UCI Scholarships Live Chat: April 14

Good evening everybody. We'll just start in a few moments and we're just going to give a little bit of time for people to log on.

Once again, welcome. We're just waiting a minute just to let some people log on.

For those of you that are just joining us, we're just giving a minute for everybody to log on, and then we'll get started in a moment.

OK, I think we'll just go ahead and get started. Uhm, my name is condo. I'm a manager in the scholarships unit in charge of development, marketing and I'm joined with my colleague Justin Montelongo and she is one of our fellowship officers.

And we're also joined by a couple of people from our scholarship unit Bobby and Ferrusi and thank Chu as well as one of our financial aid counselors administrators. So does Steve. Do you wanna just introduce yourself and then we can get started?

Awesome hello welcome everyone. As Connie mentioned, my name is Justine. I'm a scholarship officer within the scholarship unit at UCI, and we'll go ahead and get started.

So the first thing we wanted to go over today is just scholarships 101. Give you some of the definitions that we're going to go over. First one is what exactly qualifies as scholarships. So scholarships is money that does not have to be paid back, so that could include grants as well. Any money that like I said, doesn't have to be paid back is not a loan, it's just money that is given either from federal government aid or through UCI aid or or outside donors. That again, you do not have to be paid.

Fact that goes towards your tuition and expenses. It could be donor funded or UCI awards on the basis of merit, financial need, leadership experience, community service, overcoming adversity or a combination of any of those different qualities. One thing we do want to mention is that our presentation is specifically for scholarships, so if you do have questions about financial aid, student loans, things like that as could you mentioned we do have venesia here today to answer some of those, but we also would.

Want you to check in with our financial aid office For more information on those things. So for our scholarship disbursement, we have about 7 or 8,000,000 annually that we disburse to our incoming or entering students, and we have about 14 and 15 million annually that goes to our continuing UCI students.

We do have a centralized scholarships platform here at UCI, and it's called scholarship universe, so it matches students to relevant scholarships based on the personalized profile that you create. You go through and complete a questionnaire and then based on that questionnaire, it'll direct you to scholarships that you do qualify for. We also have an addition to our UCI scholarships. There's over 10,000 vetted external scholarships that you can qualify for as well that are not directly linked through.

Or through UCI, but the scholarship Uniforce platform has vetted to make sure that they are actually legit scholarships that students can apply for. So how to apply the scholarship universe? I'm going to take you through how to find that on our website here real quick.

So I'm just going to share my screen.

I will take you through the steps here on how to get to that portion of our website, so this is our our financial aid website, ofasofas.uci.edu, so we're going to see there's some main headers up here and if you navigate over to the scholarships tab, you're going to go under here to UCI Scholarship Central.

And then you'll see on the left there's this applying for scholarships tab, you're going to want to click on that.

And then it's going to show you UCI scholarships on scholarship universe. Now if you go down here, it'll go detail by detail how to set up your profile and apply. There's a video that our team has created that actually shows you each of the screens and how to create your your profile and scholarship universe as well as what it'll look like. And then if you continue to Scroll down it also shows screenshots of that as well with step one. How to log in, how to set up your profile.

You can view the dashboard so this just gives you some idea of what it will look like, how it will tell you which scholarships you apply for, and then how to go in and apply for them. So there's all of this information here. Again, step by step on how to apply for those scholarships so we have that there for you as a resource. The timeline for our incoming student scholarship application is going to open May 15th, so tomorrow you'll be able to go into scholarship universe and start applying and then the deadline is.

May 15th by 11:59 PM that day. So as long as you complete it that day, you'll be eligible for whatever scholarships are available through that platform for incoming students.

The way that the scholarships are evaluated is just a holistic evaluation with these five focus areas being academic achievement. Your GPA, whether you took AP IB honors classes, what was your class standing and then any research that you've been involved in as well as financial need, leadership experience, community service experience or life experience, and any adversity that you have overcome in your journey to higher education.

