Scholarship Info for Staff

Should a donor approach a campus office about a scholarship donation, contact your College’s Director of Development for assistance. A donor gift agreement may need to be completed before establishing the scholarship.  

Establish a scholarship account at the University Corporation (UCorp). Complete the University Corporation, Special Project Agreement and Delegation of Authority forms available at http://ucorp.sfsu.edu, click Forms, Project Directors Get proper link.

If applicable, establish a scholarship endowment account at the SF State Foundation. Complete the Endowment Agreement and the Delegation of Signature Authority forms available at http://sfsufdn.sfsu.edu/, click Forms. Get proper link.

To establish a scholarship account, endowment account, check scholarship and/or endowment account balances, close a scholarship and/or endowment account, deposit scholarship donation checks contact:

• Ricardo David Angeles, The University Corporation, scholarship accounts
• Shelby Zuo, The University Corporation, scholarship accounts
• Ei Than, University Fiscal Affairs, scholarship and endowment accounts
• Venesia Thompson, SF State Foundation, endowment accounts
• Irina Krasnitskaya, Donor Acknowledgement, deposit donation scholarship checks

The Scholarship Agreement is SF State’s official documentation for the administration of each scholarship. The agreement ensures transparency, consistency, and unbiased written details on applying, selection criteria, and disbursement for each scholarship to facilitate compliance with SF State and CSU scholarship policies and procedures as well ensure a fair and open process. A Scholarship agreement signed by both the Project Director and Financial Aid must be on file with the Office of Student Financial Aid before a campus office begins the application or nomination process for: scholarships, fellowships, award, prizes, and loans within the campus community on a competitive basis.

Once the scholarship agreement form is received and reviewed, the scholarship name, fund number, intent, and eligibility criteria will be entered into AcademicWorks. Allow up to 10 working days for review and implementation.

The scholarship opportunity “Description” in AcademicWorks can ONLY be populated or updated by the Office of Student Financial Aid. This is to ensure that all scholarships conform to certain general guidelines and that consistent information about scholarships are available. Any changes require a new scholarship agreement or a scholarship agreement change form

When a donor amends the donor gift agreement and there are changes to the scholarship intent and/or criteria, an amended Financial Aid scholarship agreement must be submitted to the Office of Student Financial Aid before the next scholarship application cycle.

A signed copy of the scholarship agreement is available as a pdf file link in your scholarship AW Portfolio Details Notes section. All new or amended scholarship agreements/change forms will be scanned in as they are processed. During peak processing times (i.e. prior to semesters starts) there may be delays in scanning.

NOTE:

All scholarship criteria, application and selection procedures must comply with:

• University policy that prohibits discrimination based upon race, gender, color, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, religion, or disability. And;
• Proposition 209, a constitutional amendment by initiative, which was passed by the California electorate on November 5, 1996. Proposition 209 states:

“The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”

1. Complete a Scholarship Agreement form. Determine and document the items listed below. This information will be used to enter the “Description” in AW and put in the basic qualifications. Be as clear as possible with the intent and eligibility requirements.

• Intent of scholarship/award/prize/loan
• Identify applicant pool
• Eligibility criteria (e.g., class level, entering and/or continuing, GPA, cumulative units completed, major and/or minor, etc.)
• Minimum enrollment requirement to receive scholarship – at least half time as defined by the University unless Scholarship Agreement states otherwise. (May note variances in enrollment for graduate students working on thesis and graduating seniors.)
• Method of publicizing the scholarship opportunity
• Start and end date for applications/nominations
• Selection committee should be composed of at least three persons.
• Scholarship selection procedures

2. Submit completed Scholarship Agreement to the Office of Student Financial Aid. The agreement will be reviewed, signed, and a copy linked to your scholarship opportunity in AW.

3. Scholarship will be created in AcademicWorks. Campus office will be notified to review information and to set up the system (e.g., questions, review group and customize scoring rubrics, communications in system offer/congratulations letter) for students to apply-to or be auto-matched.

