RentHop's College and University Scholarship Program
RentHop Apartment Scholarship
The RentHop Apartment Scholarship awards up to $2,000 a year to eligible undergraduate students in bachelors and associate degree programs in the US who demonstrate the ambition, diligence, leadership, and entrepreneurial spirit that is central to our company culture.
Apartment hunting can be overwhelming, often compared to a marathon and a sprint at the same time. A successful transaction will require the stamina and endurance to visit possibly dozens of addresses and listings to find the perfect home, while also requiring enough decisiveness and organization to quickly secure a discovered rare gem before losing it to the competition. We have built a platform and service that modernizes many aspects of real estate transactions, beginning with the home search.
To apply, submit an essay under 500 words that concisely answers the question:
Imagine yourself 10 years in the future after having graduated college and living the life of your dreams: find a listing on RentHop you picture yourself living in and write how it contributes to your ideal day. Please provide a link to the listing. Finalists may have an opportunity to be featured on our blog.
Rules and Awards
All Rules Subject to RentHop Scholarship Board Review
Submit your essay under 500 words using our Scholarship Application Form.
You must be a current student in an eligible undergraduate program or a graduating high school senior, working towards a bachelors degree or associates degree.
Awards include the following:
- Cash scholarship of $1000*
- A part-time or full-time internship with RentHop (optional)
* RentHop will check with the recipient’s school to confirm their policy on external scholarship checks. If required, scholarship checks will be sent directly to the recipient’s school.
The Founder Story, Post-College Moving
Our story begins in 2008 when the two co-founders, Lawrence and Lee, each independently had very bad apartment search experiences in NYC. They had only been out of college a few years and wondered why in this day and age, technology had not yet solved or at least greatly reduced the pain of finding a rental home.
In Lee's case, he called a broker advertising a rent-stabilized apartment on Craigslist. Little did he know he would eventually agree to spend all day with the agent looking at a half dozen apartments, none of which were as attractive as the originally advertised one, and none that were actually rent-stabilized. Within a year of moving to NYC, Lee eventually solved his personal rental problem permanently: he purchased a co-op apartment near Bryant Park where he still lives to this day!
Lawrence was fortunate enough to room with some close college friends during his early years in Manhattan. After a short stint downtown in the Financial District, he shared a condo in Midtown Manhattan with a fellow University of Pennsylvania alumni. Eventually, it was time for Lawrence to find his own studio. However, despite knowing exactly where in the city he wanted to live, he still jumped through far too many hoops only to move one block from where he had lived previously. Like Lee, he kept wondering at every step along the way why things were so painful.
More About RentHop Today
We want to simplify your apartment search.
Apartment hunting is stressful and overwhelming. We know finding a new home is definitely not about looking at every possible advertised apartment. It's about looking at the best apartments that fit your criteria. After all, you will eventually only pick one of them. The game is about quality over quantity.
Using quantitative algorithms and nerdy technology, we created RentHop, a site that sorts listings by quality. We know you don't want to see listings without photos or waste time with unresponsive landlords and brokers. Even today, most other sites sort by price or the posting date. RentHop relies on our HopScore, a sophisticated set of algorithms that ranks apartment listings by quality, so only the best rise to the top.
We currently allow searching for NYC apartments (including no fee apartments), Boston apartments, Chicago apartments, along with most major U.S. cities. Visit RentHop.com for more information about our search product.
Contact
Submit your essay under 500 words using our Scholarship Application Form.
For any questions, please contact college-scholarship@renthop.com
Please see the scholarship terms, conditions, guidelines, and policies for more information.
You must apply using your school email address. If your school does not provide one or does not allow students to send/receive external emails via the school affiliated email address, then you may still apply using your personal email. We will ultimately need to verify your eligibility upon submission via a PDF file of your acceptance letter or proof of enrollment to the Undergraduate or Associates program. Please submit by midnight (Eastern Time) of each application deadline.
Application deadlines (Recipient notified within 30 days of each deadline):
- April 30 at 11:59pm ET
- August 31 at 11:50pm ET
You can also tweet us a shoutout, or visit us on Facebook!
