Implementation Archive

FS4U—Finding Scholarships for You—is Florida State University’s centralized solution for awarding scholarships campus-wide while enhancing transparency of available scholarships, maximizing fund utilization and enhancing donor engagement. The system utilizes Blackbaud Award Management (formerly known as AcademicWorks) which is the leading scholarship management platform in the country, used by hundreds of colleges and universities, including many of our peer institutions. It is a scholarship management system accessible by students, administrators and the campus community via an online portal.

FS4U provides a centralized scholarship management solution for awarding scholarships campus-wide at Florida State University. It enhances transparency of available scholarships to our students and maximizes fund utilization thus ensuring the University is fulfilling its responsibility to provide good stewardship of donor funds.

FS4U launched on January 4, 2019. All scholarships for the 2019-20 academic year, beginning with the fall semester, will be administered and awarded using FS4U. The website is https://fsu.academicworks.com/.

FS4U offers students a streamlined approach for applying to and monitoring the scholarship process. It simplifies the application process by importing student data directly from Campus Solutions on a daily basis, which minimizes the amount of information a student needs to provide. This feature, in conjunction with the general application required of all students, automatically matches students to Foundation scholarships that they are eligible for. Departments are able to control this feature and adjust the criteria based on the needs of each scholarship opportunity.

FS4U streamlines the scholarship process for reviewers and administrators. The online scholarship management system eliminates countless spreadsheets and stacks of paper applications, automatically applying students to the applicable scholarships. By integrating with Campus Solutions and other internal systems, student data is imported daily into the secure scholarship management software, providing the needed information to match students with scholarships. The same data can help administrators ensure applications demonstrate donor requirements and help make awarding decisions faster, ultimately saving time, energy and resources for all parties. FS4U allows scholarship administrators to easily sort and filter through a list of applicants that have been automatically pre-qualified by the system, while affording the flexibility to assign scholarship committee members, scoring requirements and deadline dates for each of their scholarship funds. Application materials such as essays or personal statements and letters of recommendation can be uploaded or submitted electronically allowing scholarship committee members the ability to review and rate scholarship applications online eliminating thousands of paper copies. Once awards have been made, students will be prompted to accept scholarship awards online. FS4U also allows features for submitting thank you letters, student photos and other post-acceptance information that may be required to receive a scholarship.

The scope of this project focused on establishing scholarship opportunities within the system, which are paid from Foundation funds. This includes all Foundation scholarship funds as well as any non-scholarship funds that may be used to provide reportable student aid, such as a professorship or general discretionary fund.

Information provided from the general application and apply-to application submitted by each student as well as data elements synced from Campus Solutions will be available for administrators to use in the selection process. In some cases, the information provided will enhance the selection process by providing additional information that may not have been previously available.

FS4U contains fund information from the Foundation’s financial accounting system such as name and fund purpose. Each administrator with access to the funds will be able to see this information. FS4U also provides fully customizable and exportable dashboards, charts, graphs and summaries on historical awards. Administrators will still need to monitor available balances in OMNI to ensure there is sufficient cash for making awards.

General funds, professorships and other non-scholarship funds that may be used to provide reportable student aid should not be visible to the public. Scholarships that have unique characteristics, such as a decision that is based on a performance or audition or those that are used for recruiting purposes, may not be appropriate to accept direct applications. Scholarships may be visible to the public throughout the entire year, only during the application process or not at all. Each academic unit will control the visibility of their scholarship opportunities.

Each academic unit is responsible for the scholarship award process and controls the application dates, application deadlines and visibility of the scholarship. Due to system access limitations, changes that need to be made to scholarship opportunities in this regard must be made by Foundation staff, and requests should be submitted to FS4U@foundation.fsu.edu.

Scholarships that have unique characteristics, such as a decision that is based on a performance or audition or those that are used for recruiting purposes, may be configured in such a way that they are not open to accept applications. In these situations, academic units can force apply students to the specific opportunities they are eligible for thus ensuring all awards are being made within the FS4U system. Foundation staff will be working closely with scholarship administrators in each academic unit to ensure each scholarship is properly configured based on the qualifiers for that opportunity.

FS4U will automatically match applicants to those opportunities that they are pre-qualified for. Many of the opportunities offered at Florida State University will require a conditional college or departmental application be submitted or additional questions be answered by the student in order to determine their eligibility. Scholarship administrators will be able to view all qualified applicants within the system, filter by specific qualifiers which are determining factors when awarding scholarships, and provide reports for those on the committees making the decision. We are confident that once departments become familiar with the system and the many tools FS4U has to offer, departments will find new ways of accomplishing the tasks in a more efficient manner.

There are two ways a scholarship opportunity can be configured within Florida State University’s FS4U: auto-match or apply-to. The auto-match process systematically matches qualified applicants to the scholarship opportunity based on specific data elements obtained from Campus Solutions, such as current department, GPA or major. No action is required by the student to apply for these scholarships other than completing the general application. The apply-to process recommends a scholarship opportunity to semi-qualified applicants but requires that the applicant provide additional information within FS4U.

The general application is required of all students who wish to be considered for scholarships awarded within FS4U. Potential applicants are asked to verify populated information from their official student record, agree to certain expectations that come with receiving a scholarship and provide some general information about themselves that is commonly asked on applications across all academic units. Completion of the general application allows students to be awarded scholarships that they are determined to be eligible for.

Conditional applications allow administrators to greater simplify the application process for targeted groups of applicants. Administrators are able to consolidate common questions that cover a broad category of scholarships which may be shared throughout the University and are not restricted to a specific college or department. The information provided by the student at this point in the process gives them access to additional scholarship opportunities that fit into these categories.

Students who have been admitted to Florida State University can apply to scholarships.

No, this process varies by scholarship. In order to be eligible for scholarships, each student will be required to complete a general application when they first login to the system. Many scholarships, such as those based solely on GPA or major, can be used to identify eligible applicants using the auto-match feature which qualifies students based on specific data elements provided from Campus Solutions. In other instances, a student will be directed to an apply-to or conditional scholarship application where additional information is required.

All students who meet the requirements of a scholarship opportunity will be auto-matched into the applicant selection pool systematically giving the selection committee the ability to choose the recipient from the list. Should a student be identified as eligible for a scholarship that they did not show in the selection pool for, a scholarship administrator can then force apply the applicant to an opportunity provided they have completed the general application as well as any conditional application that may be required.

Foundation Scholarship Disbursement Requests will no longer be required for scholarships that are awarded for the 2019-20 academic year, beginning with the fall semester. The only exception to this would be in those few instances where an academic unit is awarding a scholarship to a student in an academic semester prior to the implementation of FS4U. Scholarship data will be pulled from FS4U and submitted to the University for disbursing funds to students without requiring the academic unit submit any paperwork to initiate the process.

FS4U offers several features which can enhance the stewardship component. Once students are offered a scholarship within the system and accept it, they will receive communication directing them to complete post-acceptance questions, one of which is the submission of a thank you letter to the donor. Administrators will no longer need to collect these letters manually and submit them to the Foundation; however, they can be granted access to view or print them and on occasion may need to assist the Foundation donor stewardship team in contacting the student for follow up before the award can be made. Once the donor stewardship team accepts the post-acceptance information, the student can receive the award.

Yes. Foundation staff will be meeting with representatives in each academic unit who will be charged with validating the system setup of their scholarship funds. In addition, a consultant from FS4U will be on-site for two days to provide training to scholarship administrators of the system.

Yes. FS4U offers several locations within the system where users may download Excel file (.CSV) reports containing various types of information.