Posted on 09/24/2007 7:44:50 PM PDT by TheMom
I need objective opinions.
For the second year I am the president of athletic booster club at TheGirls school (not that big of a deal, we are only 10 strong). Every year the booster club gives scholarships to qualifying seniors.
The criteria for qualifying is (1)The parent(s) must be paid the dues ($10.00 or $15.00) by a certain date; (2) The parent(s) must have accumulated a certain number of volunteer hours by a certain date; and (3) The student must have a 2.5 GPA. The certain date is April 15th.
If the above criteria is met, the student fills out a the scholarship form, then interviews with the scholarship committee. The committee then decides which students will receive a scholarship, then sends the students a letter of congratulations which includes a specific deadline to return important information (the main information needed is proof of enrollment).
Simple right? This year we have drama.
The parents paid their dues several days past the deadline, the check was misplaced by our treasurer and was not deposited until four months later The treasurer should have contacted the parents before depositing the check. The check bounced because the account was closed.
Neither the student, nor the parents send in the important information by the deadline. According to the parent the student was planning to attend one college, but at the last moment was recruited by another – with the offer of a full scholarship for the freshman year. Neither the student, nor the parents informed anyone on the committee of this change until three weeks after the deadline. The parent claims she thought she sent an email, but was very busy during the week of the deadline trying to prepare to get her child to an out of state college. No proof of enrollment was sent in for the initial college choice.
The scholarship committee denied the scholarship. This evening the parent appealed the decision during our regular meeting. The committee met after the meeting to discuss the appeal and decided to meet with the parents later this week to discuss their decision.
BTW – the parent knows that her $15.00 check bounced (which technically means she is not a member of the booster club), and she did not bother to bring in cash this evening to cover the check and the $5.00 bank fee.
If you were on the scholarship committee what would you decide?
Very cool...........we have small graduating classes here in Poohville as well. I am forwarding that comment to our school counselor as a challenge (for the children thang per se.......ô¿ô¬)
But secondly, if the child qualified for a full scholarship for the freshman year, I'd pass the money on to the next kid who might really need the help.
Thanks for the ping.
FWIW, I vote no too.
Unless you abolish the present rules and hand out scholarships to everybody in exchange for nothing but a sad story.
Denying the grant SHOULD be an important lesson.
Make sure he knows the bar is 100% though. The one that didn’t get one had already got 50K(?) on his own. (He joined the Army).
yeah, well read post #42.
The lesson learned might be that rules (and by implication, laws) are made to be broken, that words depend on what the meaning of 'is' is, and that feelings and good intentions are what really matters.
Or, the lesson learned might be that rules (and by implication, laws) are meant to be enforced, that words have meaning and power, and that accepting responsibility for one's actions or in-actions develops better character traits than good intentions.
It will be interesting to find out which lesson the scholarship committee chooses to present to the student. Please let us know their decision and the student's reaction.
LOL............ALWAYS room for improvement ......:o)
Besides, sounds like the student already has a scholarship.
Let the decision of the committee stand.
The student doesn't need the money - the parents do. They'll figure out a way to pay for college with or without the scholarship.
If you have a small foundation, and you have rules for distributions of grants, and the trustees do not abide by those rules, you place the 501c3 tax exempt status of the association at risk should this breach cause your auditor to qualify the annual audit. Consult your attorneys and fully deny the scholarship - paying half the award is petty and shows lack of courage.
If you break the rules this year why wouldn’t parents and applicants in future years expect the same laxity?
In fact, why have rules at all if they are not applied fairly and equally?
The deciding factor is the missed deadline for dues to be paid.
The subsequent misplaced and bounced check are not germane to the question of qualification.
Our #2 son could have been a National Merit Finalist, but he didn't bother filling out the paperwork. He also didn't fill out paperwork on a couple of other possible scholarships, though he did get a small one locally.
He wanted to go to Carnegie Mellon, which he knew would be big bucks, and he was eligible for Financial Aid because our #1 son was also in college at the time. We'd already told them they'd need to get scholarships or take out loans. #1 son got a scholarship to UMass Amherst. #2 son did get loans for what remained on his bill after the Financial Aid, and did two majors in 3 1/2 years in order to lessen the cost by about $14K. But he knows that he has to pay those loans back when he finishes Grad School (for which he did receive a nice Fellowship!)
