Introduction

As an institution, I need a place to create, manage, and track scholarships.  This section is designed to act as a hub where a user can add scholarships, edit scholarships, update the status of scholarships, and review archived scholarships.  The CL Admin, School Administrator, and Scholarship Manager will have rights to edit this section.  The Scholarship Viewer role will have read only rights.


Related

In order to build a scholarship, the following sections need to have entries:



Scholarships

The scholarships page contains all of the institutional scholarships built out in ScholarshipUniverse. Scholarships are separated by statuses. 



Scholarship Tabs

Scholarships are filtered into various tabs depending on their status.  Selecting a tab will display all of the scholarships that hold that status.

  • Draft: A scholarship in a Drafted status is one that is being built and not currently active.
  • Active: The Active tab contains scholarships that are Published (but not yet available to apply), Open (open to students to apply), and On Hold (currently paused from taking any more applications). 
  • Review: The Review tab contains scholarships that are Ready to Review (application scholarships ready to be assigned to a review pool) and Reviewing (currently in the process of being reviewed). 
    • If there is no application connected with the scholarship, this status will be skipped and the scholarship will be pushed directly to Award status.
  • Award: A scholarship in an Award status is one that is ready to be awarded or in process of being awarded.
  • Completed: A scholarship in a Completed status is one in which either; all available funds are posted or the scholarship has been manually Completed.
  • Archived: A scholarship in an Archived status is one that has been completed and has been rolled over to a new award year or has been manually retired.


Scholarship Function Icons

Depending on the scholarship status, certain actions are allowed to be performed. 

  • Scholarship Statistics (chart icon):
    • Applications Submitted: Number of applications submitted to the scholarship
    • Application Difficulty: Rates how difficult the application is to complete.
      • Low: 0-19 questions with No documents and now letters of recommendation
      • Medium: 20-39 questions or 1 - 3 documents or no more than one letters of recommendation
      • High: 40+ questions or 4+ documents or 2+ letters of recommendation
    • Matches: Defines how many students have matched with the scholarship's matching criteria
    • Partial Matches: Defines how many students have partially matched with the scholarship's matching criteria. A partial match is defined as a scenario where the scholarship has multiple matching criterion and the student has only matched with one of the criteria and has not given a response to the rest.
    • Pinned: Displays how many students have labeled this scholarship as Pinned (student side).
    • Uninterested: Displays how many student have labeled this scholarship as uninterested (student side).
  • View Scholarship (binoculars icon): Provides a condensed review of the scholarship.  This is the same view that a student would see if they were to view the scholarship.
  • Edit Scholarship (pencil icon):  Enables the user to edit the scholarship.  
    • Note: Fields become restricted from updates in certain statuses.
  • Delete Scholarship (trash can icon): Allows a drafted scholarship to be deleted. If the draft is a rollover from a previous version of a scholarship it will only delete the rollover draft and not affect the prior version.
  • Promote Scholarship (link icon): Allows an institution to generate a QR code and/or short URL that can be sent to students. This will navigate students directly to the scholarship to view.

  • Click the Copy button to copy the QR Code
  • Click the Download button to download a png file of the QR Code
  • Click the Copy iconto copy the short URL code
    • Please note this URL expires after 60 days


Adding a Scholarship: General   

To add a scholarship, click the Add+ button in any status tab to start a draft.  This will open up the Scholarship Builder page.


* Required field to save as a Draft

** Required field to Publish


  • *Name: Select a name for the new scholarship.
  • *Organization/Department: Choose the Organization/Department that the scholarship will be affiliated with.
    • Note: Only users that have rights to the chosen Organization/Department will be able to view/edit this scholarship.
  • **Cycle: Add a cycle to the scholarship to determine the date range for the scholarship to be Active.  The user has an option to add a Cycle on this screen by clicking the Add Cycle button if there is no cycle selected in the text box (this box is hidden when a cycle is selected).