Our scholarships for prospective students, so we have a couple different options for you. We have our distinguished scholarships there, which is no application for these. Every incoming student is considered based on their application for admission to the university. Those would be our region scholarship which is for California residents and our chancellors. Excellent scholarship which is for California residents as well. And then we have our Director Scholarship which is for domestic, out-of-state and international students. So again no application required you would receive.

Email for that to let you know that you were offered one of these scholarships and then we have our departmental scholarships. That is the application that is required through scholarship universe. They're funded either by UCI schools, non academic departments or various donors. Maybe say they wanted to give directly to a certain school. It would be coordinated through that and then we have campus wide scholarships that may not necessarily be associated to a particular area, but they're offered to.

Students at the university as a whole, either by various donors or through a combination of partnership with the CIA and any other outside donors.

So with that I would go ahead and pass it to Cooney for our Q&A portion.

Makes this team so we just have a few, uh, commonly asked questions that we'll go over before we go ahead and open it up for additional questions. So again, the timeline for prospective admitted students to apply for UCI Scholarships begins tomorrow, April 15th, and will go through May 15th for scholarships for the 2223 academic year and then the next time you'll be able to apply for scholarships as a continuing student would be in January so January.

Uh, 2023 you'll start applying for scholarships for the 2324 academic year, so it's a little bit different if you're a prospective versus continuing students, so just be aware that we're continuing students. The applications open in January.

Are there other scholarships if I?

Missed the last deadline, so Umm, sometimes schools or departments do have additional scholarships that might be available that weren't on our system and it's always good to check in with them to see if there's anything that has become available. We also do have external scholarships on scholarship universe. We will actually be turning those off temporarily during the application period because it does interfere a little bit with the actual campus based scholarship.

Medications, but but after May 15 you'll be able to apply to external solutions again. In the meantime, you can always use scholarship search engine. For example, if you need to look for external scholarships.

Uh, and this is Justine mentioned a moment ago, uh, things that we look for when we're being scholarships are academic performance, financial need, leadership, community service, and overcoming adversity.

How does scholarships affect my financial aid package? Typically a scholarship will reduce your need based or need based loans or work study.

That portion is what we use to adjust scholarships. If you have scholarships that exceed that, then it may reduce some of your grants so.

You wanna just check your financial aid to see how much room you have for scholarships.

How do I receive my scholarship fund? Scholarships are dispersed to your student building account. Typically, a scholarship is divided into thirds. So say you got a $3000 scholarship, you'll get 1000 in fall 1000. In winter and 1000 in in the spring.

Do I need to have a specific residency status to receive scholarship? No. There are scholarships for each kind of residency status, so just.

What's the point is that you apply and make sure that you take a look at all the eligibility requirements of each scholarship to see if you're eligible and part of scholarship universe is that it will determine that for you. So it'll depending on what your residency status it'll match it to scholarships that you're eligible for and be due to the right scholarships.

If I go to UCI scholarship and then transfer to another institution, can I take it with me? Unfortunately, no. You see. I scholarships are not transferable. So if you do move to another institution, you all want you know you'll want to check with that institution to see what scholarships are available for you at that time.

What happens to my scholarship if I withdraw UM?

Typically scholarships do require full time enrollment, so UM, if you're not full time enrolled, then there is a chance that you may either lose or scholarship. Uh, you see, reduce scholarship. So depending on the circumstance, you can appeal to see if that circumstance warrants you to be able to get the scholarship on appeal.

Do I have to submit a pastor or California DREAM Act to receive a scholarship? No, you don't have to, but we do recommend that you do because that is how we consider you. For me based scholarships if you.

Don't file the fasfa in California GMAC, then you can only be considered for merit based scholarships and depending on your eligibility, are there scholarships for international students? Yes, international students are considered for merit scholarships to typically and an additional resource that there is it's www.ifa.org. That's a good resource for international students. They have a lot of information on scholarships or fellowships, so I would definitely check that out.

