Scholarship Central, the University of North Dakota’s scholarship database, began accepting applications for the next academic year on Tuesday, October 1. By completing the general application on Scholarship Central’s website, und.academicworks.com, students apply for over a thousand scholarships provided by donors, friends, and alumni of UND. Returning student applicants have until Saturday, March 1, to finalize their applications, while new and transfer students have until Saturday, February 1.
Since 2015, Kaitlin Lockett, a scholarship advisor at UND, has ensured that all state and UND scholarships are properly awarded. As the chief administrator for Scholarship Central, Lockett collaborates with UND’s Alumni Foundation to verify scholarship funds are contributed, creates applications on behalf of students, and sends those applications to a scholarship’s review committee.
“In addition to that, I am an advisor. If a student needs help figuring out how to fund their education, they can come talk to me,” Lockett said. “We talk about different loan options, scholarship options, repayment sources, stuff like that.”
In addition to Scholarship Central’s general application, the scholarship database offers recommended opportunities. These recommended opportunities are additional, one-off scholarships that have extra requirements, such as, but not limited to, letters of recommendation, essays, or department-specific information.
“In each department, they get together and start reviewing those pools of applicants and then decide who the recipients are,” Lockett said. “We usually announce recipient information between April and June.”
Within Scholarship Central’s hundreds of scholarships, there is an array of requirements that need to be met between them all.
“The scholarships have such a wide variety of criteria. It is not necessarily [just] financial-based or academic-based.” Lockett said. “You could have a donor who’s giving money away because you’re the one student from that hometown or you’re meeting criteria for that individual award.”
While filling out the application, Lockett encourages students to be thorough and use proper grammar, punctuation, and capitalization.
“Some committees are very particular about that. If you’re doing a bullet-point list and you’re not capitalizing certain things, that can be a mark against you,” Lockett said. “It’s an easy fix that can easily get yourself [as] a top contender.”
Additionally, Lockett urges applicants to explore all the recommended opportunities.
“Look at them, and if you feel like you’re qualified for them, apply to them,” Lockett said. “There’s a lot of students that don’t realize that those recommended opportunities get missed, and it could have been an easy scholarship.”
Scholarship Central is UND’s only source of scholarships. So, this is the only opportunity students have to receive funds from UND.
“You don’t have to have good grades, you know, and you can’t get money if you don’t do the work. So, put a little effort into it,” Locket said. “The application isn’t long. It should take you ten minutes if you’re doing it quickly [or] half hour if you’re a little more thorough.”
While there is no guarantee that a student will receive a scholarship from Scholarship Central, Lockett recommends students apply every year as the likelihood of receiving a scholarship increases as applicants progress through their program.
Dylan Campbell is a Dakota Student General Reporter. He can be reached at [email protected].