  • Visible Before Cycle: If the Cycle that was selected is in the future, this toggle will be generated. The user has a choice to either have the scholarship visible to the student if they match with the scholarship or to keep it hidden until the cycle opens.  
    • NOTE: If the user chooses Yes and a student matches, the student can only view the scholarship. They cannot apply until the cycle is open.
  • **Application Method: Select an application strategyin which you want to use to gather candidates.
    • No Application - Direct Award: When a scholarship has a Direct Award, any student that Matches with the scholarship requirement(s) is considered a nominee for that scholarship.
    • Internal Application: Selecting this method will require a student that Matches with the scholarship requirement(s) to complete an Application.
    • Internal Application with Continuous Awarding: This method is a hybrid of the two above. While the cycle is open and students are completing the application, institutions can individually award students as needed. Applications can be viewed in the Candidates tab, along with the action of promoting them to receive an award, which can be given in the Awards tab.
  • **Application: If the Application Method selected is Internal Application, the user will be required to select an application to tie to this scholarship.
  • Donor: A donor can be added to the scholarship to display the person or company that is funding the scholarship.     
    • Note:  If a Thank You Letter is required for the scholarship, this field will be required to save as Draft or Publish.
  • *Award Year: Select an Award Year to which the scholarship funds will apply to.
  • **Terms: Select the Terms in which the funds will be awarded.  The user can select multiple terms to split up the awards.
  • Max Applicants: The institution has an option to cap the amount of applicants that have Matched with the scholarship.
  • Acceptance Required: Selecting Yes to this option will require the student to accept the awards if they were selected to receive the scholarship funds. The student will receive an action Item on their site to accept the award. Otherwise, there is not action item for the student to receive the funds. 
  • Acceptance Criteria: This is an optional field to enter information such as Terms & Conditions that will appear to the student if Acceptance Required is enabled. The student may see this criteria in the award acceptance modal at the time of acceptance and can review them for any award posted that has them.
  • Thank You Required: Selecting Yes to this option will require the student to complete a Thank You Letter in order to receive the scholarship funds. The student will receive an action item on their site to complete a Thank You letter.
    • Approval Required: The institution can enforce a Thank You letter approval in order to ensure that the letter is written up to their standard and addresses all of the key points that are desired.
    • Thank You Template: If a Thank You letter is required for the student to complete, the institution will need to select a Thank You letter Template to use as a guide to help the student complete the letter. 
      • Note: This is a required field if a Thank You letter is required.
  • Award Approval Required: This option is dynamic based on whether or not the Allow Award Approvals setting is toggled to YES in the Settings >Basic Settings tab.  Setting this toggle to YES will force and students that are awarded funds to go through the approval process in the Manage Awards tab.
  • Display Contact Info: This field gives the institution the option to display contact information from the Organization, the Donor, or not contact information at all. 
  • Fund Code: Choose a fund code to use to post funds from this scholarship on to the awarded students accounts.
  • Fund Code Alternate(s): This field gives an option to add alternative fund codes to the scholarship.
  • **Total Amount: Enter the total amount of funds to be awarded for this scholarship.
  • Shared Amount:  This is a flag to determine if the scholarship funding is shared with other scholarships.
  • **Max Number of Awards: This field limits the amount of students that will be awarded this scholarship.
  • **Amount Displayed: The text in this field will be shown on the student side when they view the scholarship.  Ideally, this amount should show the Total Amount of the scholarship divided by the Max number of Awards.
  • Renewable to Student: This field will determine whether or not the scholarship will be renewable. (See Renewal section below for more details)
    • **Max Renewals: This field will determine the maximum amount of renewals that this scholarship will generate.
    • **Renewal Criteria: This field gives the user an opportunity to provide the requirements to which the student will receive the renewed awards.  This is an internal display only.
  • Notify of Award Loss: This field will determine whether or not the scholarship will give the user the option to notify the students that applied for the scholarship but were not awarded.
  • **Description: The text in this box will be displayed on the Student side when reviewing the Scholarship.
  • Awarding: This field gives the user an opportunity to add any notes or instructions directed towards awarding.  This is an internal display only.
  • Student Award Notification: This field gives the user an opportunity to add any notes or instructions directed towards award notifications.  This is an internal display only. 
  • Donor Specification: This field gives the user an opportunity to provide specific criteria that the Donor is looking for in an Applicant. This is an internal display only. 
  • Internal Comments: This field gives the user an opportunity to add any additional comments or notes. 
  • Index Tags: In this field the user can type in key words that will assist the student if they attempt to search for a specific scholarship.  The search engine will search scholarship names and index tags to locate the desired scholarship.
  •  Check-Back Date: The user can use this field to set reminders to review the scholarship to decide on Rollovers, Archiving, or an other updates needed.


