LESSON OUTLINE



INTRODUCTION

In this lesson we will be covering definitions, guidelines, and protocols to help committees manage and process merit-based scholarships.


As per normal, you will be required to take a short quiz at the end of this lesson.



MERIT-BASED SCHOLARSHIPS

By way of reminder, and as mentioned in lesson one, there are two key reasons why scholarships are provided. The first reason is to provide financial support for struggling families, and the second reason is to recognize and reward students for excellence.


This lesson will focus on scholarships aimed at rewarding students for excellence. To make it simple, we will refer to these scholarships as Merit-Based Scholarships.



SCHOLARSHIP FUND ALLOCATION

As mentioned in lesson three, scholarship policy dictates that Merit-Based Scholarships can account for 30% of the total allocation of scholarship funds. The remaining 70% of funds are allocated to Needs-Based Scholarships (60%) and Scholarship Reserves (10%).


Using the 30% budget allowance for merit-based scholarships, the committee will need to decide what types of merit-based scholarships will be provided to recognize and award students for their efforts.



MERIT-BASED SCHOLARSHIP CATEGORIES

There is a great amount of flexibility for Merit-Based Scholarships. These scholarships are not limited to a student's grades, but also consider factors such as leadership, sporting, or artistic achievements. There are many potential categories for merit-based scholarships, but key categories may include:

  • Academic Scholarships
  • TVET Scholarships
  • Athletic Scholarships
  • Creative Scholarships
  • Leadership & Service Scholarships
  • Special Scholarships



DEFINING AND AWARDING EXCELLENCE

Although "excellence" is often associated with the top-performing students, committees can also provide opportunities and awards for students that demonstrate excellence in other ways. For example, as well as highlighting the work of top-performing students, there may also be good reason to highlight the “most-improved” students or celebrate other “special mentions” from less-recognized students as well.


Please keep these ideas in mind as a possibilities when creating and defining merit-based scholarship awards.


Also keep in mind the idea that rewards do not always have to be monetary. Student efforts and achievements could also be recognized through certificates, ribbons, trophies, or other options agreed on by the committee.



THE SCHOLARSHIP REGISTER

As committees decide on what merit-based awards to offer, a Scholarship Register should be created. The Scholarship Register is a directory or list of scholarships available to students, as defined and approved by the scholarship committee. For each scholarship listed in the register, the associated budget, eligibility criteria, and other important details should be clearly outlined in the document.


Creating a new Scholarship Register each year will make it easier for committees to track the allocation of scholarship funds on a year to year basis. Committees are permitted to "recycle" scholarship registers from previous years to kick-start the process, but should add-to, adjust, and delete components of the register that are not relevant for the current school year.


Committees should consult with the Assistant Area Director of Finance to ensure that the Scholarship Register and budgeted funds are aligned with policy, standards, and guidelines.


The Scholarship Register should be used as a guiding document for defining, processing, and awarding merit-based scholarships to students. An example of a Scholarship Register can be found here: Scholarship Register (Sample).docx



USING THE SCHOLARSHIP REGISTER

With the Scholarship Register explained, let’s take a look at an example of how a Scholarship Award might be recorded and defined in the register.


Let’s say that there was a scholarship provided to recognize the top English students for each year level. In the Scholarship Register, the details of this award might look something like this:


Name: English Excellence Scholarship

Category: Academic

Description: The English Excellence Scholarship is awarded to the highest-performing English students for each year level. Usually, any student achieving a 95% average grade or higher in English, is awarded this scholarship.


Eligibility Requirements:

Recipients must attain a 95% grade or higher in English on their final report card.

Recipients must have maintained an average English grade of 90% or higher across the course of the school the year.

Any students falling below a 90% average in any of the school terms, should not be considered for this award.

Recipients must also maintain a passing grade for Seminary across the course of the school year.


Estimated Number of Recipients: 10

Recommended Total Budget: $200

Recommended Allocation per Student: $20

Maximum Allocation per Student: $50


Let’s review each of the key components here:

  • Name: This is the name of the scholarship.
  • Category: This is the type of scholarship. For example, Academic, Athletic, Creative etc
  • Description: A brief description of the scholarship.
  • Eligibility Requirements: outline the specific criteria required for students to be eligible for this award.
  • Estimated Number of Recipients: The estimated number of students who will receive this award. This estimate will help committees decide on an appropriate budget amount for the award. PowerSchool data from SQL Reports can be used to make accurate estimations.
  • Recommended Total Budget: This is the budget allocation recommended by the committee based on the estimated number of recipients.
  • Recommended Allocation Per Student: This is the amount that is recommended for individual students to receive if eligible for the award.
  • Maximum Allocation Per Student: This is the maximum amount that could be issued to an individual student.