• Forgivable loans: The administering office must establish the terms and conditions of the forgivable loan and contact SF State Fiscal Services to create a loan promissory note (see contact page). Provide Fiscal Services with a letterhead or logo for the promissory note.
• Campus office administering the forgivable loan is responsible for informing the recipients about the terms and conditions and monitoring the recipients to ensure they meet the terms and conditions as detailed in the promissory note. The campus office should keep a copy of the signed promissory note on file. If recipients do not meet the terms and conditions of the forgivable loan, establish detail loan repayment procedures and put student into repayment. Work with the Fiscal Services office.
• A general department/College scholarship account for non-endowed small scholarship donations or donations given on a one time basis.

We advise to keep the criteria broad, so you may award these non-endowed small scholarship donations from this scholarship account. Each scholarship awarded from this general scholarship account must meet the general scholarship eligibility criteria plus any donor directed specific criteria.

• If you would like to publicize the specific scholarship through AW, you must complete a separate scholarship agreement.
• When completing the Scholarship/award request for this general scholarship department account, make sure you put the name of the scholarship account and then in parenthesis put the name of the specific non-endowed scholarship, for example Biology Department Scholarship (David Winn Memorial Scholarship).

Note: Refer to the SF State AW help tips guide for more detail SF State guidelines and the AW user manual or taped AW training videos or click the link located on the top right of each AW screen to go to their Knowledgebase web page for instructions on how to use AW.

You may “clone” your scholarship opportunity at any time to begin to review and setup the scholarship for your next application cycle. After you “clone” your scholarship opportunity or a new scholarship is created in AW, follow the instructions below to setup your scholarship.

1. Important Considerations:

Before opening the scholarship application, nomination or recruitment process determine:

• If there is sufficient funding to award the scholarship.
• If there are changes in personnel. If yes, make sure you submit paperwork to reflect changes to UCorp and Financial Aid.
• The semester to open the scholarship application, nomination or recruitment process and the semester the scholarship will be distributed to the student (e.g., Fall application for Spring distribution or Spring application for Fall distribution).

Note: see SF State University Scholarship Policy for specific timetable guidelines.

• What you will ask the applicants to submit (e.g., essay question, recommendation letter, academic transcript, specific questions pertaining to the scholarship, etc.), and the selection or nomination procedures.

Students will complete the AW General Application (profile) and should check their AW student portal frequently to view their recommended scholarship list, their application statuses, and their references to see if the recommendation letter has been submitted. **If not, the student can resend the reference letter request from their AW portal.

2. Promote scholarship: To ensure you have a good applicant pool determine how you will publicize the scholarship opportunity (e.g., targeted emails, announcement in classes, fliers, bulletin boards).

3. From “Portfolios All” in AW click “Future or the semester” to go to the Opportunity Details page in AW. The Description Text Box information is populated from the Scholarship Agreement on file with our office. Do not make changes to the Description box. If any field needs to be updated, please submit an amended scholarship agreement.

Exceptions for the Description Text Box, you may add:

• a paragraph about the donor below the College name and above the templated text.
• The semester or academic year you will be awarding the scholarship under the name of the College. For example:

Liberal and Creative Arts

*Scholarship awarded for the 2024-2025 academic year* or *Scholarship awarded for the Fall 2024 semester* or “Scholarship awarded for the next academic year”

If there is a specific date or year, you must update this after you clone the opportunity for the next application cycle.

4. Update the Application Start and End date: Update the “Start” and **“Public End and Internal End” date for your application cycle. The start date will be the first day applicants will be able to apply for your scholarship and the public end date will be the deadline date visible to applicants, the internal end date is the date the system freezes the data from the General Application and CS import data for applicants. Best practice is to use the same dates for both public and internal end dates. Applicants will be able to apply up until 11:59 pm on the end date.

Campus offices must open their scholarship opportunities for students to apply-to at the beginning of the semester prior to the semester you wish the students to receive the scholarship funds. This is to facilitate students’ use of the funds for their educational expenses and to coordinate the scholarship with the students’ other financial aid as required by Federal and State regulations.

DO NOT put in the Archive date until you are completely done with the scholarship process. It is recommended to wait until after the scholarship awards have been fully disbursed.

5. Supplemental Questions: Set up the supplemental questions in the “Questions” tab to ask applicants to write an essay, request a recommendation letter, ask additional questions specific to your scholarship. E.g.- questions as needed to further qualify the applicant (is your major GPA 3.0? or have you completed 12 units in your major?, etc.) or upload an academic transcript.

You can set up questions to qualify an applicant by their self-reported information then confirm the information (e.g., GPA for newly admitted students, current enrollment, or major GPA, etc.).

