Students across the country with connections to MacMurray College have the opportunity now to apply for college scholarships online.
The MacMurray College Alumni Foundation & Alumni Association Scholarships application period officially opened on January 1st.
Chair of the association’s scholarship committee, Sandy Watson (’72), says new this year to the scholarship program is that the application process is being done solely online: “It’s going to be, I hope, much easier for the applicants and for our scholarship application reviewers who evaluate the applications. We moved to an online process with Foundant Technologies, where the applicant will…like anytime you fill out something online, click on the link to the scholarship application on our website, set up your own account with your own password, and then go through the application process. It will be much easier because everything is submitted online, someone can come back and finish their application if it’s partially done. You don’t have to fill it all out in one setting if you don’t have time and can submit it later.”
Watson says that in the past, she would have to pull from various emails from applicants and work off of paper copies out of the postal mail to get the applications all together for the application review process.
New in recent years is that the concept of “MacFam” has broadened since the scholarship program began. Students who are not direct family members of former students, faculty, and staff can now apply for scholarships. Watson says it’s a special process to become a “sponsored student” by one of the MacFam: “What we determined was that some MacFam members, alumni, and others don’t have children or any relatives that are available or ready for a scholarship yet, but they may have a special person, a special neighbor, friend, someone that they have mentored, or watched grow up etc. who would be eligible for a scholarship and would like to help them. The MacFam member can nominate that person or sponsor that person for a scholarship with the the MacMurray College Foundation. That’s new this year. The applicant goes through the online application process, but there is a part where they need to get the sponsor’s letter of recommendation to have it work.”
The only other new piece to the scholarships this year, is a new named scholarship. The Baker Family Trust Scholarship is for $5,000 to be awarded to a student majoring in or intending to major in Business Administration, Economics, Marketing, or Industrial Distribution and meets the eligibility requirements of the foundation’s scholarship program.
To find out more information about the scholarships, donate to the scholarship program, or to apply visit macalumfoundation.org/scholarships.