Medicine Hat students can find awards through their school, service clubs, local employers, nearby municipalities and Medicine Hat College. The Medicine Hat directory has the current local listings.
After graduation, the Rutherford
Once enrolled in post-secondary, apply for the Alexander Rutherford Scholarship. It pays up to $2,500 for qualifying high school marks and can be combined with local awards.
The local awards, by who gives them
Your own school
The Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education's Education Foundation funds six named scholarships for its graduating students, including the Archie MacPhail, Chuck Love, Servant Leader, Mickey Lynch, Joseph Stroh and Mook/Giesinger awards. Two of them publish criteria you can read today. Chuck Love pays up to $500 to a Monsignor McCoy student who is active in student council and one other activity, and closes September 15. The Servant Leader award pays up to $500 for two typed essays and a reference, and closes June 15. For the other four the board publishes the name and nothing else, so the amount and the date have to come from your counsellor or from foundation@mhcbe.ab.ca. Ask for the list by name, because some are only advertised on a sheet by the counsellor's door.
Service clubs
The Kin Canada Bursary is worth $1,000 and closes February 1. You apply on Kin Canada's national form and the Medicine Hat club endorses one applicant to send forward, so the first cut is local even though the decision is not. It weighs community involvement and financial need rather than national-level achievement, and you can only win it once.
City, county, and community foundations
If you live in Redcliff, the Redcliff Scholarships for Advanced Education are the largest local awards in the region by a wide margin, with three separate scholarships worth up to $6,000 each, alongside the For Four Friends and David Jon Thomson funds. In 2026 the committee read eleven applications for three awards. Cypress County awards two $1,000 Agricultural Service Board bursaries a year to students going on to an agriculture related program, and the deadline is September 30, later than most awards here. The Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta is often suggested as a source, but it funds charities rather than students and runs no scholarship program.
Employers, co-ops, and local business
South Country Co-op gives $1,000 by July 31 each year, but only if your family holds a membership in good standing and has bought at least $2,000 from the Co-op that fiscal year, so check that before you write the essay. Awards also come from local real estate offices and the firefighters' charitable foundation, which funds one $2,000 scholarship a year, though only for someone already accepted into an accredited fire service program. If you or a parent works somewhere with more than a few dozen employees, ask whether there's a staff-family award.
Medicine Hat College
If you're staying local for school, MHC hands out over $400,000 a year in scholarships and bursaries, and one online form enters you for every award you qualify for. Applications for the next round open March 1, 2027. Some are marked on grades, some on need, so it is worth applying either way. That one form is also how you reach the three Alberta Blue Cross bursaries worth $1,000 each, an entrance bursary, a nursing bursary, and one for students with special needs.
Working the Medicine Hat list
- Filter the directory to Medicine Hat. The region filter in the listings shows the whole local pool at once, with live deadline status. Most local awards run on a spring cycle and reopen every year.
- Build one reusable package. One strong essay and one reference letter cover most local applications with light edits.
- Apply to everything you plausibly qualify for. Local awards draw from a few schools, and three $1,000 wins is a semester's tuition.
Build my combo sorts the whole local list by what you're eligible for.