If you are cloning a scholarship opportunity, DO NOT make changes to existing questions. You must create a “NEW” question, add it to your scholarship opportunity then delete the old question from the cloned scholarship. Any changes to existing questions will change the previous application’s questions.

     **Avoid using specific dates in your questions. If you do, then a new question must be created each application cycle to update the date.

Certain data elements are imported from the University’s Campus Solutions (CS) system to AW on a nightly basis (e.g., “imported” cumulative GPA, SF State GPA, class level, major, major2, minor). Requesting an academic transcript from the applicants to verify GPA is not necessary unless you wish to view the courses they took and the individual grades.

6. Qualifications: Review “Qualifications” tab to make sure the qualifications for applicants for your scholarship are correct. Qualifications are assigned based on the eligibility requirements listed on the Scholarship Agreement.

Review the “majors” and/or “minors” to ensure all eligible majors/minors are listed and update any dates. **Make sure you add new majors or majors with new names and remove majors that are no longer available to ensure applicants are “qualified” accurately. Changes in naming conventions can exclude otherwise eligible applicants.

Adding “Major 2” to a qualifications group will qualify students who are in double majors.

Creating specific “yes/no” questions (select Radio button) can help further determine if the applicant is qualified and can be added to the qualification group. It is useful to ask for information that is not available in AW or through the imported CS data. Some example questions are:

• “Will you be enrolled in 6 units Spring 2025?” OR
• “Is your major GPA 3.0 and above?” OR
• “Have you completed at least 2 courses in your major field?” OR
• “Are you an entering student for the Fall 2024 semester?

Add your essay question(s), confidential recommendation letter questions as a qualification and require them to be present (e.g. essay must be present) to ensure that all the requested documents are submitted by the deadline date and you have a complete application before the applicant is considered “qualified”.

The only exception is a file upload. The system will not deem an application submitted if the file upload is not present.

7. Selection Committee: Selection committee members are appointed by the project director administering the scholarship. The scholarship committee should consist of at least three members.

Must include the names and titles of the committee members in the AW review group, detail section, and Group Information text box.

Donors or donor representatives should not be on the selection committee.  However, if they are, no combination of donors or donor representatives should directly or indirectly control the committee and they may not represent a majority of the committee. Contact Young Kim, Tax Specialist, for questions or guidelines.

8. Selection procedures/review process: Determine selection procedures (e.g., scoring rubrics, etc.). Set up the review process in AW OR if already set up, after you’ve cloned the scholarship opportunity, you may then “clone” the previous review group to create a new review group for each new application cycle.

Make sure there is only one review group attached to your scholarship opportunity. If the previous review group is attached, remove it.

Name your review group with the application semester (e.g., University Scholarship selection committee Spring 2025) so you can identify which review group belongs to each application cycle.

• Click the “Evaluators” tab in the top bar then select “Groups” to create your reviewer group and add your reviewers to the group.
• Make sure you have your reviewers’ email address available. You can search to see if your reviewer is in AW by putting in their email. If not, add reviewers by putting in their email address.
• Include the names and titles of the committee members in the AW review group, detail section, Group information text box.
• To customize your reviewer questions and scoring rubrics, click the “Detach” button on the top right.
• Use the existing reviewer questions or create new reviewer questions.
• Use the existing scoring rubrics or create new scoring rubrics that reflects what the scholarship intent is.

The review process should be done on-line through AcademicWorks so the award decisions are recorded in the system. An example review process: reviewers review the applications on-line, put in their initial scores, meet and discuss then submit their final scores in AW before the end review date.

If you do not select the highest scored applicant as the recipient, you must enter an explanation on how the selection was made and why the student with the lower score was selected. The note is for record keeping and audit purposes.

     Do not “archive” the review group until you are completely done with the Review group and have made all necessary notes and have determined the review group will no longer be used. Archive the scholarship opportunity associated with the review group first then archive the review group.

9. Review period: Determine the “Begin Review Period” date. This is the date your reviewers will receive an email from scholarships@sfsu.edu to notify them that they have been assigned reviews to complete for their assigned scholarship.

The email will have a link to create their AW password. Then they can sign in using the References and Reviewers link with their email address and AW password. Reviewers and references should not sign in with their SF State ID and password unless they’ve been setup in AW with their SF State ID previously.

