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Eligible Organizations for Scholarships
Good Morning, Has anyone had experience issuing a post secondary scholarship to a school that was deemed not an "eligible educational institution" (see below definition from the IRS). We recently came across a scenario where a trade specific school (i.e. Welding, Electrical) said that they cannot accept funds from a…
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Scholarship Deferals
Good Morning, We were recently contacted by a scholarship recipient that her scholarship she was awarded was going to be returned to use from the college unless we provide them a letter stating that the scholarship could be deferred to next school year. This is because of the aid awarded to her by the financial…
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Scholarship Review Process
We have a difficult time recruiting volunteers to sit on the scholarship review committee. At this time, all reviewers score all of the applications (300+). How does anyone split the applications up so each reviewer isn't required to score/read all 300+ applications?
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Staff on Selection Committees
We are having a conversation about including staff members on our scholarship selection committee to review applications and make recipient selections. Are there other community foundations out there that do this? What are the benefits and challenges? Are there any best practice guidelines about this?
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External Scholarship Committees
We are in the process of switching from FIMS to SLM (yeah!!). Our current scholarship system entails a separate committee for each scholarship managed internally. We will be streamlining these to a general committee and some focused on specific fields of interest (i.e. all medical related scholarships will share a…
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Transition To One Scholarship Committee
Hello! We are looking to transition to one committee that reviews all of the scholarship applications. Currently, each scholarship has their own committee. Do you have any tips on how to transition smoothly? How to select the best candidate for the committee? Or how to announce the change to current committee members?
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In relation to scholarships how do you "score" essays and letters of recommendation?
We receive over approximately 500 scholarship applications each year and each application has three letters of recommendations and an essay question that relates to each individual scholarship (we have approx 40 scholarships total). Currently we have a scholarship committee consisting of board members and volunteers that…
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Scholarship "Essay" Questions - Fixed, Choose Your Own, Short, Long?
Hello fellow scholarship providers! I work for the Pedrozzi Foundation and we provide undergraduate, community college, tech/vocational, and grad scholarships to students in Livermore, CA. We are merit based, but award higher dollar amounts to students with financial need. We are always looking to improve our application,…
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Scholarship Evaluations and Committees
We have several committees that review multiple scholarship applications for different scholarships. Many of the applications for the different scholarships are the same students in each group. This year we had one student come out on top for a group of 5 scholarships the committee was evaluating. Does anyone have…
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Congratulations Letter/email
Anyone care to share their congratulations letter? I'm looking for some not just basic ways to say what we have to say. Also, when you award a scholarship, do you send an email or paper letter? We're first timers using SLM this year. Thanks all, Marsha
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Scholarship Evaluator Survey
We have over 100 volunteers serving on our scholarship selection committees and would like to get their feedback on the review process. Has anyone created a survey to collect feedback from scholarship evaluators? If so, would you be willing to share your form/questions? Thank you!
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Scholarship Evaluation Committee Best Practices
I've heard several clients ask some great questions about scholarship evaluation committees over the past few weeks. I'll note my understanding of the Best Practice below, but I welcome other opinions and discussion. Committee Composition for Donor Funded Scholarships: Is it ok for a donor to be the only person selecting…
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Scholarship letters of recommendation
Will your organization or has your organization eliminated letters of recommendation from your scholarship applications? (Unless it's part of the scholarship fund agreement, of course). I'd be interested to know your organization's thoughts about that. Thank you! Lee O'Neil (she/her/hers) Community Foundation of Fayette…
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Using standardized test scores in evaluating scholarship applicants
We have decided to make standardized test scores optional on our scholarship applications this year since some colleges/universities are not requiring them. Our steering committee just met, and many expressed concern that it is unfair to take scores into consideration for candidates if not all of them provided scores. Has…
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Need Based Scholarships for Private School Students
Wondering how other scholarship programs handle the issue of private high school student eligibility for their need-based scholarship opportunities. Currently, out of over 100 locally offered scholarships for graduating high school seniors, none have been created that specifically include private schools. Typically they…
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Adjusting for New (COVID) Scholarship Season
What are your organizations doing to adjust for the upcoming scholarship season? Ours typically "runs" from November 1 through late July. What will you do different because of COVID19? Are you going to shift due dates around? Our deadline was February 15, 2020 which we bumped back a week to account for some non-COVID…
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Scholarship Committee Member Job Description
Here is our job description that we provide our scholarship committee members at the beginning of each scholarship cycle. I have not updated this with the new timeline that we'll be working with COVID-19, but we still intend for them to be able to do their scoring entirely online and not have a need to meet in any way to…
