Scholarship Awarding Policy (USU Policy 4201)

Some gift agreements indicated students should selected if they have 'advanced standing'. To bring consistency and provide more clarity, the Central Scholarship Committee has approved the following criteria to be used in defining 'advanced standing':

• Formal acceptance/admission into a major/program OR
• Junior or Senior status for undergraduates OR
• Earned credits (allowing department to set threshold of number of earned hours)

Enrolled International students on a F-Visa and J-Visa will be provided a USU unmet need, allowing them to filter into institutional endowment applications. This will open the door to allow international students the ability to be considered for institution endowments (as long as all donor requirements are met). The unmet need is a tool to help building the USU Need Index. This Need Index (not the actual unmet need amount) will be available in ScholarshipUniverse to help in the scholarship matching, selection, and awarding process. For 24-25 and 25-26, we will use the average Utah resident unmet need: $3,916. 

To increase efficiencies, and to allow for a ‘check and balance’ with scholarships being created in ScholarshipUniverse, the Central Scholarship Committee has approved a procedural adjustment. University Advancement will begin to receive requests to create awards in ScholarshipUniverse, as well as to edit exists awards already built in the system.

New endowed scholarship gift agreement criteria will be collected in the ServiceNow Scholarship Fund Code Request. Exisiting awards already built in ScholarshipUniverse can be edited/updated by submitted a newly created ServiceNow ScholarshipUniverse Update Request form. The requesting college/units/department will add their ‘matching criteria’ to the Scholarship Fund Code request and University Advancement will compare that requested info to the newly signed gift agreement to ensure the department, University Advancement, and donor intent are aligned. Same process will occur with any requests for updates to awards already built in ScholarshipUniverse.   

 

This change will permit a consistent approach to award implementation and allow University Advancement to be the decision maker when adjusting criteria to ensure that scholarships follow gift agreement criteria and donor intent.  

The Central Scholarship Committee has approved a new process for selection committees to implement when considering ‘Academic Achievement’ in the review/selection process.

When a gift agreement refers to ‘Academic Achievement’ as criterion to be used in the selection/awarding process, the Central Scholarship Committee has approved the use of ‘GPA’ to determine academic achievement. The Central Scholarship Committee is not establishing the threshold or a specific GPA score to be used. But rather, the approval is that a GPA (from the list below) should be used and that essays should not be used to determine criterion related to ‘academic achievement’. Using GPA will increase efficiencies in the review process and allow the utilization of the Smart Rank feature. The use of essays to determine academic achievement should be discontinued and committees should implement the utilization of GPA for determining academic achievement. 

Within ScholarshipUniverse, we currently pull a variety of GPA options. Here is a description of the GPA(s) that are available in ScholarshipUniverse that a selection committee should use in the reviewing/selection process (to evaluate ‘academic achievement’):

• USU GPA - earned taking classes at USU
• TRSF GPA - earned elsewhere, transferred in
• Overall GPA - combined USU and Transfer
• Most Recent GPA – this GPA is determined based upon the following order/hierarchy: (1) HS GPA when admit code is one of these 'FG','NF','IF','IN', (2) Institutional GPA, (3) Overall GPA, (4) Transfer GPA, or (5) HS GPA
• HS GPA - HS GPA on record, typically from their application to USU, so it may not reflect the final HS GPA w/their final term in HS.
• Term GPA - USU GPA earned in the previous term

The Central Scholarship Committee has approved a new 'tie breaker' procedure to be implemented for 23-24 awarding.

In the situation where two (or more) students are 'equal' candidates and a committee has to make a decision on who to select, USU has implemented a new USU Tie Breaker Index. This process will create a 5.000-0.0 tie breaker index to determine the recipient of a scholarship when a virtual 'tie' presents itself. The tie breaker that is approved will look at all scholarships and other resources a student has received and will award a higher tie breaker index score for the student with the fewest scholarships and resources.

The USU Tie Breaker index is available in ScholarshipUniverse and can be used in the selection processes, as needed.

 

ScholarshipUniverse is the approved system to administer the application, matching, review, awarding and approving of institutional scholarships (primarily endowments).

ServiceNow may also be used for posting scholarships and awards to Banner

Any other system used for application, matching, review, awarding and posting of funds must be submitted to the Central Scholarship Committee for review and approval.

Students must receive an award notification from the awarding unit that includes details pertaining to the award, such as:

1. Student name
2. Anumber
3. Title of Scholarship
4. Awarding period (specifying the semester)
5. Value of award per semester
6. Whether award can be deferred/held
7. Criteria, Credit and GPA requirements
8. Notification of acceptance deadline and failure to accept by deadline will result in nullification of offer
9. What the scholarship can be applied to, such as: tuition, fees, tuition & fees, resident portion of nonresident tuition, housing, books, meals, insurance, etc.
10. Reminder that the student is responsible for ensuring their account is paid in full by the posted fee-payment deadline, and that unpaid charges may result in loss of classes.
11. Specifying whether “Thank You” letters are required before disbursement.
12. Statement that Federal financial aid (student loans, SEOG, work-study) may be reduced or canceled if scholarship funds received exceed your unmet need or financial aid budget.

• Citizenship
• Race/Color
• Ethnicity
• Religion
• Gender
• National Origin
• Sexual Orientation
• Disability
• Age

 

The FAFSA is the approved mechanism to determine Financial Need. If an awarding unit/college desires to use another method, they must meet with the Central Scholarship Committee to present the information and seek approval. 

Awarding units must publish on a website details related to deadlines, appeal processes, and point of contact for student inquiries. Internally, awarding units must store any award letters, committee decisions, exception approvals, procedures, data, etc within Box if the data is not currently stored within an approved scholarship awarding platform.