*** Once this page is completed, click the Save Draft button to move on to the next required section.



Scholarship Audit History

Located at the bottom of the General tab is the scholarship's Audit History. This contains a record for every instance a scholarship was saved. Each record has a drill down to include each field that has been updated, displaying the previous and updated value(s), the user that made the change, and the date and time of the change. The Audit History is located on the bottom left corner of the scholarship page, under the General tab. Please note this also includes updates to the status of the scholarship. If the record's user appears as "System", this is generally associated to changes in statuses (such as a cycle deadline ending and the scholarship moving to ready to review status), or new/updates generated from the scholarship import process.




Adding a Scholarship: Matching

After completing the General section, continue to the Matching section to help determine which students should qualify for this scholarship.


  • Matching Question Groups:  This section is designed to define the requirements of the scholarship.  Here, the user can add questions for the student to answer and choose which answers are acceptable for them to match with the scholarship.  
    • Click the Copy Requirements button to load existing matching requirements from another scholarship.
      • Please note that this button is only enabled if there are no matching requirement groups found for the scholarship. This feature is not to add onto what currently exists for the scholarship - all matching groups must be removed before this is enabled again.

  • You must enter at least four characters to begin searching for a scholarship to copy requirements from. You may search from scholarships in any status except Archived, Pending Auto-Match, and Processing Auto-Match.
  • If the scholarship selected is found in more than one cycle (meaning it has been rolled over), then you must select which version/cycle of the scholarship you want to pull matching requirements from. If only one cycle is found, it will be auto-selected.

  • Click the Add Group button to start adding questions to the scholarship.
    • Click the link to add a question.
    • Once the Question Search modal populates, use the search box to key in specific words to locate the desired question.  This field also has a drop down feature to scroll through the existing question list.
    • The user has an option to Include Answers in their search by using the toggle button.  Pushing this selection to Yes will enhance the Question Search field to look for the answers to the questions as well as the actual questions.
    • If the user can't find their desired question, they have an option to create their own question by clicking the Can't Find My Question link.  This like will bring them to the Question Builder page.
    • Once a question is selected, the user will need to define the matching requirements.  Each question will have it's own set of requirements to choose from.
  • The user can add multiple questions to help find the perfect fit for the scholarship.
    1. Click the link to copy the set of questions. This is helpful when there are a few different requirements that have similar questions.
      • Note: Multiple groups will create an OR statement where the student can match with the answers in one group OR the answers with another.


  • Click the link to delete the set of questions.
    • Click Save to save the changes from this page or Cancel to remove changes.


Notes for Direct Award Scholarships: For Direct Award scholarships (where Application Method = No Application - Direct Award), there are specific features on the Matching tab that are only available for this Application Method.


  • If the scholarship is currently in Awarding status, saving changes to the matching requirements will force the Re-Run Auto-Match process to start to ensure the candidate of matching students is up to date. If the scholarship is not in award status, Re-Run Auto-Match will not have to start since there should not be a roster of students available yet.
  • Users have the choice to have requirements evaluated against the scholarship award year SIS data. This will only review questions that have been mapped to SIS data - any question not mapped will default to using the match answer provided by the student.

 

  • If the scholarship is set to use SIS data for auto-matching, the system will review each mapped question to see if a student has SIS data for that question for the scholarship award year
    • If a student has a value for that award year, it will be evaluated
    • Else the student does not have a value for that award year and will check for a match answer (provided by the student or SIS auto-answer)
      • If the student has a match answer for the question, it will be evaluated
      • Else the student does not have a match answer and cannot be matched to the requirement group
  • Else the scholarship is not set to use SIS data for auto-matching and the system will review all questions based on the match answer (provided by the student or SIS auto-answer) 
    • If the student has a match answer for the question, it will be evaluated
    • Else the student does not have a match answer and cannot be matched to the requirement group


  • Eligibility: This section is designed to explain to the student what the eligibility requirements are.  This is visible on the student side when reviewing the scholarship. 


