Students love scholarships. After all, it’s a chance to get free money and pay off a massive pile of debt. You may have already posted a scholarship or two, only to find out that the response from students isn’t as crazy as you may have hoped.
The problem is, there are a lot of scholarships out there and students have a large pool to choose from. The reason they may drop out in the middle of applying for yours is that your scholarship is simply too difficult to apply for.
Here are a few reasons why bottlenecks appear in your applications and how you can prevent them with ease.
Have an application before the application
Nobody likes being dragged on, only to find out they’re not even eligible for a scholarship. It often happens that a student will go through the entire scholarship application process (which may take up to half an hour), only to find out that they’re not actually eligible. You could solve this by putting up a massive sign before the application process, but some students might still go through.
Instead, create an eligibility quiz before the very application. In this quiz, students answer simple multiple-choice questions to find out if they tick off all the boxes to be considered as an applicant. It will save significant time for the students, and they will get rapid feedback without wasting more time on a scholarship they are not qualified for.
Let students save mid-way through their application
If your application takes quite a long time to fill out, you may have a lot of applicants that drop out before they complete it. The reasons could be various, from getting interrupted to simply becoming bored with the application process. To prevent this from happening, simply let your students save their progress in the middle of an application and let them continue at some later point. If they have to fill out all of their data twice, they will most likely lose interest
Split up your applications in several stages
When they apply for scholarships, students see it as a numbers game. They want to get as many scholarships covered in as little time as possible to increase their chances of winning. If your application takes hours to complete, chances are pretty good that they will drop out mid-way. That’s why you need to break up your applications in several parts.
For example, in the very first part of the application, you can ask for the most basic information, such as location, personal information, the type of university that the student is attending and so on. In the later stages, you can ask for the students’ motivational letter and budget information.
This kind of arrangement will take more time to set up, but it will greatly benefit the students, who can immediately know whether they are eligible or not. Contrary to popular belief, this kind of approach will actually increase the number of your applications, rather than decreasing it. However, be careful that you don’t go overboard with the number of application stages, because this may be counterproductive.
Use a scholarship management system
There are lots of ways to set up applications for scholarships. Most companies and individuals use simple systems, such as sending emails with application letters or submitting information through simple Google Forms. The truth is, this is neither efficient for the businesses or the students who apply for their scholarships.
Nowadays, generation Z has access to a variety of different apps for every aspect of their lives. They expect their application process to be as smooth and easy as choosing their next show on Netflix. Of course, they are the ones who need to apply and get the funds, but you want the process to be as easy as possible in order to get more applicants.
The easiest way to do this is to use a specialized scholarship management system such as Scholarship App. These apps are designed specifically for the purpose of collecting relevant student info and they have features that make it easy for students to apply and for you to screen applicants and choose your scholarship winner.
For example, Scholarship App lets you set up your own scholarship page in as little as 10 minutes. You can get your own scholarship page and set it up so that candidates can apply within minutes instead of an hour. The best part is, the system can sort and rank candidates according to your parameters, as well as choose a random winner.
If you’d like to find out more about what Scholarship App can do for you and your next scholarship, sign up today – it’s completely free!