If your reviewers have sign in issues, refer to the SF State Box, Scholarships and AW Resources, Troubleshooting sign in issues folder, AW User Manual article - “Troubleshooting sign in issues guide”. – Need to link this

10. Check eligibility: After the application deadline date, go to the “Applications” tab to make sure each applicant who has “Submitted” an application meets the eligibility requirements – if qualified, the applicant will have at least one “Qualifications Point” in the Qualifications Point column on the right side of the page.

NOTE: If incoming Freshman or transfer students can apply and the scholarship qualifications include a cumulative GPA (imported and/or self-reported), these students may not have a qualification point because they do not have a cumulative GPA in CS or did not self-report. If this is the case, you will have to manually check the “submitted” applications without a qualification point to see if they are entering students then manually verify their GPA using their transcripts.

11. Review scores: After the review committee has finished reviewing and final scores entered into AW, the system will automatically tabulate the total reviewer score for each applicant using a 100 point scale that can be viewed on the “Applications” tab “Reviewer score” column.

12. Check financial need: If the scholarship requires the applicants to have financial need as determined by the Office of Student Financial Aid contact the Office of Student Financial Aid to ensure your finalists meet this requirement before offering the scholarship to the recipient.

13. Select the recipients: Check to make sure finalists meet all eligibility requirements, have not graduated, and are or will be enrolled in the required units and term to receive the scholarship award before offering the scholarship to the finalists.

Best practice would be to stipulate in your scholarship in-system offer letter located in the AW Communications tab the semester the scholarship is for and the enrollment requirements to receive the scholarship award.

Alternate recipient: If for some reason the recipient is no longer eligible for the scholarship (e.g, not enrolled in the required units to receive the scholarship), you can select an alternate recipient. **Make sure you update the AW application category for the recipient who is no longer eligible at the Applications tab then “offer” the scholarship to the alternate recipient (refer to #16 below for Application categories you can use).

14. Communications/Congratulatory letter: Go to the “Communications” tab and type in the in-system congratulatory letter from your department or chair/dean/director into the In-system offer, “Offer Details” box. This will be viewed by the recipients when they sign into their AW portal to view their scholarship offer to accept or decline.

This letter should congratulate the recipients and inform them about the requirements to receive the scholarship (e.g., enrollment requirement, attend an awards ceremony, submit Thank you letter addressed to…, etc.) as well as informing them that all other resources they receive must be coordinated with their financial aid awards and cannot exceed the cost of attendance per Federal and State regulations.

Offer email and banner messages are templated messages and should not be updated. You may add a sentence or two, but do not change anything inside the double brackets. The system will automatically populate the double brackets fields with the student’s name and scholarship name.

After you “offer” the scholarship, you must “distribute” the offer email by going to the Site, Communications, User Messages unless you’ve changed the Deliver When to “immediately”.

15. Thank you letter/Donor Relations: The Post Acceptance process is managed by Sergi Avteniev in University Development and used for donor relations. Five post acceptance questions have been placed into the Post Acceptance tab for ALL scholarships. He will inform donors of the successful application of their donated funds. Any questions, please contact Sergi.

16. Offer the scholarship: At the “Applications” tab change the application status by going to the Category column and click the down arrow for the list of application categories. Change the application status for the winners to “Offered” to offer the scholarship to them so they can accept the award.

If in your Communications the offer email and banner is set at deliver “immediately”, then once you change the application status to “offered”, the offer email and banner will be automatically sent to the recipient. If you use this option, make sure you double check that the correct student is being offered the scholarship for the correct semester and amount and have put in your In-system offer letter text for recipients to view before they accept or decline the scholarship offer.

However, if in your Communications the offer email and banner is set at deliver “Upon Approval”, then you must go to the Site, Communications, User Messages to distribute the offer email and banner.

Change the application status for students who have “submitted” an application but were not selected for a scholarship award to “OA Regret” to inform them that they were not selected.

Best practice is to wait until recipients accept the offer and submit their Thank you letter and answers their post acceptance questions, before changing the application status to “OA Awarded” and completing the Scholarship Award Request(s).

