Winning a scholarship to pursue your program of interest is certainly exciting. Unfortunately, most students and successful applicants don’t know there are strict criteria for maintaining the scholarship, especially for renewable scholarships. Students should understand the terms of their scholarship if they want to graduate. Doing the following can get your scholarship revoked.
1. Changing your school or major
You should read the fine print of your scholarship details. Most scholarships award applicants according to their majors. For instance, if you are applying for a scholarship in the STEM field or pursuing an online doctorate in education leadership, don’t think of changing your study program after the scholarship goes through. Doing this is an easy way of losing the money.
While you can still pursue your program of interest, changing your major can void your scholarship. While you can switch if you don’t like the field or the course funded by the scholarship, you’ll have to look for alternative funding.
2. Not meeting the required grades
Most students lose their scholarships because of failing to maintain the required GPA. All Scholarships have minimum GPA requirements that interested students should pass to apply. For instance, students may be required to have at least a 3.2 GPA to apply for a fully-funded scholarship in the history major.
Unknown to most students, this requirement doesn’t end after they’ve received the scholarship. Students should maintain these grades to secure continuous funding. Students should use the GPA cutoff for applications as a baseline and work towards improving their grades. If you’ve been struggling with classwork, schedule a meeting with your teachers and academic advisers to discuss how they can help.
Not meeting these academic requirements is a sure way of losing a scholarship. Some scholarships have additional requirements that students should adhere to. For instance, you may be required to meet minimum volunteer hours, complete projects, or attend annual workshops. Always check these requirements.
3. Irresponsible behavior
Most students don’t know, but those who fund scholarships follow up on academic performance and the general behavior of funded students. Living the typical post-secondary school life depicted in movies and TV shows, where drugs, sex sessions, and music is life, can void your scholarship.
For starters, leading such a lifestyle hurts your grades. Secondly, most scholarships have specific or vague discipline requirements. How you behave in real life or on social media will always be monitored. If scholarship providers don’t like how you behave on and off campus or your social media habits, they can cut funding.
4. Lying on your resume
Scholarship providers don’t tolerate lies and inaccurate information in scholarship applications. Most scholarship application forms state that providing false information cannot be tolerated. You shouldn’t lie about your grades, volunteer programs, extracurricular accomplishments, and other requirements. If they find out that you lied or provided inconsistent information in your resume, your scholarship is immediately revoked.
Endnote
Winning a scholarship is the beginning of a student’s engagement with providers. Getting funding for your studies essentially means you also agree to adhere to various laid down provisions of the funding organization. You should read the terms in detail to avoid losing your hard-earned scholarship.
