MollyCerroni ✭✭✭

Since we are advised against using branching questions in eligibility quizzes and I need to be able to list and create rules based on categories of majors such as business, health care, etc., I've come up with this list. Agriculture - Animal Science Agriculture - Apiculture Agriculture - Horticulture Agriculture - Plant…

Federal over award law. I have to find the place where it says the school can use professional judgement to work around this. It was buried deep. Here is a link to a school's over award policy that is very well explained and is common: One of the tactics used by the two schools I am personally involved with worked to…

@EllenVietor, I am adding a question that asks for an upload of the FAFSA Submission Summary, then type in the SAI, and type in the Pell Grant. We'll see what that does for us. Hopefully I won't be running through the applications, hiding the question this year because of the FAFSA again! Thank you!

We send families a copy of the paperwork that was sent to the colleges. We'll get a few calls several weeks later from parents who have since called the school, with the school telling them that they hadn't received the check. I check with our accountant who tells me the check has been cashed (every time!) and that's the…

We do have a few students who can't bother to capitalize or use punctuation. A few spell their own names incorrectly. I forward applications on to the reviewers just as they come in. Enough typos are going to work in another student's favor as to winning the scholarship!

I did add that question, but I might need to reword it because I got very general answers. We already ask about jobs in the application. When is your due date? The reason we might be getting too general of an answer from students is that our due date is well before any decision and/or financial aid package is received.…

Thank you! I didn't know there were prizes on top of all the help I get on this site. I am truly grateful, thanks so much! Molly Cerroni Community Foundation of the Northern Alleghenies/Elk County Community Foundation/McKean County Community Foundation

Oh I see it now, after doing a little homework. The Boettcher is a Colorado scholarship. That was my next question, do you consider other "wins" from the area. Thank you!

Deirdre, So helpful, thank you. How is your evaluation season set up? Do you choose, or does a donor choose, the Daniels and Boettcher through your foundation? Is that one chosen first I imagine? Can you let me know about the flow of decision making? Also, do you provide most of the scholarships in your region?

Does anyone truly determine financial need, as in, this list of students has an outstanding balance of some dollars after institutional scholarships, federal/state/institutional financial aid, and guaranteed student loan? Also, do you limit the number of scholarships or the total amount awarded to any one student for the…

We "kind of" do that. Once the word got out that we had SLM and students and parents found out how easy it was to use, we had providers moving their scholarships to our foundation. Even if the provider did not want to start a fund with us, they could still use our system by setting up a pass through scholarship where they…

We do not use the UA. Using the eligibility quiz keeps applicants away from any scholarships they do not qualify for. We do not consider any applications in draft, only ones that were submitted. Any required items were required questions, but I suppose it could happen that an incorrect document was uploaded. I think there…

We have one scholarship that goes to the valedictorian of one specific school. Other than that, no agreement mentions class rank. Transcripts are uploaded for each one, however, and reviewers might be considering it. However, I don't think any reviewer would dock a student because the school no longer recorded class rank.…

I've been meaning to upload my picture, thanks for the reminder.

Do all the applications show the unweighted GPA? If not, students may not know how to calculate. Another explanation that might explain the discrepancy would be a situation in which the transcript was uploaded at a different time than the application was filled out. I spent last fall reading thousands of admissions…

I would participate!

Deirdre, I see in a previous post that your staff determines the points using the rubric, and then that number is delivered to the commitees. How do you use Foundant to do that? I imagine that you keep the questions that you are using visibility on the questions so that the committee does not see them, but where are you…

After dragging my kids through scholarship applications, it became a win just to submit them. We got to the point where we almost didn't care if my student got it or not. Adrenaline, yes probably, but for us maybe it was just relief.

I don't think you're going to be able to count on the SAI if you want the information for all students. For our two college girls, we received one SAI and never received the other, and now the report rescinded the number we had and we have none. I don't anticipate seeing either of them before Friday.

We ask for the EFC/SAI on every application, but leave it up to the donors and/or school reviewers to do with it what they will. They can ignore it, consider it, whatever they want. We have some donors who wanted to know more, so we have a financial question section on some of the apps that ask things like AGI, number of…

We mail payments in July/August. We have a significant amount of summer melt, and delaying the payment saves us a lot of return checks.

We count them the year they were awarded. I suppose to be consistent, organize it the same way you would with a four year scholarship. Do you count a four year as four scholarships, or do you count it all in the year it was awarded? If you are using CSuites it makes more sense to count in the year it was awarded.

I am not sure if it works the same way, but in SLM I open the application on my end and edit the third party request email/compose/send question. I have also use the proxy option. Again, that might not work in grants.

Could you possibly have a situation in which one scholarship was funded by more than one fund? If not, I would just make separate processes for each.

We expect students to apply senior year of high school, as a current college student, or as a non traditional college student. Those that want to take a gap year would apply as seniors and then we'll hold the scholarship for up to a year to accomodate a gap year. GED students that are of high school age would apply as a…

Following. Our ED visits a lot but mostly to present the big check. A follow up visit might be helpful.

@SarahBurzycki, I added this in the discussion thread where the recording of yesterday's webinar is posted. It is a draft at this point but shows how the SAI will be calculated. Maybe reading through it will give you a line item that you can ask for and use in your applications.

I am not sure if you are using the universe or not. We do not, so this could be all wrong if you do! We have a lot of different committees, including high school counselor committees. It's not too difficult, for each process, evaluators are chosen in the set up of the process. We use a two tiered evaluation system, so…

We offer a medical school scholarship that pays about $5,000. I have a separate eligibility quiz (we use SLM) for the graduate level awards. The students submit their transcripts - not sure about the pass/fail because ours have had GPA's on them? Must have a 3.0 in order to qualify. We don't have any med schools near us,…

Would the college point to their refund policy they have in place for tuition that students paid? Usually they have a date by which a student must withdraw to receive 100% refund, 75% refund, 50% refund, and so on. I would imagine they would expect scholarships to follow the timeline as well.