USU adjusts scholarship process
Utah State University has adjusted the way students can apply for scholarships on AwardSpring.
Scholarship Office Director Craig Whyte explained how the process has changed.
“USU has partnered with AwardSpring to help manage the application process for a variety of University scholarships,” he said. “AwardSpring is not new and has been utilized on campus for many years.”
Last year, there were some issues with applying to scholarships that left many students unsatisfied with the process. This even caused some university departments to revert to accepting only paper applications as a result.
The Scholarship Office made changes to the system to fix the problems and improve the process.
“We’re always looking for ways to improve,” Whyte said. “Technology changes so quickly and this year, a lot of work went into refining our processes to ensure students had an easier and more accurate way to apply for scholarships.”
This year, USU began importing Banner data into AwardSpring to pre-populate a lot of student information, so students can go through the application process faster and easier.
“We worked closely with AwardSpring to make some improvements to the application,” he said. “There has been a lot of collaboration across campus to work with departments and colleges to ensure scholarships are accurately described and to help students find scholarships more easily. Perhaps one of the great enhancements this is year is our ability to pull student information directly from Banner, thus reducing the need for students to submit their information over and over again.”
Students can easily see what scholarships they apply for by answering a few simple questions. After applying for one scholarship, AwardSpring will save some of the responses and automatically fill out parts of other scholarships.
“We are trying to increase awareness and access,” Whyte said. “With over 900 scholarships in AwardSpring, students can submit one application and then quickly see what scholarships they are eligible to apply for. Often, students don’t know where to look for financial assistance. Our hope is that AwardSpring will address that issue and provide more access to scholarships.”
Whyte said the process could still be subject to change to better help students apply.
“Every year, we evaluate how things went and after discussing ways for improvements with colleagues across campus, we determine the best way to move forward,” Whyte said. “Often, that includes small changes to ensure students are having the best experience possible. Our number one priority is to assist students, so we do our best to view our processes from a student’s perspective.”