CSF WESTFIELD DOLLARS FOR SCHOLARS AWARDS PROCESS

CSF WESTFIELD DOLLARS FOR SCHOLARS - PROCESS FOR DETERMINING SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS AND THE AWARD AMOUNTS   

STUDENTS                         

  1.  Students fill out a profile online at  csfwestfield.dollarsforscholars.org at anytime.  Profile information includes:

  • Personal data including, name, address, phone, email, high school, year of graduation, intended college or college attending, major or intended majors.

  • Scored data: scholastic performance, activities, work experience, goals essay and if applicable, unusual circumstances essay. For 2024-24 academic year students are asked to enter into the Unusual Circumstances Essay  the names and year in college for any other members of their household who are also current full-time undergraduates so CSF can take this into consideration since FAFSA will no longer reflect this in its calculation of the SAI.  

  • Financial data - FAFSA SAI (Student Aid Index-formerly EFC) as reported on the FAFSA Submission Summary (formerly SAR). The FAFSA Submission Summary is received after the student fills out a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid).

  1. Students are required to upload copies of their current year FAFSA Submission Summary and transcripts (High School Students have transcripts uploaded by school guidance personnel and college students need to upload their college transcripts through the current fall semester).

  2. Students  who have completed or updated a profile, apply online for scholarships between the announced open and close dates each year  - usually between February 1st and March 15th (announcements made at high schools, CSF Westfield website, facebook, printed information at library and city hall).

SELECTION COMMITTEE

  1. During the open application dates, the CSF Westfield Dollars for Scholars Selection Committee monitors applications and reminds students to supply any missing data and to apply for scholarships by the deadline. 
  2. The Selection Committee checks applications to ensure students have met requirements and uploaded necessary documents by the deadline.
  3. The Selection Committee checks all uploaded documents for accuracy in self-reported scholastic and financial information and corrects this data, if necessary.
  4. Members of the Selection Committee are assigned various sections of the data to manually score: activities, work experience, scholastic performance, and essays.  These scores are then electronically added together to form the total Merit Score for each student. 
  5. CSF Westfield Dollars for Scholars awards are based on Merit and Need in equal proportions.  To enable an equal comparison, Student SAI's (formerly EFC) and Merit Scores are each converted to an equal points scale. The two scaled (SAI and Merit) amounts are then added to get a "Total Scaled Points" number for each student; this number determines whether the student will receive an award and the award amount.  Beginning in the 2024-25 academic year CSF Westfield will factor into the Need score the number of current college students in a family since this will no longer be reflected in the FAFSA SAI. 

TREASURER

The CSF Westfield Dollars for Scholars Treasurer reports how much money is available for awarding in any given year, based on endowment revenue, yearly annual scholarship donations, yearly annual general fund donations and any yearly fundraising activities. 

AWARDS COMMITTEE

  1. The Awards Committee, determines the range of award amounts based on money available, number of applicants and the total scaled score of each applicant. The awards range in the past few years has been $500 to $3,000. 
  2. The Awards Committee then matches students to specific scholarships using the data from student applications, award amounts, and the specific criteria for certain scholarships.