Byline: Michael Alison Chandler

Looking for money for college? The Klingon Language Institute has a scholarship for students pursuing language study, earthly or alien; the United States Bowling Congress gives grants to promising young bowlers; and the Ayn Rand Institute rewards essay writers who are adept at deconstructing her novels, such as "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged."

As college tuitions have soared and median household incomes declined, many aspiring college students face a daunting gap. Lacking well-stocked college savings plans or wealthy grandparents, they are turning to a vast and idiosyncratic private industry to help them get to college.

Nearly 2 million undergraduates used $6.2 billion in private scholarships - aside from college athletic scholarships and college grants - to help pay for college in the 2011-2012 school year, according to a federal survey of more than 95,000 students. That was more than twice the amount of such scholarship funding that 1.1 million undergraduates reported using four years earlier.

The increased reliance on scholarships means there are more students for whom college application season blends into an extended, anxious period of essay writing and grant deadlines. It's all done in the hope that financial-aid decisions - which will be mailed during the next few weeks - won't derail plans to attend their dream schools.

But unlike college applications, which require a relatively predictable mix of grades and course work and extracurriculars, what one needs to obtain a scholarship is often far more elusive.

"For some scholarships, you have to be African-American or Indian. . . . For some, you have to write with your left hand," said Vikaya Powell, a senior at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va. "Sometimes, it's just the weirdest stuff."

Powell, 17, amped up her scholarship search last December, after her mother, a single parent, was laid off from her job at a bank. Powell wants to be the first in her immediate family to receive a degree. She has her heart set on Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina.

The out-of-state school is not likely to be Powell's most affordable option. So she spends hours each...