Previous Recipients
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Lila Turbiville, Spring 2023 Recipient
Mercer University
Lila Turbiville was recently valedictorian of her high school while playing three varsity sports, and volunteered extensively at a children's science museum and an elementary school music department. Her passions include thrifting, repurposing, and upcycling- basically keeping anything out of the dump and destroying her brothers at Mario Kart. Lila will attend Mercer University in the Fall of 2023 and intends to study biomedical engineering with an emphasis on Radiation Induced Bystander Effect (RIBE).
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Abigail Kilbride, Fall 2022 Recipient
Regis College
Abigail Kilbride is currently in her second year at Regis College in Massachusetts, where she studies dental hygiene. Her ultimate goal in this career is to bring every patient confidence in their smiles, and hopes to have everyone embrace their own unique smile! In her free time she runs on her college’s track and field team, and enjoys going on walks with her family and friends.
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Blue Yusas, Spring 2022 Recipient
University of Denver
Blue Yusas is a student at the University of Denver studying Gender and Women's studies and hopes to become a high school history teacher. They are passionate about advocacy in education and the importance of an informed teaching pedagogy geared towards marginalized students. Blue enjoys reading, playing guitar, dancing, and hiking with their dog in their free time.
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Carlos Manuel Galvan Santos, Fall 2021 Recipient
University of Central Florida
Carlos Manuel Galvan Santos is an international student from a small and very humble village in the Dominican Republic. He is currently studying industrial engineering at the University of Central Florida, where he plans to become the first member of his family to ever graduate from college. In his free time he loves to play basketball and serve his small community.
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Rachel Gallagher, Spring 2021 Recipient
San Diego State University
Rachel Gallagher is currently a senior at Liberty High School, and plans on attending San Diego State University in the fall to pursue a degree in Nutrition. She dreams of eventually becoming a Physicians Assistant in Dermatology!
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Elizabeth Pulsifer, Fall 2020 Recipient
Purdue University
Elizabeth Pulsifer is currently a student at Purdue University studying Chemical Engineering with plans to become a process design engineer after graduating. She was raised in Northern Kentucky just a few miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio and spent much of her time during high school volunteering at the Newport Aquarium. In her free time she enjoys playing tabletop games with friends and family, taking her dog for hikes in local parks, and listening to fiction-based podcasts.
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Aster Gray Castro, Spring 2020 Recipient
Virginia Commonwealth University
Aster is a prospective pre-medicine student from the DC metro area who is set to attend Virginia Commonwealth University as a freshman in the Fall. Aster is passionate about personal and environmental health and is constantly seeking ways to fulfill that in his education. He hope to commit himself to his studies with the help of the scholarship in order to improve and save lives through medical service.
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Dylan B. Miller, Fall 2019 Recipient
Columbia College Chicago
Dylan is a radio communications major at Columbia College Chicago. He's had his own radio show, Cool Music Time with DJ Dylan, at his community college and now hopes to have a show at Columbia's WCRX Radio. His dream job is to be a radio DJ at a Chicago public or Internet radio station.
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Tullee Stanford, Spring 2019 Recipient
Washington State University
Tullee Stanford is an Environmental Biology student at WSU Vancouver. He is currently a invasive plant species and restoration technician. He has several aspirations for after college among them is starting a native plant nursery, teaching biology, and facilitate native plant landscaping, with the hope of restoring some ecological functions to urban communities.
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Austin Chang, Fall 2018 Recipient
UCLA
I am going to be a sophomore studying Biomedical Engineering at UCLA this fall. Whether I pursue a medical degree or become an engineer, I hope to work in the health field some day. Outside of academics, I spend most of my time rowing as a member of UCLA men's crew team.
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Neha Nagabothu, Spring 2018 Recipient
UC Berkeley
Neha Nagabothu is currently a senior at Westview High School in Portland, Oregon and will be attending UC Berkeley as a freshman this fall, studying Business and Industrial Engineering & Operations Research. She has been recognized internationally for her work in robotics and business and hopes to complete a double major in technology and business in college. In her free time, she loves to dance, listen to music, cook, read, listen to TED talks, learn new languages, and make puns.
