Students Who Apply for Every Scholarship Without Reading Requirements/Preferences
Hello … we are a Community Foundation that has 30 online scholarship processes. We have a number of students who copy and paste their application into almost all of the available processes without ever looking at the requirements and/or preferences. It is not feasible to go with a Universal Application, as every process has its specific details.
Has anyone else encountered this issue? Does anyone have suggestions on how to convey to students to look at what they're applying for and not just blanket applying?
Thanks in advance!
Deb Clark, Scholarship Administrator
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Hi Deborah,
If you have access to the Eligibility Quiz I would use that to narrow the access to the various applications for the students.
You could also switch up the ways you ask for the criteria. We have some awards that ask for the information in a chart and others that ask for written reflection. We hear complaints that the students are not able to simply copy and paste but many of our scholarship providers are adamant about preserving their application status quo.
For reference we run 55 individual applications. No UA for us either, since we are hosting applications for our local grassroots service groups.
Michelle Collins
Oakville Community Foundation
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Thanks, Michelle, for this advice! I'm going to definitely look into it for the 2027 application period.
Deb Clark
North Dakota Community Foundation
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Hi @DeborahClark - I will echo the use of the Eligibility Quiz, which you can structure to help narrow the results on what processes the students will match to. You will of course need to put the appropriate Eligibility Rules in each of your processes so the quiz functions the best way possible for you. We were previously set up that way, with use of the Eligibility Quiz and 34 possible opportunities. Having the Quiz be the only item visible to the applicant first requires them to complete it in order to return matches. They are then able to then apply for the items they match to. Another way to work through it is to have some of the initial questions in the application help determine whether or not the person is actually eligible and utilize branching questions to open the remainder of the application questions to them (or not) based on the responses. That can also help limit ineligible applicants. (We actually made the shift to the Universal Application just last year with this year being the first time it was live in our portal - I also have some scholarships that have specific criteria, but the way we were able to setup the opportunities and structure the application, we made the transition successfully. Even there, I am going to do a little more with branching questions, and you're also able to set certain items specific to an opportunity, so it only comes available if the student matches to the opportunity.) Your success consultant can be very helpful to you (as well as the support team) - they're more than happy to get things placed in your Sandbox where you can test it out first before moving to your live site. I'm sure you'll be able to find a route that will work best for your process.
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