If you're an international student.

And finally we have some additional resources. If you have questions about financial aid, definitely check out the www.ofast.eci.edu website. There's a lot of good information there, and you can also have a virtual assistant type thing where you can actually ask questions about financial aid, and it'll if it's pretty simple, it can just answer your questions there. Otherwise you can always contact financial aid aid at uci.edu or.

You have questions about scholarships. You can email us that scholarships at uci.edu.

We do have an effect section, so definitely check that out and then we have a couple of additional resources that are provided here and if you follow us on Instagram and Facebook, we also have. Sometimes we have additional opportunities that come in late during the year or that might not be on our platform because just because of the timing. So there's often some other opportunities that show up, so we definitely recommend that you follow us on Instagram and Facebook for those opportunities.

And we also, you know, announced our deadlines as well there, so it's a good reminder of when you need to apply or it's a deadlines coming up.

Umm?

That concludes sort of the presentation portion of our presentation, so if you do have questions about scholarships, we'll happily answer as many as we can during our time here.

Yeah, and I see Mr. Michelle is asking to go over where to find the application again, so I'm going to go ahead and share that and get one more time.

So if you're writing this down, you're going to go to theoffice.uci.edu.

And from there, click scholarships.

UCI Scholarship central.

And then from here click apply for scholarships on the left.

And that's where you will see all of the instructions.

If you want to take a screenshot of this and get that direct link, we just didn't want to put it on there because I know it's pretty long, so I'll leave this here if you want to screenshot that link or any of this.

And just to note about the scholarship application, uh, so it does open tomorrow. We'll we will be putting a link on this page that a link directly to it, but if you go to uci.scholarshipuniverse.com then that's also how you can get there. But the important thing about the application is it matches you to scholarships.

Based on the questions you answer, so we definitely highly recommend that you answer as many of those questions as possible because that's how the system will match you to the scholarships you're eligible for and just seeing if you wanted to Scroll down a little bit, I think I think there's an image that kind of shows you.

Where you can find the question tab.

Yeah, so you log in with your UCI profile, it'll say, you know, create your profile, you click, I'm ready. You'll view the dashboard.

And then I believe it's this little icon right here. If you can see it, there's a question mark.

And that's where you will go. I think to answer, yeah, so right here this will take you to the actual applications, but your matches won't show up until you answer the question. So you have to go right here with this little question. Mark is and it'll say, you know, have you been involved in this? Or do you have this experience to get a sense of things that you would qualify for? And once you do that then they'll show up here in your matches. If you do all the questions and nothing shows up here, that just means that.

Unfortunately, you haven't matched or qualified to any scholarships I guess. Which is better to know because you wouldn't want to complete the whole application and then not be matched with anything. So it kind of helps you out time wise as well. But again, this is where they all show up with this little dollar sign it looks like.

OK, here we ask what's the difference between a Regents and Chancellor scholarship?

The difference is a Regents for a freshman student is typically a four year scholarship and a chancellors of two year scholarship and also the Regent is a merit based scholarship, whereas the chancellor is also considers need. So that's the main differences between those two scholarships.

OK.

Emma asks if a student gets a major specific scholarships. Will they keep it if they switch majors? Typically I would say probably not.

Would definitely check with the department what what they say, but from what I've seen, typically if you switch majors out of major specific scholarships then you may lose it. But if it's from outside foundation, for example, you may want to ask them to see.

What the requirements are to see if you can keep it or not?

Yeah, because some scholarships might be. You know, this goes to an engineering student, so if you are no longer an engineering student then you would lose it. But if it goes to a student with a 3.0 GPA then you would keep it as long as you still meet the requirements at the GPA.

Yeah.

Marias are the majority of you side scholarships need based or merit based.

Uh, I think there's there's a pretty good mix of both. I would say probably maybe there's slightly more need based colleges, but there's definitely a lot of merit based ones also, especially within departments. Departments typically tend to have more of the merit based scholarships.