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Kevin Johnson, Fall 2017 Recipient
University of Cincinnati
Kevin is currently a first year student at the University of Cincinnati majoring in Chemical Engineering on a pre-law tract. He hopes to pursue a career in intellectual property law, specifically as a patent attorney. In the future, Kevin would love to live and work in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Alexandra Chopivsky, Spring 2017 Recipient
University of Washington
Alexandra is a nursing student at the University of Washington. She is interested in educating others about advance care planning and hopes to work in an intensive care unit after graduation.
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Alejandra Elizabeth Granados Sanchez, Spring 2016 Recipient
Digipen Institute of Technology
Alejandra is from Monterrey, Mexico, where she got a technical "bachillerato" as a systems analyst in high school. She will be going to Washington to study an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Game Design in Digipen Institute of Technology. She loves South Korea and Japan; in the future, Alejandra would like to work in Nintendo.
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Marta Faulkner, Honorable Mention Spring 2016
Cornell University
Marta is an incoming freshman at Cornell University, where she'll be studying mathematics and music. Marta plans to go on to become a mathematics professor. She grew up in rural eastern Oregon and spent one year in high school studying abroad in Germany. She has a passion for sharing and gaining knowledge, especially everything having to do with math, physics, and classical music, and spends her free time hiking, reading, and practicing piano and flute.
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Brianna Rose Bradley, Honorable Mention Spring 2016
Ball State University
One day Brianna hopes to use her experiences and education to better the learning of our future generations.
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Rebekah L Ward, Honorable Mention Spring 2016
Valdosta State University
Rebekah will be attending Valdosta State University in August 2016 to pursue a degree in music performance and minor in musical theater. Music is a major part of her life, and her dream is to one day appear on Broadway. She hopes to one day make New York City her home.
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Karin Marshall, Honorable Mention Spring 2016
Karin was born and raised in Alabama by her mother and father, along with three older siblings. She was taught to not confine herself to standards- that she was free to be whatever she should please as long as she puts in the work and the effort. Karin also grew up with interest in the human body, helping people, writing poetry, and anything artistic.
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Nathan Chiu, Honorable Mention Spring 2016
University of Pennsylvania
Nathan is currently a high school senior at Wellesley High School and will be attending the University of Pennsylvania as an economics major in the fall. Nathan strives to make a difference in his community by advocating for mental health awareness and organizing workshops about depression for teens. In college, Nathan will be exploring the intersection of education and entrepreneurship through running startups and conducting research and playing music on the cello, piano, and guitar.
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Adila Wahdat, Fall 2015 Recipient
Eastern Mennonite University
Adila is a sophomore at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) pursuing her undergraduate degree in digital media. She was born in Kabul and grew up as a refugee in Pakistan. Adila came to the United States from Kabul, Afghanistan to attend university and plans to return there after she graduates. Her dream is that within five years of graduating she will be in Afghanistan where she'll work as a professional designer and inspire other young Afghan women.
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Michelle Huang, Honorable Mention Fall 2015
Columbia Univeristy
Michelle Huang is a first year at Columbia University studying Art History and Financial Economics. She is currently a Product Development Associate at Spectator Publishing Company which produces products to streamline Columbia life such as multiple journalism sites, a registration website, a real-time housing lottery website, an app that acts as a digital punchcard for restaurants in the area, an orientation guide, and more.. In her free time, she enjoys ice skating, running, and painting.
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James Warlick, Honorable Mention Fall 2015
Texas A&M Commerce
James Warlick and his wife are both current students attending Texas A&M Commerce. James is studying Computer Science and Mathematics in order to further his career in Information Technology. Outside of school and work, he enjoys sports such as golf and running. Fun fact, James was heavily involved with Business Professionals of America (BPA) program back in high school where he participated in yearly competitions that were held in business-related academic areas. James was able to participate in regional, state, and national conferences.
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Jennifer E Croy, Honorable Mention Fall 2015
Santa Fe College
Jennifer Croy is 17 years old and currently attends Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida. Her major is Health Sciences, and she plans to become a physical therapist. Jennifer enjoys reading, dancing, and playing guitar in her spare time. One of Jennifer's favorite quotes is from Abraham Lincoln, who remarked, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” This quote has inspired Jennifer in her dreams to make a difference in the world.
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