SCHOLARSHIP FAQ'S 

Q. Who can submit a letter of reference?
A. A letter of reference from a teacher, principal, counselor, coach, church leader, community leader, or employer will be considered. However, letters of reference from an immediate family member will not be eligible. Ideally, you should identify someone who can speak about what makes you a good candidate for a scholarship. Be sure to get their approval first, before typing in their name and email address into the online application.

Q. Is it true I don’t need to submit a copy of my Student Aid Report?
A. Your Student Aid Report (SAR), which is sent to you after you complete the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), is not required to apply for a Keokuk Area Community Foundation scholarship. However, you are strongly encouraged to submit a copy of your SAR, because without it, you won’t be considered eligible for the many scholarships that list financial need as one of its criteria.

Q. I’ve submitted my application. Now what?
A. You should receive an automatic email confirmation. If you don’t receive that, please contact Philip Ricketts, Administrator.

Q. Who makes the selections?
A. There are a number of scholarship selection committees that review, score, and make recommendations to the Keokuk Area Community Foundation’s board for approval. Committee members are representatives of our community.

Q. When will I know if I got a scholarship?
A. If you are a high school student and were selected for a scholarship, you will find out at your high school’s award ceremony, typically in May. For all other applicants, if you were selected for a scholarship, you will be notified via email in early June. Every applicant will know the results of your application—successful or otherwise—by email in mid-June.

Q. I was awarded a scholarship. Now what?
A. Every student who was awarded a scholarship will be sent an email in mid to late June with instructions on how to accept the award. To accept the award, log back into your scholarship account and follow the directions. This will be asking you to submit the following: proof of enrollment and a thank you letter for the donor. You have the option of submitting a photo that can be used when the Keokuk Area Community Foundation announces the scholarship recipients.

Q. What is proof of enrollment?
A. Proof of Enrollment can come in many, many forms. You might be surprised at how many documents you already have that would qualify as proof of enrollment. Something qualifies as proof of enrollment if it was issued by your college and has the following three details:

• Your name
• Your student ID number
• School’s name

Dates enrolled (can say “fall 201x”, “201x-201x” or something similar. Things like housing contracts, tuition bills, financial aid award letters, screenshots of online accounts, degree audits, etc. are all examples of documents that may qualify for proof of enrollment. The only thing that won’t qualify as proof of enrollment is a letter of admission.

Q. Will my class schedule be okay for proof of enrollment?
A. It may, but only if it has the three required details listed above.

Q. Will my U-bill work for proof of enrollment?
A. It may, but only if it has the three required details listed above.

Q. I have a certificate of enrollment. That should work, right?
A. Does it have the three required details listed above? Then, yes it will work. If not, then it won’t work.

Q. My school says it won’t provide proof of enrollment until after I’ve been at school for a week. What do I do now?
A. Your school’s definition of proof of enrollment is different than the Keokuk Area Community Foundation’s. We only need a document that has the four details as outlined above. It can come in many forms, including housing contracts, tuition bills, etc. Colleges and universities might not think of a tuition bill as proof of enrollment, but if that document has the four details on it, then it works for proof of enrollment for your scholarship.

Q. Will a letter of acceptance work for proof of enrollment?
A. No.

Q. Why is my proof of enrollment not uploading?
A. Make sure the file you’re trying to upload is the correct file type—only .PDF, .DOC, and .JPG files are allowed. Also, be sure the file name doesn’t have any punctuation in it, specifically, no period (.), comma (,), question mark (?), or apostrophe (‘).

Q. Why is my photo not uploading?
A. Make sure the file you’re trying to upload is the correct file type—only .JPG, .JPEG, and .TIF files are allowed. Also, be sure the file name doesn’t have any punctuation in it, specifically, no period (.), comma (,), question mark (?), or apostrophe (‘).

Q. I’ve submitted my proof of enrollment and thank you. Will I get a confirmation? When will I get my scholarship payment?
A. After submitting your scholarship acceptance materials, you won’t receive a confirmation email. Instead, your information will be reviewed by our staff to ensure everything is in order. If so, we’ll begin processing your scholarship payment. If not, we’ll contact you and request additional documentation.

Q. When will I get my scholarship check?
A. First of all, you won’t be receiving a check. Instead, the check will be issued to your college/university. If you’ve submitted your scholarship acceptance materials on time and correctly, your check will be issued on in August.

Q. I just got my bill and it doesn’t show my scholarship on it. What happened?
A. Typically, there’s an overlap – at the same time that your scholarship check is being issued and sent in the mail, your college is sending out its latest bill. So, that usually means the scholarship payment is not reflected on the bill in early August. We encourage you to wait 5 business days after we issued your scholarship before contacting your school to confirm receipt of the scholarship payment.

Q. I just got my bill and it shows my scholarship as having been received, but it’s for half of the amount I expected. Why is that?
A. Typically, colleges will apply half of the scholarship to your fall tuition and half to your spring tuition. That’s why you only see half of the scholarship amount on your fall bill.

Q. What happens to my scholarship if I transfer mid-year?
A. Your college will typically refund any unspent portion of your scholarship to the Keokuk Area Community Foundation. We can re-issue that refund to your new college, but we need you to contact us to let us know which school you’re transferring to. Like your first school, we’ll need proof of enrollment in order to reissue the scholarship refund.

Q. I was awarded a scholarship that is paid out over multiple years. What do I need to do to get each payment?
A. Each summer you will be contacted by our office to submit the necessary documentation for the new school year’s payment.