile to see your matches, and decide later whether Apply with AI is worth paying for.
• You want to apply on the platform and pay nothing (US): use Bold.org, paired with a broad database for outside awards.
• You're happy to pay for volume: try ScholarshipOwl, and watch the trial end date.
• You're a US high schooler who wants something free and broad: use BigFuture, and enter its monthly drawings.
• You're in Canada: use ScholarshipsCanada for breadth, plus our Canadian scholarships directory or awards by Canadian university.
• You mainly miss the no-essay entries: try BigFuture's drawings, plus our lists of no-essay scholarships and scholarship sweepstakes. Read whether no-essay scholarships are worth your time before you spend an evening on them.

Most students end up with two tools: one that handles applying and tracking, and one broad database for cross-checking. That's fine. What matters is that one of them is the single place where all your deadlines live.

Rebuild your setup in one afternoon

You don't have to recreate everything at once. This order gets you back on track fastest.

If your essays went down with the site, you may have more raw material than you think. You can often adapt your college admissions essay, and our guide to reusing your admissions essay for scholarships and bursaries shows how. For deadlines, the free scholarship deadline tracker works with whatever platform you choose. If you used Going Merry's cost and aid-offer tools, the net price calculator, cost of college calculator and student loan calculator cover similar ground.

Going Merry's real lesson was never about one website. Students applied more because applying got easier. Whatever you choose next, judge it the same way. The number that matters isn't how many scholarships it lists. It's how many you actually finish and submit.

Frequently asked questions

Did Going Merry shut down?

Yes. According to Earnest's closing FAQ, users could log in until March 5, 2026, and the site became inaccessible on March 6, 2026, with the official shutdown dated to the end of March. No new applications or edits were accepted after March 5, and Earnest announced no successor product.

Will the scholarships I applied to on Going Merry still be reviewed?

If you submitted before the March 5, 2026 cutoff, yes. Earnest says each sponsor can still access your application, evaluate it and choose a winner, and sponsors will contact winners directly. Incomplete applications were deleted, so contact those providers to ask about applying directly.

Can I get my Going Merry account, essays or saved scholarships back?

Not through Going Merry itself. Earnest says unsubmitted drafts were deleted and the site has been inaccessible since March 6, 2026, though applications you submitted before the cutoff remain with sponsors. You can email Earnest to request deletion of your account data, and for essays, start from any copies you kept or from your college admissions essay.

Where do I get my tax form for a Going Merry scholarship I won?

Earnest says Navient issues tax statements for Going Merry-sponsored awards and mails them to the address on the W-9 you submitted. Award funds may take up to four weeks to arrive. For questions about whether your award is taxable, ask your school's financial aid office or a tax professional.

What is the best free alternative to Going Merry?

It depends on what you used it for. BigFuture is a strong free choice for broad search in the US, ScholarshipsCanada is the main free option for Canada, and Bold.org lets US students apply free on the platform to its own awards. Award Scholar is free to set up a profile and see matches in both countries, with paid help applying.

Is there another site where I can apply to multiple scholarships with one application?

Bold.org lets you apply to its own exclusive scholarships with a reusable profile, and ScholarshipOwl offers paid automatic applying. Award Scholar can fill and submit supported provider forms from your profile when you choose Apply with AI for a scholarship. None of them covers every scholarship, so expect to apply directly to some.

What scholarship sites work for Canadian students?

ScholarshipsCanada is the long-running free database for Canadian awards, with profile matching and deadline alerts. Award Scholar also covers Canada. Bold.org is available only to US students, so it won't help if you're applying from Canada.