OK, and then Rachel's asking what are the requirements to do the scholarship essays and where would I find the scholarship? So I'm going to actually put this link here in the chat for the website that I was just sharing. So that's the place where you're going to find all of the directions on how to complete the application. The only requirement to complete it is you have to have your UCI login, which you would get, I believe after you complete your application and after you're admitted to you.

Guys, when you would get your UCI login credentials so as long as you have that you will be able to log into scholarship universe and then go ahead and complete the application. Like I said, you have to do those the questions, the matching questions and so those would be the only kind of requirements to complete it is that you have to meet those matching but to just go in and complete the application. Like I said, they don't. There's not a essay requirement, you have to go in and answer the questions that are on the application.

And then Connor. Do you know if all the distinguished scholarships were already given out, not all of them? We are continuing to offer them out through April, so just keep an eye out on your email and you will be notified if you were selected for a distinguished scholarship. You can also check your financial aid package once you go through my aid and have that on there as well.

Mikaela, as some of the scholarships are external and have been made my decision on UCI and I know you say they are not transferable. Does that relate to all of them? So if you're applying to external scholarships, uh, you can probably, uh, what I'm talking about is the campus based scholarships so any external scholarships you could take to any institution? I would assume unless that external scholarship is specific to UCI. So when I was referring to are the campus.

It's starships at UCI, not external.

Olivia asked, what is the process for consideration of need based scholarships? If you appeal income on fast and it is proved.

But would you be able to answer that?

Yeah, I'm just reading it right now. Just give me one second.

Yeah, if the appeal has been approved with the financial aid side of the office and you are still on the list of the students who applied and we get updated information regarding that and we can review that. You could also appeal and or inform us via the scholarships emailbox and let us know that you had a change and adjustment to your financial aid so that we could actually look at your application one more time and see whether we're able to provide that for you. So there is opportunity there, yes?

OK, awesome. Looks like Denise says Hello, Justine and Connie. I'm wondering if there's any scholarships for enrolled students to apply. Can I search for that on the same website? Thank you, no problem. So I, I think if you're referring to like currently enrolled students this year, if I'm understanding correctly and right now, the the application period for our currently enrolled students was actually January 3rd to January 31st. So that has passed. But you can still go in and look for any of those.

External scholarships as well as what Cooney went over checking with your department to see if they have any scholarships for next year as well as the external scholarships on scholarship universe.

OK Louis, as would we only be able to apply for those scholarships within the April 15th through May 15th time period? Yes. So the campus based scholarships that are on our scholarships universe platform. The the time period is just between those dates. However occasionally some other new scholarships may come up.

But they may not, so UM.

You can also apply to external scholarships outside of that timeline, and but how, UM are external scholarships site will actually be shut down during that time period because it does interfere a little bit with our application, so we want to make sure that everyone is able to apply to the UCI campus scholarships, so definitely apply during April.

April 15th through May 15th for, uh, the campus based scholarships.

OK.

Alrighty and then Vanessa is asking are the distinguished scholarships awarded to other prospective students at the original winner decides to attend a different university? So yeah, we do go in and we can reoffer depending on how many scholarships we have available. So that's why it's more on a continuing basis. And so like I said, you want to just check your email. We anticipate up until the end of April and you'll get notified via email if you were selected for a distinguished.

Worship.

OK, Jesse scholarships are only divided between scholarships are only divided between multiple years if they are through scholarships universe.

Not sure I understand the question.

The only scholarships that are, I believe, the only ones that are guaranteed for multiple years are distinguished. So regions correct me if I'm wrong. Is a four year scholarship chancellors as a two year scholarship total? Assuming that you do meet the GPA renewal requirements, any other scholarship that you applied to on scholarship universe is just going to be guaranteed that one year. So every year you want to go in and reapply to scholarship universe for the next upcoming year. So it's.