NOTE: The user has an option to leave out or remove Matching Questions from the scholarship.  Scholarships that do not have any Matching Questions will be open to all students. When clicking the Publish button, the user will see this alert.



Match Simulation and Outreach

Once at least one match group with a requirement has been added to a scholarship, users have the ability to run a match simulation to see how many students currently match to the scholarship. To go even further, users can send out personalized outreach messages for scholarships that will be sent to students who match and have not applied to the scholarship yet to help drive application volume.


  • Click the Run Simulation button to generate a complete list of students who currently match to the scholarship


A modal will appear with the results of all students who currently match to the scholarship. The list includes the student's name, ID, and email address. This function works in parallel to the Match Explorer.


An additional feature is available for users to be able to send outreaches to students, but must meet the following requirements:

  • must be an application scholarship (where Application Method = Internal Application or Internal Application with Continuous Awarding)
  • scholarship must be in Open status
  • results must be <= 1000 students (if more than 1000 students, this feature is not available)


  • click the Send Outreach button to open the Send Outreach modal


The Send Outreach modal will contain a count of the number of students that match to the scholarship. Users can enter a unique subject and message to be sent out, with specific merge fields that can be added to the body.


  • enter a Subject line
  • enter a message into the Body
  • click the Send button to send out the communication


Once the communication has been sent, ScholarshipUniverse will only send out the communication to matching students who have not already submitted an application for the scholarship. Students who have already applied will be ignored since they do not need to be reminded to apply. Students will be bcc'ed on the communication and the user sending the communication will receive a copy in their email.


  • Please note: For communications using the merge field's {{Student First Name}} and {{Student Last Name}}, the user's copy will display the merge fields like that, but student's will correctly have their names inserted in the fields.



Matching Question Audit History

Located in the bottom left corner of the Matching Question Groups section is the Audit History for matching requirements, displaying a record for every instance a question has been added, edited, or removed from the matching requirements. Each record displays a question, the action taken (add/edit/removed), the group it is found under, the user that made the change, and the date and time of the change. Each record also includes a drill down of the operator and value(s) effected, or in the case of being edited, displays a comparison of the previous value(s) to the updated value(s). 




Candidates Tab

See Candidates page.


History Tab

The History tab will only present itself after a scholarship has been rolled over.  At that point, the system will present the user with a grid that will include all previous versions of the scholarship as well as the current version.  This page breaks down a few key components of each scholarship version:

  • Created: Displays the date in which the scholarship was created.
  • Award Year: Displays the Award Year tied to the scholarship.
  • Application: Displays the name of the application that was tied to the scholarship.
  • Applicants: Displays the total number of students that applied to that scholarship version.
  • Awards: Displays the number of students that were awarded for that scholarship version.
  • Awarded Amount: Displays the total amount of funds awarded for that scholarship version.
  • View: Clicking the view iconwill bring the user to a previous version of a scholarship to review.  This screen will be view only.

*Note: The last row in this grid will always reflect the current scholarship that the user is editing.





Renewal


When a scholarship has been designed to rollover year after year, the Scholarship Manager has an option to renew applicants that have been funded for a specific amount of years.  This means that each student that is awarded the scholarship will be automatically awarded the funding for the following cycle until they have hit the maximum renewal for that scholarship.  This selection is made in the General tab where the Scholarship Manager can determine if the scholarship will be renewable to a student and times.  


Renewal process:

  • Build a scholarship that is renewable to the students.
  • Open the cycle to collect applicants for the scholarship.
  • Go through the Review and Awarding process and post the funds on the awarded students accounts.
  • As the scholarship is in a completed status, rollover the scholarship.
  • Once the scholarship is rolled over, and is in a Draft status, the Scholarship Manager can choose to keep all students for the next award cycle or remove students by moving the Renew button to No.  Changing this selection will populate a confirmation modal for the user to complete. In addition, this will free up funds for the scholarship.


  •  The Scholarship Manager can reduce the amount of renewals that a student can receive by selecting a different round of renewal for the student to be placed in.  Since the scholarship is attached to a new cycle the selected round will reflect the next round the student will be entering.  For example, if the student is entering their first renewal and the Scholarship Manager decides that they can only receive one more award, the user will select the final renewal period in the drop down and that student will be placed in that renewal period.  Once that cycle closes, they will be removed from the renewal list.


