I've been doing interviews for the book and yesterday I spoke to Mr. Ladd from scholarships.com. 

His advice, which matches the advice from EVERY person I've interviewed, is to start your scholarship search immediately in your senior year.  One student even suggested starting in the summer between your junior and senior year.

Why is everyone so adamant about this?

Understanding how money flows throughout the school year will help you understand the urgency in searching for scholarships.  First, scholarships are offered throughout the year but most deadlines occur between Feburary - April of your senior year.  Financial aid application deadlines are sometimes March 1st or March 15th at colleges and universities.  During that time, everyone who wants to go to college is focused on the same task:  finding the money.  Scholarship sponsors, guidance counselors, parents and students alike, all want to wrap this up before the school year is over so everyone knows how much money is available and going to be awarded for fall.

What if you began in September or October?  You would uncover scholarships months before the frenzy begins.  Your attention in these early months would pay off.  It is very disheartening to look for scholarships in January and February only to realize that the "perfect" scholarship for you had a deadline of October 15th.  By starting early you can also build a calendar with future deadlines so you will know long before planning Spring Break just when the best scholarships are due.

Some of the larger, national scholarships use fall deadlines because it takes them awhile to process the tens of thousands of applications they receive. They need the lead time to make sure that students are awarded the money 10 months later when they start college.

My advice for beating the competition is to start early.  Like yesterday.

Good luck!