It's not just a you apply your first year and you get those scholarships all four years. It's a reapply every year. That's what what Kunu was mentioning on January 3rd, 2023 is when you're going to want to apply for scholarships for 2324 academic year.

So I think hopefully that answers your question.

OK, and then that asks the the scholarship notifications get sent out with college acceptance, acceptance letters, or separately, uh, so they do actually go out separately. So if you.

Are to get one. It would be a separate notification.

Can Thomas asked what prospective students also be completing with currently enrolled students, or the scholarships applied to?

No, so we do have separate application for incoming students, so we have kind of our incoming scholarships and then our continuing scholarships. So you have your own separate scholarships that you're into consideration for. As an incoming student.

Mary asked, I just thought about doing my scholarship university account and I am currently only matched with two scholarships for me so I could I potentially match with more scholarships starting tomorrow when the scholarship application period opens. And yes, so tomorrow the cycle actually opened, so there's definitely a chance that you'll match with additional scholarships. We definitely recommend that you also answer additional questions if you haven't because.

Those questions will match you to additional sources, so if you don't match to all the questions that the scholarship requires, it may not. It may not show up, so we definitely recommend that you answer as many of those questions as possible.

Alright, and then Rachel saying on the survey of scholarship universe, I can't find my high school, so that is something that we can check in the system. If you want to email us at the scholarships at uci.edu, we can double check on that.

And then I see Jesse's follow-up question from earlier, so thank you for that. How the earlier example was a $3000 scholarship, so it's not split between years. It's split within one academic year, and then it's split between between quarters. So if it's a $3000 scholarship for the academic year, that's when you would get this scholarship 1000 for the fall 1000 for the winter 1000 for the spring.

There, yes, so there's any scholarships that are first come first serve.

They're maybe like external ones, uh, but typically this. The scholarships on campus are are application based, so they're not usually first come first.

Alright, if there are any other questions feel free to put those in the chat.

Alright, so car says could you please share the link for distinguished scholarship? I'm not sure if you're looking For more information about it or for the link to apply. So this distinguished scholarship you don't actually apply to. You're automatically considered for it when you apply to UCI using the the information in your admissions application.

I tried to do the email just now. It says unavailable most of the time. It's people put scholarship and it's scholarships, plural with an S, so that might be it.

The scholarships consider your high school senior year grades. Uh, yes. Some scholarships actually do consider your high school grades, so, uh, we typically use your. Actually, we use your admissions GPA for scholarships so.

They are considered so keep those grades up.

Would be easier.

All right, Thomas says, would we be notified if we received a scholarship after the May 15th, or are there specific deadlines versus specific scholarships? So the deadline is May 15th and then notifications would all go out around the same time, probably late May early June is when you would hear back about the scholarship universe scholarships and notified if you were selected for one.

Can I just put in a? For now, I believe you can, UM, but it'll probably be best if we check just in case there are other students that have the same situation as you. So if you can.

Email us, uh, and if it does, doesn't work on, you can.

Uh, I think there's a uh, support button on fellowship universe. Perhaps that, uh, you can put that query into also.

I believe you can go back and change it later so you can put in there for now.

OK, if there's any other questions we got a few minutes left.

That if we can answer them for you.

OK, well it doesn't seem like there's any additional questions at this time, so if you do have additional questions that you come up with later, you can definitely email us as scholarships at eci.edu.

Marriott School we will you be at celebrate UCI event on Saturday. We actually will not be on campus this Saturday, but however if you do have questions you know, feel free to email us at scholarships@uci.edu or if you have financial aid questions been made at uci.edu.

And the additional questions.

Key on the SI can't wait to the chat. Where can I find this information again? Uh, we will be posting a recording of this presentation on our website.

I believe it will be on the scholarship sections. Probably near the uh, under the apply to scholarship section. So, uh, just look for that information. It'll probably be posted early next week, I'm guessing.

