November is National Scholarship Month, a month all about highlighting the important role of communities, organizations, and businesses in the scholarship industry that are helping to improve educational opportunities and educational achievement around the world. This felt like the perfect time to introduce the newest member of the CampusLogic family, Ken Downs.
Deepening Our Scholarship Expertise: Ken Downs
Ken’s background includes time spent as a scholarship counselor and financial aid administrator at the University of Arizona, where he was instrumental in the conceptualization and development of the early iteration of Scholarship Universe. A true scholarship advocate, Ken regularly writes on scholarship topics ranging from student-first scholarship management to how to keep scholarship donors happy and offered tips for a host of other scholarship best practices.
Your Scholarship Office’s Calendar
If you’ve been wondering what's been keeping your scholarship team so busy in May, or December, we’ve got you covered. Every year, CampusLogic creates a large-format wall calendar that we send out to all our #awesome customers. This year, that calendar will include some new key dates all related to scholarship management. “Scholarship dates can be highly variable depending on the school, department and individual scholarship,” reminds Ken. “But if your institution follows a more traditional scholarship season of applications opening in the spring and selections being made for the following academic year, the below dates should be on your radar.”
January 15 – Open scholarship applications
February 30 – Finalize assembling scholarship review committees
March 30 – Close scholarship applications and start reviewing applicants
April 30 – Finalize scholarship applicant reviews
May 30 – Finalize awarding and notifying selected scholarship recipients
June 30 – Collect scholarship thank you letters and award acceptance confirmations
July 1 – Start awarding external scholarship checks for the coming academic year
July 30 – Send student thank you letters to scholarship donors
August 15 – Disburse fall scholarship funds to students along with other financial aid
September 15 – Begin reviewing scholarship specifications for difficult to award scholarships
October 15 – Modify difficult to award specifications with donors if possible to ensure future fund utilization
November 15 – Review scholarships and applications for modifications needed for next cycle
December 15 – Finalize rollover of scholarships and applications so they can open timely in January
Scholarships: Key to Many Educational Dreams
Throughout the month we’ll be sharing new resources aimed at helping you streamline the scholarship process for students, make managing everything in your office simpler, and develop a student-first approach that puts each and every student in charge of their scholarship journey. If you’d like to get on the wait list for a 2019 key dates calendar, just let us know!
Learn About ScholarshipUniverse >
About the Author
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