Office of Student Success

Be aware of the following points before submitting your scholarship application:

• Apply for FAFSA before applying for the scholarship. This way, the system knows the relevant FAFSA information.
• All submitted CPHHS scholarship applications will be reviewed by CPHHS faculty members, after initial qualification matching is done in ScholarDollars.
• All submitted CPHHS scholarship applications will be reviewed and scored based on the open-ended questions attached to this email.
• Scholarships are competitive because we unfortunately do not have enough money to fund all applicants, so be prepared to provide thoughtful responses.
• It is in your best interest to indicate you want to apply for all scholarships, which will increase your chances of being funded.

Want your application to be the best it can be?

Take a look at the criteria the people reading your scholarship application will use to score it.

 CPHHS scoring rubric for undergraduate scholarships

pro tip: If you have someone help review your scholarship application before you submit it, give them the scoring rubric so they can provide better feedback to you.

The following steps will occur after scholarships have been awarded:

• A scholarship offer letter will be emailed to all successful nominees around mid-spring term (about Week 5 or 6).
• A reminder email will be sent to successful nominees who have not accepted an offer, about one week prior to the offer deadline.
• If a scholarship offer is not accepted by the deadline, the offer will be given to the next eligible student. We cannot reinstate an offer once it has been offered to another student.

When applying for a scholarship as a student in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences, you will be asked to answer questions beyond what is shared below. These questions, however, require an open ended response and will benefit from careful attention to what you write as well as how you write it.

It is expected that you will complete these questions independent of assistance from others and that your answers will provide reviewers with accurate information.

Responses to each question are limited to a maximum of 300 words.

• Please describe your career goals and meaningful actions you have taken to help you achieve these goals.
• OSU is committed to diversity and inclusion. Please discuss the aspects of your background, past experiences, and past actions that best fit with this commitment.
• Please describe your financial situation and how you plan to pay your educational costs in the upcoming year. You also may include information about current or anticipated personal challenges that may affect your ability to pay for college and related expenses.
• Please describe any academic challenges you have or have had and how you overcame these challenges.
• Please describe the nature and extent of your meaningful contributions to noteworthy activities beyond your coursework (e.g., volunteering, research, work, leadership) in the past two years.

If you have any questions about the college’s undergraduate scholarships, please contact Niddy Lindsley. When you email Niddy, please remember to:

• Include your OSU ID with your full name and your phone number.
• Do not include personal information like Social Security numbers or FAFSA information.

A committee of faculty from across the college reviews the applications, convenes to discuss the merits of different cases, and makes final award decisions. A variety of factors are considered to identify the most deserving students, and the eligibility criteria can vary depending on the intent of a given scholarship.

All applications are carefully reviewed, although not all applications are funded. The process is very competitive, so take the time to thoughtfully prepare your application materials. You are encouraged to apply again even if you are not funded in a given year as in the future you will have more experiences to report and improved skills to better present your case.

If you are offered a scholarship award, an award letter will be sent to you via your electronic ONID account. You will need to either accept or decline the scholarship offer by logging into your ScholarDollars account. Failure to accept the scholarship offer by the deadline may result in you forfeiting the award that will be re-distributed to other applicants. Therefore, it is essential that you monitor your ONID account and respond in a timely fashion. Students who do not receive funding will be notified via an email message.

Continuing students, award letters are typically emailed during May of the year the applications are due.

Newly admitted students, award letters are typically emailed to you during April of the year the applications are due.

Funds will be deposited directly into your OSU student account. The money will be applied to any outstanding debt in those cases where students owe money to OSU. In rare cases such as with travel grants, students may be reimbursed for funds.

Most of our scholarships require a scholarship recipient to be a full-time student (12 or more credits per term), and/or to be in a certain major in our college and/or to maintain a certain OSU Accumulative GPA. Some scholarships may also have other requirements. Scholarship award amounts are distributed in three (3) equal payments: one disbursement at the beginning of each term (fall, winter and spring) for which scholarship recipients meet the requirements.

Please note that the College of Public Health and Human Sciences is obligated to meet requirements set forth by donors for each of our scholarships. The college has administrative guidelines that govern scholarship disbursements and processes. A scholarship recipient can submit the petition to request a change in undergraduate scholarship status form to request changes in scholarship status when circumstances result in a change of major, graduation term, enrollment status, GPA, etc.

It is our expectation that you will write a thank you letter to the donors who support your scholarships by the end of spring term. You will be asked to write a donor thank you letter once you have accepted an award in ScholarDollars.

A letter of gratitude may be the key to continued support of extraordinary students like you and donors would appreciate knowing about you, the impact their generosity has on your education, as well as your future goals that are supported by the funding that you are receiving.

Refer to tips for thanking your donor.

• November 1: application site opens
• February 15: application deadline