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Emergency scholarship funds
Good morning, Do any of you provide scholarship students with emergency funds (funds for living expenses, emergency school expenses, etc.)? If so, what is your process like? What are the pros and cons of a program like this? Thank you! Robin Cowles Fremont Area Community Foundation, MI
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College Majors in Eligibility Rules
For those who use a Universal Application for scholarships, if you use a dropdown menu listing college majors to determine students' eligibility for certain scholarships, would you be willing to please share the dropdown list of majors you list?
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Demographic questions in scholarship application?
Hi everyone, Do you ask demographic questions as part of your scholarship application? We have not included a demographic section, but starting next year, we plan to add optional questions at the beginning of the application to better understand who is applying and receiving our scholarships. Initially, I planned to use…
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Financial Need vs. Ability to Use a scholarship
Hello, There is much discussion about financial need of a student. We evaluate a student based on a number of input items from the student such as SAI, income, extenuating family circumstances. What I do not see being considered is the ability to use a scholarship. Does anyone determine the amount the student owes - SAI?…
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Navigating Colleges Payments Post Award
Hello everyone, We often get students (or their parents) coming to us to ask what's happening with their scholarships once it has been to sent to a particular school. While I don't mind following up with the school to ensure the funding was received, I often feel like I am being asked to navigate each school's method from…
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Automatic address correction?
So apparently our student scholarship applicants don't know where they live. Is it a street, a road, a boulevard? And nevermind about pesky capitalization. ZIP code? Oh boy! :) Anyone else with SLM suffer through this and know if Foundant has consider that auto address correct function you see elsewhere on the internet,…
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Scholarship Thank You
We require the students to write their "thank you to the donors" on the follow-up form when they claim their scholarship. If they received more than one scholarship, they write one thank you. I attach the letter and email it to the donors/fund advisors. I'm curious on how others handle thank you letters. This is our second…
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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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Student thank you videos - which platforms are you using?
Hi everyone, We have decided not to continue our annual scholarship reception event. Instead, we plan to gather student thank you videos to share with donors individually and the public. We are currently looking at two platforms: Thank View and Memory Fox. Does anyone have experience with either or both and have…
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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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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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Text messaging to students
Hello, I am trying to gather best methods to communicate with students. Email seems to be opened sometimes, but we are finding things going to SPAM, or simply not being read. We are thinking that texting may be the best method. I am wanting any process recommendations for texting to students. (Reminders to complete follow…
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Scholarship for study abroad students not getting applicants
We are struggling to get applicants for a scholarship meant for students who will study in a foreign country for one semester or more. The application is fairly simple, so no roadblocks there. And it doesn't seem to matter what time of year I open or close the application. I've reached out to several global studies…
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How long is your scholarship application open?
For years, our organization's annual scholarship application has opened on January 15 and closed two months later on March 15. We're considering moving up the deadline and having the application open for a shorter period of time, possibly 6 weeks. What are the open & close dates for your scholarship program? What factors…
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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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Do you measure or track scholarship impact? What metrics do you use?
NSPA has some great resources and webinars about metrics to measure scholarship impact. I'm curious if anyone here tracks or measures your scholarship programs. Some metrics I found are Student Persistence year to year, Degree Completion (both on-time and delayed), Debt at Graduation, Scholarship Renewal Rate, Retention…
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Texting students
Good afternoon, I was wondering if any of you use a texting software to stay in contact with scholarship students? If so, what software do you use? Thank you!
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Texting Service to Reach Students
Hi Compass Community! Our foundation is considering purchasing a text service so that we can better reach our students (our student advisory committee keeps stressing that this is better than email). I’m going to start doing some research on what options we have, but does anyone have recommendations for a texting service?…
