Students receive an abundance of emails from UNI throughout the year, many of which may go unread. UNI’s Scholarship Application is advertised through such emails and can be lost in the shuffle of things or even ignored by students who don’t realize exactly what the application is.

According to Elizabeth Minard, assistant director of gift aid and multicultural relations, UNI offers over 1,000 departmental scholarships and foundation awards. To be considered for these scholarships, students must complete the UNI Scholarship Application online.

According to Minard, the application is typically available at the start of July each year and the priority deadline is Jan. 15.

Minard tells students not to worry if they have not yet filled out the application.

“There’s actually no advantage to submitting  [the application] right away on July 1 or July 2, because scholarship administrators across campus don’t start to look at applications until the day after the deadline anyway,” Minard said.

According to Minard, applicants selected for scholarships must meet certain criteria. Minard cited a new foundation award as an example of this.

The donors for this specific scholarship are looking for a student of senior standing who has no student loan debt and has a minimum GPA of 3.0.

However, Minard reassures students that UNI offers a very small percentage of scholarships that contain highly specific criteria.

“There are some other [scholarships] that are very flexible,” said Minard. “There’s actually sometimes not even a GPA requirement. They just want the student to be a full-time student and show some type of leadership experience.”

Minard advises students to follow the instructions, particularly the essay portion of the application, although both essays are optional. She instructs students to always complete the essays, as she knows of instances where scholarship coordinators have eliminated students who failed to do so.

According to Minard, approximately a quarter of UNI students completed the UNI Scholarship Application last year.

Danielle Dunagan, sophomore anthropology major, was a recipient of UNI scholarships. She has yet to complete her scholarship application for this year, but plans to do so over winter break.

“Mainly to make sure that I have enough covered so I can take out as little loans as possible,” said Dunagan when asked for her reasoning behind completing the application.

Excluding the essay writing portion of the application, Minard believes the application takes no longer than 20 minutes to complete. Students are also allowed to save the application at any point during the process of filling it out and come back at a later date.

“I didn’t really have any issues with [the application]. It was pretty self-explanatory, especially with the essays,” Dunagan said.

To locate the application from the university financial aid homepage, select the scholarships link then click the ‘UNI Scholarship Application’ button.