Jasmine asked, May you repeat when we will be notified if we receive a scholarship. So the application again is from April 15th to May 15th and then notifications for those applications. If you were selected for a scholarship, will go out late May early June.

And then one more time for those who joined a little bit later, I'm going to put the website where you can find directions and all of the information on how to apply for the scholarships through scholarship universe.

So the question, I can't find internal scholarships on slash sheet scholarship universe. Am I missing something? So the internal scholarships won't actually appear until tomorrow, so check again tomorrow and then you also have to answer the questions to match to the scholarships before they show up. So log on tomorrow, answer the questions and then if you are eligible for the scholarships.

Uh, that scholarship will show up for you and you can apply.

Yeah as well on that link that I just shared in the chat. There is a video that shows you how to answer the questions.

Hey Sarah says if I took a college course in high school, should I list the college I took it under the colleges I've attended? I would say yes, unless Cooney is has a different answer.

Yeah, you can go ahead and and list that, that's fine.

A certain aspect of our financial situation changes, such as a parent retiring how early should we notify the financial aid office of the matter the NESSIA? Would you like to check in?

OK.

Yes, I was going to jump in, so yes, if they are retiring and you want us to overlook your facts and information, you can give us a call.

Monday to Friday. Depending on the situation, it can depend, UM, situation based so we can open an appeal for you. But in order to see what appeal will be the best fit for you, you would give us a call so we can discuss that specific situation. And absolutely we'll consider that.

For your and reward you based on this new information.

OK.

She didn't ask how many students will be awarded the distinguished scholarships.

Fabian would answer that one.

Sorry, are you able to hear me, Connie?

Yes.

I have this connection problem. Sorry about that. The answer to that question is that I believe we have over 1100 distinguished scholarship awards to give to students. So almost 1100 students are going to receive that, and that includes both regions scholarship.

Chancellor scholarship, as well as directors scholarship. For the last one is for out-of-state issues and internationals, but the first two are for California residents and citizens or permanent residents of the United States.

OK, and then Rachel's asking right now I'm doing the questions it says I was available for two. I pressed one and it said creativity startup. What does that mean? A creativity startup? So I actually pulled up the website so I'm going to share you off so you can see what scholarship universe looks like. So this is what it'll look like when you go and sign in again. You'll see there's questions right here. And so these are the questions that.

We are telling you that you'll have to answer. It'll say you know what is your citizenship status. Some of those will be auto populated, again based on your application. You can go here where it says answer more questions and see. This is where you actually go in and fill those out. What is your current academic level? So your high school senior et cetera, et cetera. Once you answer the questions, it'll take you two applications.

Or no scholarships? Obviously I don't have any matches because I haven't answered all the questions yet.

And then.

Somewhere I just had it.

So you see how those are all the. So this is the creativity and entrepreneurship scholarship. If you click here view, it'll give you some more information as to what that scholarship actually is, what the requirements are, all of that type of stuff. So you can click it on that for more details on those things.

I'm trying to find the specific creativity startup.

That's the one I think.

That's why I'm OK, cool.

So this one specifically is.

Focusing students to who are rewarding innovative ideas. So basically you're putting in a proposal saying I have this idea and they're going to work with you through that. But again, the reason why you're only seeing the two is because the application is not actually open yet.

Yeah, here's an example. And again, once you fill out the the matching questions, it will show you these are the open scholarships you have. This is how many you applied.

Uhm, and it updates all your statistics so that way you know what you have applied to, what you haven't applied to. If your scholarships are in review, all of that good stuff.

The the the scholarships for incoming students will open tomorrow. So definitely check back tomorrow. You'll need to answer as many other questions as you can to see which scholarships you match up to. So yeah, please check back tomorrow.

So we are nearing the end of our time on this presentation, so if you do have additional questions, please email us as powerships ici.edu and it definitely follow us on Instagram and Facebook as we definitely do announce deadlines. Additional scholarship opportunities that come up and we look forward to hearing you.

Oh, thank you. So all so much for coming.