Additional examples of Scholarship Awards and can be found in the sample Scholarship Register: Scholarship Register (Sample).docx



ADJUSTING THE SCHOLARSHIP REGISTER

After the Scholarship Register has been created, and the criteria clearly defined, certain circumstances may require scholarship budgets and criteria to be adjusted later in the year. While adjustments should be avoided where possible, Committees do have the flexibility to adjust certain criteria if needed.


For example, let’s say that $200 was allocated by the committee to an “English Excellence Scholarship”. With a $200 budget, 10 students could be awarded $20 each. However, let’s say that one year, 25 students were eligible for the award because they all scored over 95% in their final English grade. At this point, there would be two key options for the committee to consider:


OPTION 1: They could divide the $200 evenly between each of the 25 eligible students. Dividing $200 between 25 students would leave each student with an $8 reward.


OPTION 2: The committee could make an amendment to the criteria. They might decide for example, that only the top 10 students in English would be receiving an award for that particular year. In this way, the $200 budget cap is maintained and the very best students (the top 10 out of the 25) would receive the financial reward. The remaining 15 students could possibly be awarded a certificate instead.


An adjustment like the one mentioned in the second option, would need to be clearly documented by the committee and recorded in the Scholarship register. An amendment to the Scholarship register might look something like this:


Name: English Excellence Scholarship

Category: Academic

Description: The English Excellence Scholarship is awarded to the highest-performing English students for each year level. Usually, any student achieving a 95% average grade or higher in English, is awarded this scholarship.


Eligibility Requirements:

Recipients must attain a 95% grade or higher in English on their final report card.

Recipients must have maintained an average English grade of 90% or higher across the course of the school the year.

Any students falling below a 90% average in any of the school terms, should not be considered for this award.

Recipients must also maintain a passing grade for Seminary across the course of the school year.


Estimated Number of Recipients: 10

Recommended Total Budget: $200

Recommended Allocation per Student: $20

Maximum Allocation per Student: $50


Amendment:

An unexpected number of students were eligible for this award at the end of 2020, and it was decided by the scholarship committee that only the top 10 students would receive scholarship funding for this award. Unfortunately, there were insufficient funds available to provide scholarship awards to more than 10 students. The remaining 15 students (of the 25 eligible) received a Certificate of Excellence instead.


When the criteria and maximum amounts for scholarship funding is clearly defined and recorded, committees can better protect themselves against complaints that may arise from parents and other stakeholders. Careful documentation of scholarship awards and their criteria is therefore a protective exercise for the committee, but also holds the committee accountable for their actions. This process also provides transparency for management and the greater school community.



When creating the Scholarship Register, a recommended allocation per student is usually included.


In the “English Excellence Scholarship” example, the recommended allocation is an award of $20 per student from the total $200 budget. The maximum recommended allocation is listed as $50 per student. Let's take a closer look at what this means.


Normally, students eligible for this award would receive the recommended allocation of $20 each. However, let's say that only 9 students qualified for this award. What would happen then?


If 9 students received $20 each, then only $180 of the budget would be allocated. This leaves $20 unallocated from the total $200 budget. What should be done with the left-over $20?


This is a good example of when the maximum recommended amount, could be utilized.


Consider these two options:


OPTION 1: The committee could give each of the 9 students $20 each, and then reallocate the left-over $20 to another scholarship budget.


OPTION 2: Alternatively, they could award the Top English student a little more than the others as an extra bonus. For example, if the top student received $40, and the other 8 students received $20 each, the full budget of $200 would have been used up. Also note, that the maximum recommended allocation of $50 was maintained.


If using option two, no scholarship adjustments or amendments need to be made, because the maximum recommended allocation was not overshot. In other words, the total budget of $200 was still distributed fairly, according to the “criteria” recorded in the Scholarship Register.


This is another simple example of how the Scholarship Register can help committees to make transparent decisions. It also highlights the importance of defining scholarship criteria clearly in the directory.



SCHOLARSHIP STACKING AND GENERAL POLICY

Scholarship Stacking is the practice of allowing students to receive multiple scholarships at once from the Scholarship Register. While some students will only be eligible for one scholarship, other high-achieving students, may qualify for several scholarships in any given year.


To prepare for these scenarios, committees should clearly record any general restrictions or exceptions to policy and scholarship stacking in the Scholarship Register.


For example, committees may decide that individual students may only receive a maximum of $300 in “stacked” scholarships for any given year.


Alternatively, committees might stipulate that any individual student can only receive a maximum percentage (say 75%) of their annual school tuition in scholarship funding, even though their efforts at school technically qualify them for more.


An example of a general policy item for scholarships might be that student eligibility for scholarship awards is nullified or withdrawn if they are not passing Seminary.



