SSS ESCA IET GR ARR AT PPS A RR AR ER SS NER RN PO Vy 51 NPR ARS: CIR

Encouraging Student Applications for Scholarships

Each year our college foundation offers several
scholarships for students who will enter Piedmont
Virginia Community College (PVCC) during the fall, as
well as scholarships for students who are currently
enrolled and will return in the fall. The following are
procedures that are used with currently enrolled
students to identify applicants for scholarships and
then to encourage qualified applicants to apply for
scholarships.

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To help me identify and encourage scholarship
applicants, I keep a scholarship file in my office. The
file contains requirements for college foundation
scholarships, as well as any other scholarships that I
have learned are available for community college
students in our area. Usually the local newspapers list
two or three available scholarships each year.

About one month before the dateline for our college
foundation scholarship, I ask each student currently
enrolled in my classes (about 150) for the following
information on a3 x 5 card: their name, grade-point
average, number of credits completed, number of
credits currently enrolled, major and/or occupation
plans, and where they plan to be enrolled next year.
The 3 x 5 cards are separated into two groups: students
returning and students not returning in the fall. For
the returning students, the cards are separated into
those who have the minimum grade-point average for
scholarships at PVCC and those who do not. The cards
of the returning students with the minimum grade-
point average are the basis for the next step.

I contact each qualified student (usually a total of 10-
15) within one week and encourage each to apply for a
scholarship at PVCC. The encouragements may be
offered with a phone call, stopping a student in the
hall, writing a note, or asking a student to stop by my
office. The personal contact is the most important step
in this process! While signs about the scholarships are
posted around the college and information has been
advertised in local newspapers, most students have not
processed the information or think they are scholarship
types; thus, these announcements don't apply to them.
In a typical group of 10 students, only two or three
have heard of the PVCC scholarships, and most have
no plans to apply; they are now encouraged to apply.
The others are unaware of the scholarships, and they

are encouraged, as well. Of the 10 students, usually
five to seven apply eventually.

In my five years of informing and encouraging, only
one student has known about the scholarships and has
made plans to apply. In that case, I offered my con-
gratulations!

Students with a B average who will not attend in the
fall are encouraged to write their new college for
scholarship information. Students with a B average,
attending or not attending in the fall, are also made
aware of scholarship opportunities from non-college
sources for which they qualify .

Students are almost always in need of encourage-
ment. Scholarship application is an area where we as
faculty can offer very special encouragement to a
group of special students.

Lloyd L. Willis, Associate Professor, Biology
For further information, contact the author at Piedmont

Virginia Community College, Route 6, Box 1, Char-
lottesville, VA 22901.

 

Suanne D. Roueche, Editor

February 22, 1991, Vol. XIll, No. 6

©The University of Texas at Austin, 1991
Further duplication is permitted by MEMBER
institutions for their own personnel.

 

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