The Sound of Money:

Creating a Podcast for ABAC Students Regarding Scholarship Opportunities

Fall 2006

Submitted by: Missy Hutto and Brenda Doss

Development and Alumni/Academic Affairs

 

 

Purpose:

To give current and prospective ABAC students an alternate means of accessing information regarding scholarship opportunities available to them. 

 

Target Audience:

Current and prospective students seeking financial assistance in lieu of and/or in addition to student loans and federal grants to pay for costs associated with attending ABAC.

 

Anticipated Benefits to Target Audience:

Through the ABAC Foundation, over $330,000 was awarded to students for the 2006-07 academic year with an average award of $1,500 or two-thirds the cost of tuition and fees for the year.  By the nature of averages, some scholarships will only pay for books for one semester while some will pay full tuition and fees for the year, thus making a significant impact on the student.

 

Last year 20% of the applications submitted on-line were incomplete and therefore not eligible for scholarship consideration.  We expect the information contained in a scholarship podcast would increase the number of complete applications. With a larger number of complete applications the selection pool will increase, thus allowing 100% of the scholarships to be awarded.  For example, last year there were six scholarships, amounting to $5,350, not awarded due to the lack of qualified applications.

 

An annual scholarship workshop is coordinated through the AAC but attendance is generally low.  We believe that offering the workshop details through a podcast will allow a much greater number of students to access this information at a time and from a location convenient to them.  More importantly, the podcast will be available to prospective students who have never had access to our on-campus presentation.  We anticipate the verbal and visual instructions contained in this digital podcast format will meet today’s students preferred method of obtaining information.

 

Project Description:

The proposed scholarship podcast would be made up of still images and voice-over, addressing the following information:

  1. The application process
    1. how to submit a complete application
    2. where and when to submit
  2. Hints on completing the different parts of the scholarship application
    1. on-line application
    2. reference letters
    3. biographical essay
  3. Additional information on scholarship opportunities outside of ABAC
    1. FastWeb
    2. Watson-Brown
    3. other options

 

The podcast will be hosted on the ABAC Scholarship page so that relevant information will be easily accessible.

 

Submitted by:

Missy Hutto, Development Resources Coordinator, Development Office

Brenda Doss, Administrative Associate, Academic Affairs