SF State AW Application Categories:

                   Administrator view > Student view

• OA Awarded – Scholarship awarded
• OA Regret – Not selected to receive a scholarship award
• OA Declined – Not eligible/incomplete application
• OA Canceled – Scholarship canceled. No longer eligible
• OA Rescinded – Scholarship canceled. Did not accept by deadline date.
• Finalist – if finalists are required to come in for an interview before making final decisions, you may use this category to let the applicants know they are a finalist. Reviewer chairs are able to place applications into this category.

17. Have recipients accepted the scholarship and submitted the Thank you letter? Before completing and submitting the scholarship award requests to request disbursement, make sure recipients have “accepted” their scholarship award and have completed their post-acceptance questions on-line.

18. Record retention: Scholarship records should be retained for a minimum of 3 years from the end of the award year. AcademicWorks is SF State’s system of record for scholarship management. Its use is mandatory. The system will keep records of the entire scholarship process.

There are “Notes” sections on every tab in AcademicWorks. You should make comments in the “Notes” sections as needed to notate or explain any special circumstances. For example, reasons why a top scoring applicant was not selected and what was taken into consideration in selecting the recipient.

   If your campus office made a decision to not review or score your scholarship applicants on-line using AW, then the campus office administering the scholarship is responsible for putting a Note into AW to explain the methodology used to select the recipients and notate the names and titles of the committee members as well as to retain the records documenting the methodology used to make final decisions.

19. Extending scholarship deadline: If by the scholarship deadline date there are not enough applicants or not enough qualified applicants, you can extend the scholarship deadline date.

However, once a scholarship application and selection process has been completed, it is not recommended to re-open the application process for that particular semester or academic year.

20. Cloning your scholarship opportunity: You can “clone” your scholarship anytime to begin preparing for the next application cycle. It is not necessary to wait until you are done with your current scholarship application cycle.

After cloning, you should begin updating the scholarship opportunity for your next application cycle. **After you clone the opportunity, remember to “clone” your review group for the next application cycle. Refer to the AW help tips guide “Preparing for your next application cycle” for more instructions.

21. Archiving your scholarship opportunity: “Archive” your scholarship opportunity when the scholarship application and awarding process is completely done. The best time to “archive” the scholarship would be after the scholarship disbursement. The Office of Student Financial Aid will notify you a week after census should any of your scholarships fail to disburse.

Before you archive, make sure the entire scholarship process in AW is done. For example, recipients have “accepted” their scholarship offer, Thank you letters/post acceptance questions have been submitted, application statuses have been updated (e.g, OA Awarded, OA regret, etc.), notes to the file have been entered regarding the application and selection process.

When you are completely done with your scholarship opportunity and all actions completed, go to the Opportunity Details page to put in the “Archive” date. Once you “Archive” the scholarship, you will no longer be able to make updates except to put in a Note.

You must keep the Office of Student Financial Aid informed of any changes/updates to the scholarship eligibility criteria, award process, award amounts, number of awards, timetable for award distribution, project director, AW opportunity administrator and contact persons.

If your scholarship is governed by a donor gift agreement, changes should not be made to the donor stipulated eligibility criteria. Contact your College’s Director of Development (https://develop.sfsu.edu/staff-directory), should you have any questions.

1. Changes can be made to the eligibility criteria or award process before the application or nomination or recruitment process begins by informing the Office of Student Financial Aid. You must complete a new scholarship agreement form in these instances.
2. Once the scholarship application or nomination process begins, changes cannot be made to the eligibility criteria (e.g., minimum enrollment requirement, GPA, class level, majors/minors, etc.) or award process. For example, student selected is enrolled in half-time units, but according to the scholarship agreement the scholarship requires full-time enrollment. An exception is not allowed, since the enrollment requirement that was publicized at the time of the scholarship application is for full-time enrollment. This is to facilitate a fair and open process.
3. Keep the Office of Student Financial Aid up-to-date for changes to the project director, AW opportunity administrator, and/or contact persons by submitting the Scholarship Agreement change form or a signed memo on department letterhead from the project director. We can also accept a copy of the signed UCorp Special Project Agreement (SPA) for changes to the project director.
4. Keep UCorp, Fiscal Affairs, and the Office of Student Financial Aid informed of any inactive scholarships not being awarded due to insufficient funding or other justifiable reasons as well as request to inactivate scholarships no longer being offered by sending a signed memo on department letterhead from the project director.

