If you are working for a company or nonprofit offering scholarships, you know better than anyone that it can sometimes feel like an uphill battle to get more scholarship applicants. Funnily enough, this is a widespread problem. Yes, even if you’re offering the kind of support that students need.
Here are a few great practices to help when you’re trying to get more scholarship applicants.
Focus on The Student
Nowadays, students are busier than ever before. They have to willingly balance work, school, activities, and social life throughout their college life. This means that when it comes to their time, it is more valuable than ever before.
What this also means is that scholarships need to provide what students really need. It is the most foolproof way to receive more applications. Some of the biggest things required by students when it comes to scholarship programs are:
- An easy connection with their peers and alumni
- The ability to work with their scholarship providers to ensure they’re getting the most out of their funds
- Easy access to mentoring and other guidance
There is some good news about this situation. It is pretty easy to offer these sought-after things without breaking the budget:
- Use your employees, scholarship alumni, or community volunteers as advisors or mentors
- Allow your awardees one-on-one advice courtesy of your scholarship by coordinating a visit to a local college
- Invite all scholarship recipients to your location for an entire day full of learning
If you’re looking to extend your student service even further, there are a lot of tools online as well as partnerships.
Strive to Make the Biggest Impact You Can
When you’re looking at establishing a scholarship program, it can sometimes be enticing to spread your money around as much as you possibly can. However, this only results in the ability to give small awards to a wide range of students. In fact, you are better off going the opposite way by starting your program with only a few awards.
It will garner far more attention and allow you to get more scholarship applicants to get a bigger splash. First of all, you should think about all of the scholarship programs that you can name off the top of your head. The chances are, you know of these scholarship programs because they offer full-ride or something similar.
While it may seem standard, it is not a coincidence. Nothing can capture attention more than $15,000 or $25,000 or the full cost of tuition. In addition to this, even if you are only able to start out offering one or two awards at this higher level, you will have a far better chance of expanding your program later on.
Drawing attention to this, you will likely find far more donors who want to be on your side. More applicants mean more attention. In turn, it means more dollars and more students receiving a scholarship in the long run.
Make Your Scholarship an Important Part of Your Company’s Culture
Employers who can readily offer scholarships to their employees or families tend to make a huge deal out of them as a hiring or recruiting benefit. However, they often forget to remind potential applicants about the program when settling in is all said and done.
If you are an employer currently offering a tuition assistance program, it is essential to make sure your employees know about it. Here are some of the best ways to ensure employees remember your educational support when they need it most:
- Take an informational video of your CEO surprising a scholarship winner at their desk
- Use your company newsletter, social media, and other forms of communication to provide reminders
- Congratulate applicants via email
- Have supervisors remind their direct reports during meetings
- Don’t limit yourself to only using formal communications
Scholar’s App Can Help
The more people who know about your program, the more successful it will be. If you need help, check out the Scholar’s App. It is an all-in-one platform solution that easily connects students to verified scholarships.
The Bottom Line
If you’re ready to simplify your scholarship management process, get started with Scholar’s App today.
