Tracking Students Throughout the Scholarship Season Amy Ronnkvist & Callie Hartmann February 23, 2017

Format for Webinar All phones will be muted If you have a question, please click the Q & A button in the top right corner of your WebEx screen. A text box will appear in the lower right corner and you may type your question there. Then select Amy Ronnkvist and click send. We will answer as many questions as possible and follow up on any unanswered questions after the webinar

Agenda We will address: How students match to scholarships Using reports to track students and email How to edit a stock report How to address incomplete applications after scholarships have closed

Why isn’t a Student Matching to A Scholarship? Why aren’t my students matching to a scholarship? Is the scholarship open and active? Did the student click search button for scholarship? Does student meet all of the standard eligibility restrictions you set-up? Does student meet all custom affiliate level or scholarship level eligibility questions you set-up? -The most common reason students don’t match to a scholarship is that the student never clicked the Search for Scholarship Button -The second most common reason is that the student either didn’t complete a field required for an eligibility restriction or their answer disqualified them from eligibility. Remember that all fields under standard eligibility restrictions must match in order for a student to match.

Student Versus Applicant A student becomes an applicant once they have searched and matched to at least one scholarship within the current scholarship season for your affiliate. There are reports for tracking both students and applicants.

Tracking Students During Application Period This is a crucial part of making your season go smoothly. You can run a stock report found in “Reports In My Library” to see what a student’s status is and send them emails to remind them. Also, make sure students are matching to and applying for scholarships during the application season. We have updated all of the reports listed under Reports in My Library. You will note that the reports are organized by who the report is about and the descriptions list how the report is filtered.

Helpful Stock Reports Students: 2017 graduates with no matched scholarships This report will display all students graduating in 2017 that have not matched to any scholarships yet Applicant Status: Applicants with unsubmitted scholarships This report will identify all 2017 applicants who have any unsubmitted scholarship applications

Helpful Stock Reports Applicant Status: Requested Info Status This report will display the status for Parental Consent, Financial Information, Reference, and Transcript for all 2017 applicants Scholarship status: Scholarships with 0 (zero) applicants This report will identify all 2017 scholarships that have zero matched applicants. If you have any scholarships with zero applicants, you will want to review the standard restrictions and custom eligibility questions for those scholarships. This last report is useful, because it often suggests your requirements are too restrictive or there may be an issue if you have no applicants in a given season; especially if you know students have successfully matched to and applied to other scholarships.

How to Edit a Stock Report Run the Report Click Copy Report in top, left corner to copy into “My Saved Reports” Edit Report; Number 2 “Fields” and Number 3 “Filters” are the most common changes Save Report; Edit Title and description and click “Overwrite Previous Report”

Emailing Students From ChapterNet If you run a report for students or applicants that has an email field, you will see the option to either “Email” or “Email and Track Students” When you use this feature, the email goes to ALL students/applicants listed on the report. Note that any replies to the email will go to the email address of the person who is signed into ChapterNet. You can view emails that have gone out under Sent Emails. Email and Track Students allows you to see who you sent the email to under Sent Emails. If you decide to CC another board member, the cc is actually a BCC (blind copy) which means that the email recipient will not be able to see the name or email of address of anyone who was cc’d.

Addressing Incomplete Applications As most of you have experienced, every scholarship year there will be a few students who didn’t follow directions or complete the application process. The question is what do you do about these? We will offer some things to think about and address some options for how you might deal with incomplete applications. Remember that as a starting point, you should always check your Awards Policy to see if your affiliate has any specific ways that it handles incomplete applications.

Considerations What is your affiliate policy or practice around students who don’t finish the application process? Did you clearly communicate to the student what was required via instructions and/or training? Did you send reminders to students?

Considerations If students were given clear guidelines, then it is perfectly acceptable to disqualify them from any or all scholarship pools. Remember that as students move into their post-secondary education, deadlines and following instructions will be a key part of their success. The bottom line is you must have a practice that is fair to all students. Ask your board: is it fair to the students who took all of the correct steps, including customizations, to pull in a student who didn’t put in the work? If you are willing to pull in students who didn’t complete a custom eligibility question, custom question or additional reference, you are essentially saying the customization didn’t matter and you made all of the other students do a lot of extra work.