Students who have accepted financial aid will receive a financial aid fee deferment. Financial aid recipients are required to report their scholarship award(s) to the Financial Aid Office through their Student Services Center – Report other resources link. Once reported, a scholarship estimate is entered as a place holder. This defers the tuition payment deadline until after financial aid disbursements have begun.

Students who are NOT receiving financial aid must report their scholarship OR the scholarship award request must be received from the campus office and processed in order to receive a fee deferment. Otherwise, students must pay their tuition fees by the published tuition deadline.

Per Federal and State regulations, the Office of Student Financial Aid must be notified of all students who receive a scholarship/award/fellowship/prize/loan. When a student is a financial aid recipient, the Office of Student Financial Aid must coordinate all other resources with the student’s financial aid package and the combination of all awards cannot exceed eligibility and/or the cost of attendance.

Financial Aid cannot disburse scholarships to students who are not enrolled.

Graduate students who are not enrolled but working on their thesis may receive stipends instead of scholarships. Please contact UCorp.

Each scholarship has its specific intent and eligibility criteria. Campus offices cannot use a scholarship fund for other purposes outside the original “Scholarship intent”. For example, select a student for a specific scholarship and then pay the student with funds from a different scholarship account.

1. DISBURSEMENT DEADLINES:

Campus offices must request scholarship disbursements for the beginning of a semester to facilitate students’ use of the funds for their educational expenses and to coordinate the scholarship with students’ financial aid. **Refer to the SF State Scholarship Policy timetable for scholarship applications, selection, and distribution.

The Scholarship/Award Requests must be received by the Office of Student Financial Aid by semester’s deadline.  

Send the Scholarship/Award Request(s) to the University Corporation or Fiscal Affairs and allow up to 7 working days processing time before the Office of Student Financial Aid receives the paperwork.

Once the Office of Student Financial Aid receives the Scholarship/Award Requests,   

allow up to 10 working days processing time before the scholarship is disbursed.

For students who are receiving financial aid, Scholarship/Award Requests received during a semester or at the end of a semester may result in one of the following consequences:

• the reduction of upcoming Spring financial aid for a late Fall scholarship
• unable to coordinate the scholarship with financial aid therefore, the student may  have to submit additional paperwork to resolve
• student may have to repay financial aid (e.g., loans) before the scholarship can be disbursed or scholarship will be used to pay the loan
• unable to disburse the scholarship.

When Scholarship/Award Requests are received at the end of the Spring semester and end of the academic year, it may result in the following consequences:

• the inability to coordinate the award with the student’s financial aid at such a late date, therefore cannot disburse scholarship
• unable to contact students to resolve holds, therefore cannot disburse the scholarship (e.g., international students or non-citizens or non-permanent residents must meet with the tax specialist, Young Kim, before the scholarship disburses)

If any one of these situations occur, the campus office will be notified that the scholarship cannot be disbursed for the Spring semester.  The campus office may make a decision to disburse the scholarship for the summer session or for the next academic year’s Fall semester provided the student will be enrolled in the number of units per the Scholarship agreement on file with the Office of Student Financial Aid.

2. Project Directors and/or the office administering the scholarship must verify the following before completing a scholarship award request to request disbursement:

• verify recipients selected meet all scholarship eligibility requirements including the enrollment requirement to receive the award.
• verify recipients have “accepted” their scholarship award in AW
• if applicable, verify recipients have submitted their Thank you letter on-line through AW
• verify the recipients’ name and SF State student id number are correct
• verify the award amount is the amount “offered” through AW and as stated on the scholarship agreement.
• verify the timetable for award distribution (e.g., Fall, Spring, academic year, varies) is as stated on the scholarship agreement.

3. HOW TO REQUEST SCHOLARSHIP DISBURSEMENTS:

• The University Corporation (UCorp), SF State scholarship accounts: (allow up to 7 working days processing time for UCorp before the financial aid office receives the paperwork to process for disbursement)
• Complete the University Corporation, San Francisco State Scholarship/Award Request form for each recipient available at http://ucorp.sfsu.edu, Forms section.  

Specify:

• recipient's name and student id number,
• FULL scholarship name,
• scholarship amount,
• academic year and semester(s) in which scholarship should be disbursed per scholarship agreement,
• minimum enrollment requirement for the scholarship as stated in the scholarship agreement/addendum.  

