With thousands of applications coming in, filtering them all at once can be a slow, challenging process. However, there are ways to speed it up and here are the main three to keep in mind.
Have multiple review rounds
We’ve seen thousands of scholarships come through ScholarshipOwl and one thing is true. Most scholarships get lots of applicants and choosing the right candidate in just one round is nearly impossible. Here’s the secret. In order to choose the right applicant, you actually need to have more steps in the review process.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but having extra review steps will actually help you weed through the bad applicants and get to good ones more quickly.
For example, you can use the first round to eliminate students under a certain GPA. The second round can be used to eliminate those who don’t have the right volunteer experience and in the third round, you can review the applicants’ essays.
If you divide the review process into multiple rounds, not only will you be able to make a decision more quickly, but you’ll reach a better decision too.
Have multiple reviewers
The more people are involved in the decision-making process, the better the final decision will be. Moreover, it will be easier to review 1,000 applications with a couple of hands on deck instead of having just one person going through your applicants.
Here’s the difficult part though. If you’re accepting applications in the traditional way, you’re probably getting them through email. Having several people working on applications through one email inbox is a struggle. Most of all, it’s because you rarely know who checked out which application and which applicants move along further in the process.
If you’re using a modern scholarship management application, having multiple reviewers is a breeze. Host your scholarship in the cloud and give access to as many reviewers as you wish so that a group of people can work on the applications at all times.
Automate as much of the work as you can
The truth is, a lot of work nowadays can be automated through various applications and shortcuts. In the case of scholarships, you can save hundreds of hours if you automate the right kind of tasks.
The best part to automate is probably the communication. When a student applies or moves to the next round, you want to send them an email to let them know that something is going on with their application. You can go two routes: sending the emails manually or setting up a trigger in your scholarship management platform so that emails go out automatically – I know which route I would take.
Moreover, you can automate your requirements in your scholarship app as well. That way, all the students that meet certain criteria automatically go to the next round, saving your hours on sorting applicants alone.
So what are you to do?
If you want to speed up your review process, the route to go is clear – start using a scholarship management app so you can save time and money on scholarships. Speaking of which, you can try ScholarshipApp completely free! Start today and you’ll see how quickly you can launch and complete a scholarship so everyone is happier – you, your reviewers and your applicants.
Everyone is excited about the idea of launching a new scholarship. Getting to help a student in need (especially in these challenging times) and getting some attention on your brand are both great things. However, then comes the hard part – the review process for the scholarship.
With thousands of applications coming in, filtering them all at once can be a slow, challenging process. However, there are ways to speed it up and here are the main three to keep in mind.
Have multiple review rounds
We’ve seen thousands of scholarships come through ScholarshipOwl and one thing is true. Most scholarships get lots of applicants and choosing the right candidate in just one round is nearly impossible. Here’s the secret. In order to choose the right applicant, you actually need to have more steps in the review process.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but having extra review steps will actually help you weed through the bad applicants and get to good ones more quickly.
For example, you can use the first round to eliminate students under a certain GPA. The second round can be used to eliminate those who don’t have the right volunteer experience and in the third round, you can review the applicants’ essays.
If you divide the review process into multiple rounds, not only will you be able to make a decision more quickly, but you’ll reach a better decision too.
Have multiple reviewers
The more people are involved in the decision-making process, the better the final decision will be. Moreover, it will be easier to review 1,000 applications with a couple of hands on deck instead of having just one person going through your applicants.
Here’s the difficult part though. If you’re accepting applications in the traditional way, you’re probably getting them through email. Having several people working on applications through one email inbox is a struggle. Most of all, it’s because you rarely know who checked out which application and which applicants move along further in the process.
If you’re using a modern scholarship management application, having multiple reviewers is a breeze. Host your scholarship in the cloud and give access to as many reviewers as you wish so that a group of people can work on the applications at all times.
Automate as much of the work as you can
The truth is, a lot of work nowadays can be automated through various applications and shortcuts. In the case of scholarships, you can save hundreds of hours if you automate the right kind of tasks.
The best part to automate is probably the communication. When a student applies or moves to the next round, you want to send them an email to let them know that something is going on with their application. You can go two routes: sending the emails manually or setting up a trigger in your scholarship management platform so that emails go out automatically – I know which route I would take.
Moreover, you can automate your requirements in your scholarship app as well. That way, all the students that meet certain criteria automatically go to the next round, saving your hours on sorting applicants alone.
So what are you to do?
If you want to speed up your review process, the route to go is clear – start using a scholarship management app so you can save time and money on scholarships. Speaking of which, you can try ScholarshipApp completely free! Start today and you’ll see how quickly you can launch and complete a scholarship so everyone is happier – you, your reviewers and your applicants.