Pulling Students into a Scholarship Pool Verify Eligibility Button Will only show if your scholarship has NO customizations Submit All Apps Button Submit App Button Will only show for applicants that are eligible to be submitted There are three key buttons you will see when viewing a scholarship’s applicant tab. Verify Eligibility: when you click this button, the system will scan all students, check their eligibility based on standard restrictions and, if the are eligible students, will pull them into the scholarship pool Submit All Apps: when you click this button, it will submit the applications for all of the students who have an active “Submit App” button Submit App: when you click this button, it will submit that student’s application for this scholarship

Common Issues After Scholarships Close A student did not submit to any scholarships in a season; thus they aren’t listed under applicants Options: Disqualify them from all scholarships since student didn’t finish the process. Affiliate can submit student to a scholarship pool after the fact as long as the scholarship did not have any custom eligibility questions, custom questions or additional references. This is done by first clicking “verify eligibility” and then submitting for the student. Option 1: Disqualify them from the all scholarships since student didn’t finish the process. For this option, the affiliate does not need to do any additional steps, since the student would not show up in any scholarship applicant pool. Option 2: Affiliate can submit student to a scholarship pool after the fact as long as the scholarship did not have any custom eligibility questions, custom questions, or additional references. This is done by first clicking “verify eligibility” and then submitting for the student.

Common Issues After Scholarships Close An applicant did not click the Apply Button for all scholarships Options: Remove them from the scholarship pool for which they did not apply and they won’t be in consideration. Affiliate can submit a student into a scholarship pool after the fact as long as the scholarship did not have any custom eligibility, custom questions or additional references. Option 1: Remove the applicant from the scholarship pool for which they did not apply and they won’t be in consideration. This is done by viewing a scholarship, then clicking the on the applicant tab in that scholarship. Then find the name of the student and click “delete”; This will remove the student from the scholarship pool. VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: if the student has only matched to the scholarship pool you are looking at (that is, they are not an applicant for any other scholarships), when you click “delete” it will remove the student from “APPLICANTS” on dark blue, left menu, and you can only view the student under “STUDENTS” on dark blue, left menu. Option 2: Affiliate can submit a student into a scholarship pool after the fact as long as the scholarship did not have any custom eligibility questions, custom questions or additional references.

Common Issues After Scholarships Close Applicants did not complete all parts of the profile and scholarship requirements before they clicked “Apply” and scholarship is now closed. Options: Allow applicant to stay in pool, but they will receive zero points when scored for parts they didn’t complete Remove incomplete applications from the scholarship pool Give students a final chance to complete the missing part by extending your deadline for all students; make sure students know what they have to do

Common Issues After Scholarships Close Scholarship has customizations and you need to pull students into a scholarship pool. Options: You can re-open the scholarship to give all students more time to complete the application process. Or as an absolute last resort, you can bypass the customizations on the awards review page IF the student is already an applicant for another scholarship pool** **Here again the question is if you are willing to bypass all customizations, why do you need the customization in the first place? And is it fair to those students who completed the information?

Common Issues After Scholarships Close Affiliate has an additional scholarship or a scholarship that wasn’t active or open during the application process. Options: If the scholarship has no customizations, you can pull applicants into the pool based on standard eligibility restrictions using verify eligibility button. Then you can click the Submit App button for the applicants. Set-up scholarship and then email students to let them know an additional scholarship is available and the deadline. This is what you will need to do if the scholarship has customizations.

Questions

Affiliate Resource Center Contains a range of resources and trainings to assist you throughout the scholarship season.

Always Remember To contact our Support Team Call 877-900-8201, click grey support button or email: dollarsforscholars@scholarshipamerica.org Questions are answered: Monday to Friday from 8am to 5pm. *In Feb, March and April , the fastest way to get assistance is to click the grey support button You can even schedule a custom webinar training designed just for your affiliate!