I appreciate that a small volunteer organization can’t be expected to operate with perfect efficiency, but I do think that when its own inefficiencies have been a factor in causing a situation like this to arise, it’s appropriate to bend the rules. It sounds like, in addition to the treasurer’s lengthy delay in depositing the check, the issue of college acceptance and enrollment processes and schedules hasn’t really been taken into consideration when establishing the deadlines.
I’m not sure exactly what sort of “proof of enrollment” is required, but generally, one is not considered “enrolled” at a college until one has paid a tuition deposit. If one is planning to enroll at a college which has relatively open admission, while still hoping for admission from a wait list or a scholarship offer from one or more other schools, it can make a lot of financial sense not to fork over a non-refundable deposit at the open-admission school (or school that is willing to wait, even it’s not officially “open admission” — I recall one college at which I was accepted, conditional on receiving a transcript that they’d previously assured me didn’t need to be submitted; I didn’t bother because I’d already decided to attend another much better college, but the first one kept sending me letters right up to the week before classes started, telling me I’d be accepted just as soon as I sent in the transcript!).
Seems to me proof of ACCEPTANCE at a college should be enough to determine the scholarship award, with actual PAYMENT of the scholarship funds conditional on proof of enrollment. If someone is delaying submitting proof of enrollment, because they haven’t yet made a final decision about where they’ll attend (presumably pending receipt of still-possible offers of admission and/or financial aid), they’re actually just being honest.
If the rules are bent in this case, I think it should be made clear that the decision to bend was made in only light of errors and omissions on the part of club officials.
According to my reading, the most important requirements WERE met, namely the volunteer hours by the parent and the student's GPA.
The criteria for qualifying is (1)The parent(s) must be paid the dues ($10.00 or $15.00) by a certain date; (2) The parent(s) must have accumulated a certain number of volunteer hours by a certain date; and (3) The student must have a 2.5 GPA. The certain date is April 15th. If the above criteria is met, the student fills out a the scholarship form, then interviews with the scholarship committee. The committee then decides which students will receive a scholarship, then sends the students a letter of congratulations which includes a specific deadline to return important information (the main information needed is proof of enrollment).
I'm assuming, since TheMom didn't state otherwise, that the student filled out the form, interviewed with the scholarship committee, and was sent a letter of congratulation telling her she'd won the scholarship (and needed to submit proof of enrollment by a certain date, though it appears she hadn't made her final enrollment decision by that date, due to receiving a scholarship offer from a college after that date). If the student was interviewed and then notified she'd won, it was reasonable for both the student and her parent(s) to assume that the payment made slightly after the deadline had been accepted. So as I see it, the only reasonably outstanding issue is that the proof of enrollment wasn't submitted by the deadline, and as I said before, I think the club/committee needs to review whether that deadline was reasonably consistent with the realities of college application/financial aid/enrollment processes. If the student received notification that she'd won the scholarship subsequent to the late dues payment, it's not very reasonable for the committee to then turn around and say that the late dues are one of the reasons that the scholarship is now being denied.
The child will gain more in life learning to meet their obligations than the dollar amount of this scholarship.
And those that did meet their obligations won't believe that was a wasted effort.
I’d say the scholarship should be denied because of the failure to follow the rules.
I will say I’ve got $10 that these parents will lawyer up if it is.
Shoot him. That’s what we have in our neighborhood association guidelines. (Yes, I did help write them)
The rules either mean something or they don’t. The parents knew the rules. The student knew the rules.
The fact that the parent knew her check bounced and didn’t bother to honor it just seems to cross the t’s and dot the i’s in attitude, imo. They have only themselves to blame if the child didn’t get the scholarship.
Meant to say “I” in attitude. lol.
ditto
The scholarship should be denied solely on the basis of failing to meet the deadline. The dues fiasco is just a distraction at this point.
The treasurer just needs to eat the $5 check fee. It’s very poor practice to cash a check more than 30 days after it’s been written without contacting the check writer first.
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