Double check all information is CORRECT before submitting to UCorp.

If this is a general department/college scholarship account where non-endowed scholarship donations are deposited and awarded from, make sure you put the name of the scholarship on the Scholarship/award request, for example Biology Department Scholarship. If there is a name attached to a specific non-endowed donation and you are awarding that scholarship, you may add the name in parenthesis, for example Biology Department Scholarship (David Winn Memorial Scholarship).

The semester(s) the scholarship is to be disbursed must be marked on the Scholarship/Award Request.

            -If “Fall/Spring” is selected, the scholarship amount on the   Scholarship/Award Request will be evenly disbursed between the two semesters.

            -If only one semester (e.g., Fall, Spring, Summer) is selected then the full amount is disbursed in that semester.

If the enrollment requirement differs for graduating seniors and graduate students working on thesis or final project per the scholarship agreement or scholarship addendum on file, please specify the specific enrollment requirement and put an explanation on the specific student’s award request (e.g., 3 units, Graduating senior - student needs 3 units to graduate Fall 2025 or 3 units, graduate student working on thesis).

Graduate students who are not enrolled, but working on thesis must receive stipends instead of a scholarship. Please contact UCorp.

Do not request disbursement for award amounts with cents. Cents cannot be disbursed. Please contact UCorp to determine how to handle the cents.

If continued eligibility must be verified by the campus office before releasing the Spring award for an academic year (Fall & Spring) award. Submit a separate Scholarship/Award Request for each semester.

Should a change need to be made after submitting the Scholarship/Award Request to the University Corporation (UCorp), contact the Financial Aid office immediately to check if the scholarship has already disbursed. If already disbursed, check with the scholarship team member and UCorp what needs to be done. If the student needs to be notified, it is the administering campus office’s responsibility to notify the student in writing and copy the scholarship team member and UCorp. If not disbursed yet, check with the scholarship team member and UCorp what paperwork is needed to make the change.

• Project Director must sign form.
• Send form to UCorp for verification and encumbrance of funds.
• UCorp forwards Scholarship/Award Request form to Office of Student Financial

Aid who then coordinates the scholarship with any existing financial aid awards, checks AW, verifies enrollment, and requests the check disbursement (allow up to 7-10 working days processing time).

2. University Fiscal Affairs scholarship accounts: (allow up to 7 working days processing time for Fiscal Affairs before the Financial Aid Office receives the paperwork to process for disbursement)

• Complete the Fiscal Affairs, San Francisco State Scholarship/Award Request form for each recipient available at http://fiscaff.sfsu.edu, click “Forms and Documents”, go to “Governmental Funds Accounting”. Need to link

Specify:

• recipient's name and student id number,
• FULL scholarship name,
• scholarship amount,
• academic year and semester(s) in which scholarship should be disbursed per scholarship agreement,
• minimum enrollment requirement for the scholarship as stated in the scholarship agreement/addendum.  

Double check all information is CORRECT before submitting to Fiscal Affairs.

Do not request disbursement for award amounts with cents. Cents cannot be disbursed. Please contact Fiscal Affairs (see contact information page) to determine how to handle the cents.

The semester(s) the scholarship should be disbursed must be marked on the Scholarship/Award Request.

            -If “Fall” and “Spring” are both checked, the scholarship amount on the Scholarship/Award Request will be evenly disbursed between the two         semesters.

            -If only one semester (e.g., Fall, Spring, Summer) is checked then the full amount is disbursed in that semester.

• If the enrollment requirement is different for graduating seniors and graduate students working on thesis or final project per the scholarship agreement or scholarship addendum on file, please specify the specific enrollment requirement and put an explanation on the specific student’s award request (e.g., 3 units, Graduating senior - student needs 3 units to graduate Fall 2025 or 3 units, working on thesis). Financial Aid cannot disburse scholarships to students who are not enrolled.

If continued eligibility must be verified by the campus office before releasing the Spring award for an academic year (Fall & Spring) award. Submit a separate Scholarship/Award Request for each semester.

Should a change need to be made after submitting the Scholarship/Award Request to Fiscal Affairs, contact the Financial Aid office immediately to check if the scholarship has already disbursed. If already disbursed, check with the scholarship team member and Fiscal Affairs what needs to be done. If the student needs to be notified, it is the administering campus office’s responsibility to notify the student in writing and copy the scholarship team member and Fiscal Affairs. If not disbursed yet, check with the scholarship team member and Fiscal Affairs what paperwork is needed to make the change.

