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Scholarship Selection Process

New scholarships are awarded one time a year. The deadline to receive applications is March 1st of every year. Completed applications received after March 1st will be retained and reviewed at a later date. Incomplete application packets will not be processed.

The Executive Director and at least one member of the Board of Directors will read all scholarship applications and make the final decisions. The selection criteria and procedure is as follows:

-All completed applications are initially reviewed by two or more people and assigned a ranking from 1-5 with 5 being the highest priority.

-This review process is done independently and then a consensus is reached by the entire Board.

The review process shall consider the following:

1. Financial need as determined from:

a. a narrative included with the application

b. the dollar value of scholarships or grants received/applied for

c. family income

d. medical bills

e. disabilities

f. single parent

g. number of people in the household

h. information gleaned from letters of reference

2. Test scores to determine eligibility for other grants and scholarships.

3. School last attended and current address (all things being equal, those further away from Iuka, Mississippi receive a lower ranking).

After consensus is reached the applications are charted with information as to rank, name, address, last school, where the applicants want to go/what they need the money for, how much they are requesting, how much the review committee and Executive Director is recommending and other miscellaneous information in preparation for the full Board review.
A final determination is made of how much money is available for scholarships. A determination of total amount being requested versus the total amount recommended and consensus of this information will be established.
A determination is made to see if the amount of funds available is sufficient to meet the request/recommendation and if not, a purge beginning with the lowest rankings in order to come within the allotted amount of money.

The Executive Director presents this document to the entire Board for discussion and each item on the chart is carefully reviewed. All applications are available for review during this process.

As each applicant is discussed a consensus is reached about the amount and length of scholarship to award. Generally incoming freshman and/or sophomores are awarded $1,000 per semester and juniors and/or seniors $2,000 per semester. However, the Board may adjust amounts if unusual circumstances exist. A tally is made to assure that the total amount awarded is within the money available and that local applicants have received a priority.

Hardship

Should the Foundation receive an applicant deemed as a hardship the Board may then consider and award a scholarship at any said time.

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