Things You Should Do When Creating a Scholarship

Since Atila hosts so many scholarships, we have a lot of insight into what makes a great scholarship. 

We’ve compiled some tips that you can use when starting or managing your own scholarship. We’ve also included lots of examples to make these tips more concrete.

If you manage your scholarship yourself on an external website, carefully go through each item in this checklist and make sure you’re doing all the things we recommend. If you can use a scholarship management platform like Atila a lot of these will be done for you automatically. 

In both cases, this guide is still useful for you to learn what makes a great scholarship.

You can also follow along with the slides here: Things You Should do When Creating a Scholarship

1. Include applications and thank you letters from previous winners
2. Have both finalists and winners in your scholarship
3. Avoid word count and page count restrictions
4. Move away from manual application processes
   1. Avoid PDF and Email Submissions
   2. Use Web Form Submissions
5. Accept alternate submission formats (videos, pictures, games, infographics)
6. Ask merit-based and biographical questions, Avoid “lottery style” “data capture” question
7. Promote the scholarship on other sites
8. Use a 2+1 review system
9. Use Reddit to answer repetitive questions once

Include applications from previous winners and finalists

1. When applying for a scholarship, students are asking themselves “what is the reviewer looking for?”
2. Best way to answer that question is by simply sharing the applications of previous winners
3. Showing that real students have won in the past adds legitimacy and builds trust

Example of Scholarship finalists

Include Thank You Letters from Previous Winners and Finalists

1. If you have diverse group of finalists and winners, representation gives students confidence that “someone like them” can win
2. Thank you letter humanizes the impact of your scholarship

Have Both Finalists and Winners in Your Scholarship

1. Instead of having only winners in your scholarship, also include some finalists
2. You can select one of the finalists as a backup winner if the winner can’t redeem the scholarship
3. Recognize the student’s strong application even though it wasn’t good enough to win
4. Showcase the diverse range of strong applications you received

Avoid Word Count and Page Count Restrictions

1. If it’s too short students can’t express themselves fully
2. If it’s too long students ramble and use jargon
3. Instead, share word count of past applications of finalists

(see “What’s The Word Count?” blog post for more information)

Move away from manual application processes

Avoid PDF and Email Submissions

The Problem with PDF and email submission scholarships:

1. Making updates to PDF scholarships is hard, different applicants have different versions
2. PDF applications are not mobile mobile-friendly + can’t be saved to finish later
3. Difficult to sort through, compile aggregate all the different application responses sent to an inbox
4. You must manually email winners and non-winners

Use Web Form Submissions

Web Form submissions solve all of these problems for you.

1. Making updates to a web form is easy, a simple change doesn't require you to go in and edit an entire PDF.
2. Web form applications are mobile friendly and mobile-friendly can be saved to finish later
3. All submissions are in one place, making it easier to organize and sort through applications
4. Automate emails to winners and non-winners with the click of a button.

Accept alternate submission formats (videos, pictures, games, infographics)

• Videos
• Pictures
• Games
• Infographics

For example, when we partnered with Skateboards for Hope, we asked applicants to submit a link to them performing an extreme sport:

Ask merit-based and biographical questions, avoid “lottery style” “data capture” questions

1. Ask questions that allow students to show their best and most authentic selves
2. Questions with just email and few questions feel like they just want to collect student data, doesn’t build trust
3. Lowers students perception of the scholarship
   1. Students value scholarships based on skill more than random luck scholarships
4. The sponsor doesn’t learn meaningful information about the applicants

Example of a scholarship where you don’t learn much about the applicants. It feels like you’re just collecting their data.

Promote your scholarship on other sites

For example, Atila promotes many scholarships from various organizations as well as other scholarship websites!

Use a 2+1 Review System

The 2+1 Review system is a way to make your application process fairer. More details can be found in this blog post but the summary is:

• Each application should be reviewed by at least 2 people
• Each gives the difference amongst it a score between 1 and 10
• If score difference is more than 2 assign a 3rd reviewer
• Avoid sharing scores amongst reviewers to prevent bias
• Use a rubric

Use Reddit to answer repetitive questions once

• Saves you time
• Makes it easier for applicants to receive answers to their questions