• Project Director must sign form.
• Send form to Fiscal Affairs for verification of funds.
• Fiscal Affairs forwards Scholarship/Award Request form to the Office of

Student Financial Aid who then coordinates the scholarship with any existing financial aid awards, checks AW, verifies enrollment, and requests the check disbursement (allow up to 7-10 working days processing time).  

3. Scholarships/awards/prizes given directly to the student:

• The Office of Student Financial Aid must be notified of all monetary awards given to a student from a campus office or auxiliary. Send a signed memo on department letterhead listing the name of the award, purpose of the award, names of the recipients, student ID number, award amount, academic year, and the semester the award is given.  The scholarship award will be coordinated with the students’ financial aid as appropriate.

4. Disbursement: Office of Student Financial Aid will authorize the release of the scholarship award. The Bursars’ office will check to see if the student owes any University obligations and deduct the amount from the scholarship. If there is no obligation owed and a balance remaining, the balance will be direct deposited or a check will be mailed to the student’s address on file.

5. Recipient did not receive the scholarship check. Student must verify with the Financial Aid office that the scholarship check was disbursed. If yes, and student has not received the check, student must go to the Bursar’s office, ADM 155, to see if the scholarship check was returned to SF State. If not, student must request a stop payment. Once the stop payment goes through, then the Bursar’s office will reissue another scholarship check to the student.

6. Scholarships/fellowships/awards/prizes/loans awarded to an international student or a non citizen or non permanent resident will have a hold. Students must meet with the Tax specialist, Young Kim (see contact page), to determine whether the scholarship may be subject to withholding of taxes before the scholarship is disbursed. This process will take up to an additional three weeks. Students may make an appointment with Young Kim at this website, http://fiscaff.sfsu.edu/taxservices.

1. When a scholarship recipient becomes ineligible to receive a scholarship after the Scholarship/Award Request has been submitted, the Project Director must notify the appropriate Scholarship Team member by sending an email and following up with a signed memo on department letterhead to cancel the scholarship award and copy University Corporation or Fiscal Affairs.

If the award has already been disbursed, it is the administering campus office’s responsibility to notify the student in writing to explain why the funds must be returned and copy the appropriate scholarship team member, University Corporation or Fiscal Affairs. The administering campus office must work with the student and the financial aid office to ensure repayment of the scholarship.

2. After census (4^th week of classes) and at the end of each semester, the Office of Student Financial Aid will notify each campus office by email of all the cancelled scholarship disbursements that have not disbursed because students are not enrolled in the required number of units to receive the scholarship per the scholarship agreement/addendum.

It is the administering campus office’s responsibility to notify the student of his/her ineligibility for a scholarship.

For all University Corporation scholarship accounts, the Project Director must notify the University Corporation to disencumber the scholarship funds (see contact information page).

In rare circumstances, appropriate flexibility may be demonstrated by SF State in making reasonable exceptions to scholarship award decisions in order to facilitate student success and timely progress to degree. Requests for exception must be submitted in writing to the Vice President for Student Affairs & Enrollment Management as soon as possible following receipt of the contested decision. An explanation of the extenuating circumstances why certain criteria or deadlines were not met should be included in the communication. Appeals should be submitted electronically to vpsaem@sfsu.edu

When a campus office receives a scholarship check from an external organization/foundation for a SF State student who has won a scholarship, forward the check and letter to the Bursar’s Office. All external scholarship checks are deposited by the Bursar’s Office and disbursement requested by the Office of Student Financial Aid.

An external organization/foundation has asked a campus department to assist in finding qualified SF State applicants for their scholarship, but the scholarship application and selection process is handled by the external organization/foundation then this scholarship is considered an external scholarship. This is not a campus scholarship. Do not deposit these checks into your campus scholarship accounts.

The check must be sent to the Bursar’s Office along with a letter that states:

• the scholarship name,
• student name,
• student id number,
• amount of the scholarship,
• semester or academic year the scholarship is for,
• enrollment requirement and any other stipulations.

Bursar’s Office will deposit the scholarship check. Paperwork is then forwarded to the Office of Student Financial Aid to request disbursement.