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AI Generated Responses from Applicants
My organization uses Foundant for Grant, Scholarship, and Assistantship applications. We recently received two applications that were generated by AI (ChatGPT). The prompt to the essay was copied, pasted, and entered into ChatGPT and the response generated was submitted directly to the scholarship application as the…
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Class rank as part of evaluation process
One of our local school districts will be eliminating class rank as part of their student data, and their guidance office reached out to me for some input. We don't use class rank as part of our scholarship evaluation, but I know other organizations may, so I told her I would reach out to other scholarship providers. Their…
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Submitted GPA vs. GPA on the transcript
Hello scholarship administrators. We are struggling with the GPA inputted by students vs. the unweighted GPA on the transcript. Although we specifically ask students to input their unweighted GPA as it reads on their transcript, we have found that often it's not a the same as what's on the transcript...which we discover…
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Scholarships -- Determining Financial Need
Hey everyone! I am building our application with Foundant and using this as an opportunity to re-think some of the questions on our application. Several of our scholarships are based on financial need. Currently, I ask students to list their estimated college expenses, scholarships they have for the upcoming year, and…
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How to handle FAFSA delays in scholarship judging?
Hello, I'm a newer admin and first time post-writer. Our scholarships give consideration to FAFSA results, but this year there are major difficulties for students in completing the FAFSA form. How have you handled this issue? Financial need isn't among our highest priorities, so I'm considering removing the FAFSA questions…
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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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Ranked Choice Scholarship Scoring
Our organization utilizes a ranked scoring system for our Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship Program, and we are struggling to translate that system effectively into the evaluation tools in SLM. For this process, our evaluators are evaluating a pool of 10 finalists (one representing each eligible high school in the…
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Using third party to obtain financial information
Currently on our UA application we ask students to provide their financial information, as reported on their last tax form, either as a dependent reporting their parents information, or as an independent reporting their own financial information. We have been considering using the third party option to have parents…
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Scholarship rubric scales for activities, community service, and work
We are working to update our evaluation questions for our selection committees as they review scholarship applications. We are trying to create a scale to measure the quality of students' extra-curricular activities, community service, and work. We want to offer clear guidance to evaluators for why they should give…
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Scholarship Cycle fundholder recaps
Hi all! Does anyone have a sample scholarship fundholder recap they can share with me? I've just completed my first year managing a scholarship portfolio and I'm now composing a recap to share with our fundholders. I have the basic information covered (number of recipients, how much awarded, # of different schools,…
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Scholarship Evaluation
What does your scholarship evaluation look like? What questions are you asking your committee to score? We currently auto score the GPA and income. We have kind generic scores for activities/employment/community service, and then the essay is weighted pretty heavily. Curious if you are asking any other specific questions…
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Scoring Preferences
Hi everyone! We are doing an audit of all of our scholarships and one question that has come up is what the best practice for scoring preference criteria is. For example, some of our scholarships have a preference for those with financial need or a preference for those that live in a certain area. Currently, we score these…
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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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Using Standardized Test Scores to Evaluate Scholarship Applicants
After making standardized test scores optional on our UA in 2021, we returned to requiring them in 2022. None of our individual scholarship opportunities use test scores for eligibility, but our reviewers have found them helpful in assessing applicants' academics. Given the trend toward colleges/universities not requiring…
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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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Financial Need Scholarships - How to score
Hi! We have a portfolio of 47 scholarships we oversee, and half of them have criteria where the student must demonstrate financial need. We ask them for their household income, number of household dependents, what other financial aid they are receiving, and if there are any extenuating circumstances to their financial…
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Could you share your scholarship evaluation form?
We are starting to work on creating a new evaluation form for scholarship reviews. We want the evaluation to be numerical, but what we have right now is outdated since we no longer ask for SAT/ACT scores, essays, or letters of recommendation. I have attached our current form but would love to see how others set up their…
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Defending your decisions: How to stand up to those who claim you're not granting correctly
I'm curious if any funder has a protocol, practice, or tool to use when a community member says, "Hey, I don't think you're granting the way you should!" We know that not everyone is going to be pleased with your grant award decisions. And many people express disappointment. But every so often someone with privilege and/or…
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Volunteer Evaluators & Student Privacy
Hello everyone - we are looking to update some of our policies for scholarships, and specifically one for our volunteer evaluators that addresses student privacy. Our evaluators access the students applications through SLM, but I do know some of them print the forms out to review. We want to ensure proper destroying of the…
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Asking sensitive questions in a trauma-informed approach
Greetings from Central MA! I'm a scholarship program manager reviewing my foundation's scholarship application and related processes with eye with an equity, inclusion, and sensitivity. A few of our scholarship funds have, for many years, included eligibility criteria related to the death or disability of a parent, or the…
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Scholarship Scoring Rubric
Hello all, Our Foundation is currently looking into restructuring the scoring rubric of our scholarship program to make our application and selection process more equitable. For example, we looking to identify work ethic, leadership, and community service in other ways rather than using GPA and SAT scores. Does anyone have…
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Scholarship Evaluation/Scoring Form for Applicants
Here is the scholarship application scoring/evaluation our selection committee members use to score and determine scholarship recipients for the ThedaCare Family of Foundations.