  • As renewals expire for students, funds will open up for that scholarship which could mean that more applicants can be accepted for the scholarship.  If a new applicant is selected and awarded they will adopt the renewal amount of that scholarship starting from the first renewal. 
  • Reviewing the grid:
    • The Scholarship Manager has tools on this page to determine if they want to continue renewing the scholarship for the student.  They can add columns to this grid to help evaluate the students by clicking the add column button at the top of the grid.
      • Question:  The user can choose a question that the student would have answered to see what their response was (EX. What was your cumulative GPA).  Then they can choose the best candidates to renew if the scholarship needs to be reevaluated.
      • SIS: The user can choose a data field from the Student Information System (SIS) to evaluate the awarded students to see if they still meet the criteria to be renewed for the scholarship (EX. EFC must be lower than XX).
    • The Scholarship Manager can export this grid by clicking the export button at the top of the grid. This will create an excel document with all of the data fields and data in the grid.


  • Name: The name of the student that is being renewed.

  • Projected Amount: The amount that the student is projected to receive during the next award.

  • Total Previously Awarded: The total amount of funds that the student has received from this scholarship to date.

  • Renew: A trigger to inhibit the student from receiving future awards.  If set to Yes, the student is eligible.  If set to No, the student is not eligible.

  • Renewal: This field determines how many renewals that the student has had and can be adjusted to reduce the amount of renewals that the student will have in the future.


Awards Tab

See Awards page.


Scholarship Status

As scholarships hit different stages in it's progression, they change status and adopt new functionalities in order to navigate them through the process.

  • Published: A published scholarship is a scholarship that is linked to a future cycle.  The scholarship will be pushed to open upon the cycle open date.



  • Open: Once a scholarships cycle becomes current, that scholarship adopts and Open status.  At this point, students can match and apply to this scholarship by running through a list of questions on their Scholarship Universe page.  


  • Pending Auto-Match: When a Direct Award scholarship gets published, the status of that scholarship gets updated to Pending Auto-Match.  At this time, a background function is running to grab all of the candidates that have matching answers to the scholarships matching criteria.  For more information on this, see Application VS Direct Award.

  • Ready for Review:  After the cycle has been closed, the scholarships attached to that cycle will be pushed to Ready for Review.  At this point the user can navigate to the review tab and open a review pool to examine the candidates.  Note: If the scholarship has no application, it will skip this stage.
    • Start Awarding: Clicking this button will skip the review process and push the scholarship to an Awarding status.
    • Complete: Clicking this button will skip the review process and awarding process and close the scholarship.  Funds can still be awarded for a completed scholarship if all of the funds have not been allocated.



  • Reviewing: Once a review pool has been opened for a scholarship, it will be pushed to a Reviewing status.  While in this status, some functionality is removed to prevent any disruptions from the review process.



  • Awarding: This status is achieved by completing the review process or choosing to click the Start Awarding button in the Ready to Review status.  At this stage the user will open up an award view in the Award tab and start awarding students.
    • Complete: Clicking this button will complete the scholarship.  Funds can still be awarded for a completed scholarship if all of the funds have not been allocated.



  • Completed/Awarded: Once all funds have been posted or the user clicked the Complete button, the scholarship will be completed. At this point, the scholarship manager will decide to reuse the scholarship for another award year or retire the scholarship.
    • Rollover: Clicking this button will populate a confirmation modal then direct the user to the new version of this scholarship.  Information on Rollovers.
    • Archive: Clicking this button will push the scholarship to the Archived tab where it will remain until it is reactivated.




  • On Hold: When an institution wants to place an Open scholarship on hold to make time to update the requirements or postpone additional applications, they can choose to click the Hold button.
    • While a scholarship is on hold, the student will not have the ability to view the scholarship but they can match with it.  Once the scholarship opens back up, they will be able to view and apply to the scholarship.
    • Select the Release button to reopen the scholarship.




Troubleshooting and FAQs


Renewable to Student Toggle is Locked. See article How can I change whether a scholarship is renewable?