The review stage can be a tedious, frustrating, and challenging process. Perhaps, members of your review board need a few reminders…and then a few more. You might have thousands of applicants and only 3 awards to give away – how can you fairly choose the winners? Or, maybe, your review board is scattered across the country. Whatever it is, we know how difficult it can be.
When it comes time to the review process, this is often the stage of the scholarship program where chaos ensues. But, fear not! We have three tips that will help you make this process a bit less painful.
1. Create multiple rounds of decision making
If you’ve received more scholarships than you can imagine reviewing, consider adding phases to the decision-making process. For example, in round one, you could narrow your applicants down to only those who have a 3.4 GPA or higher. In phase two, you filter down the applicants down to those with specific volunteer experience. Then, the review board reads only the applications of all those who remain.
2. Automate the review process
If historically you’ve found yourself chasing down members of your review board to submit their choices, it might be time to set up an automated email process that reminds everyone that their choices are due in a week, a few days, or tomorrow. That way, you can spend less time on your emails and more time on what is important to you.
3. Digitize the decision
Sometimes, the longest part of the process is copying and mailing the applications to every member of the review board. This leaves you with little interaction with the reviewer and no idea of their completion status. By putting the entire review process online, you can have real time data that will help to keep your scholarship on time.
If any of these ideas excite you, we would love to chat with you about how we can help you to implement them into your scholarship program.
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