MANAGING AND AWARDING MERIT-BASED SCHOLARSHIPS

To help maintain consistency, fairness, and accountability, the following process is recommended for awarding merit-based scholarship awards.


1. CREATE A SCHOLARSHIP REGISTER

First and foremost, please follow the steps outlined already this lesson to create a Scholarship Register. Once the criteria is clearly outlined, it will be much easier for the committee to make decisions about identifying and shortlisting candidates.


2. IDENTIFY CANDIDATES

Once the scholarship register, criteria, and policy documents are in place, the committee can focus on identifying potential candidates to reward.


Objective Measures

For many of the merit-based scholarships that are awarded, the committee can utilize PowerSchool SQL Reports to identify the top students based on academic performance. Many PowerSchool reports already exist to help users easily identify the top students in specific subject areas, as well as the top overall performing students from honour roll lists.


Note: Any questions about data and available reports can be directed to the EdTech Team at the Area Office. If a report does not yet exist for a specific scholarship need, EdTech should be able to help produce a relevant report in most cases when requested upon to do so.


Subjective Measures

For non-academic scholarships, the candidate identification process may be a little more subjective. For example, if there was a “Top Sportsman” and “Top Sportswoman” award, the committee would need to review the scholarship register criteria in consultation with other teachers and coaches to come up with a list of potential candidates.


The same might go for awards relating to creativity, leadership, or community service efforts. In all cases, the scholarship register should be used in consultation with other key partners to come up with a list of potential candidates.


3. SHORTLIST CANDIDATES

For academic or grades-based scholarships, SQL reports should be used as the key data-source for candidate identification and review. The data in PowerSchool could be exported to a spreadsheet and then reviewed, filtered, sorted, and highlighted as needed by the committee.


If the number of eligible candidates for academic awards is unusually high (based on SQL Report data), the committee will be required to consider various options. Such options may include:

  • Adjusting scholarship criteria to reduce the number of candidates
  • Accepting the criteria and reducing the scholarship amount for each candidate
  • Recommending, requesting, and justifying extra funding from the Area Director for additional funding


To give a fictional example, let’s say that budget was allocated to give ALL High Honour Roll students a scholarship award. The number of students estimated to achieve this award was originally thought to be approximately 40 students. At the end of the year, SQL reports revealed that 73 students achieved the High Honour Roll. What should the committee do in this case? Some of their options may include the following:


OPTION 1: Award ALL High Honour Roll students, a smaller individual amount from the total allocated budget


OPTION 2: Award the Top 40 High Honour Roll students with a monetary award, and giving the 33 remaining students a certificate of recognition


OPTION 3: Request additional budget from the Area Director to award all 73 students


As additional funding may not be available, option 1 or 2 should be the committee’s normal course of action to follow.


With any of these options, the committee must be sure to document their actions and justification. A list should be kept of all the students that were listed and then shortlisted as candidates. Data from PowerSchool should be included in this documentation to help clarify how and why decisions for short-listing were made. 


For non-academic awards, the candidate lists should also be refined, prioritised, and reduced to a shortlist that accounts for the availability of funds. If there are not enough funds available to award all possible recipients, the committee must make difficult decisions about who to include in the final shortlist of candidates, and who to cut.


All such shortlists should be recorded clearly by the committee and kept in the Scholarship Committee file with other key scholarship documents.


4. FINALIZE AWARDS

After identifying candidates, reviewing the criteria and data, consulting together, and refining shortlists, the committee is now ready to make their final decisions about scholarship recipients and awards.


The Chair should ensure that each committee member’s opinion is heard throughout the entire process. Everyone should be satisfied with the final candidate lists and the scholarships awarded. The Chair will need to break any deadlocks where committee members have struggled to make a final decision. 


Once the final decisions have been made, the committee should update all relevant documentation to ensure that the final candidate lists, and amounts awarded, are 100% accurate and complete. Once lists have been finalized, the “ball” can be passed to finance (via the committee treasurer) to apply approved scholarship awards to student accounts.


That takes us to the end of the learning content for lesson four. Before you continue to lesson five, please take a moment to assess your learning by using the link provided in the next section of this page.



LEARNING ASSESSMENT

Please take a moment to assess your understanding of this lesson by completing the quiz provided at the following link:

Learning Assessment: Merit-Based Scholarships



LESSON SUMMARY

In this lesson we:

  • Reviewed the definition of merit-based scholarships
  • Reviewed the purpose and components of a scholarship register
  • Reviewed scholarship criteria and making amendments to criteria
  • Reviewed various options that committees have when making funding decisions
  • Reviewed the workflow of identifying, shortlisting, and finalizing award candidates
  • Assessed our learning


In lesson five we will cover additional guidelines relating to Scholarship Committees in Pacific Church Schools.