Information for Scholarship Donors

 

At a Glance (click on each heading for more details) 

1. Requesting Information
2. Notifying MTSU of a Scholarship
3. Submitting a Scholarship Check
4. Requesting a Listing of MTSU's Private Scholarship Page

Requesting Information

We are not able to provide specific information about the student's financial need or financial aid, unless you provide a signed statement from the student authorizing us to provide such information. If you need to request information about a student's aid for purposes of awarding a scholarship, please complete one of the following actions:

• You may use our sample FERPA Authorization Form and Financial Aid Information Request Form, either as they are or customized for your purposes as needed.
• You may submit your own information request form and accompanying student authorization. Be sure to include contact information, including your name, phone number, and email address, in case we have any questions. You will additionally need to include information about how to return the form to you.

Please fax the form to the Financial Aid Office at 615-898-5167, to be processed by the student's financial aid counselor. Please allow 2 weeks for the form to be processed and returned to you.

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Notifying MTSU of a Scholarship

Student bills for the fall semester are calculated in late July each year.  Since the fall fee payment deadline is always the week before classes start in late August, we recommend submitting private scholarship checks to the MTSU Scholarship Office by August 1 if possible.  This is simply a priority deadline to ensure that the payment will be processed in plenty of time to help pay the student's expenses.  Spring bills are calculated in early December with fee payment due in early January.  Spring scholarships should be submitted by mid-December to guarantee adequate processing time due to the university's holiday break (closed Christmas through New Year's Day). 

If you will not be able to submit a scholarship to us by the suggested priority dates for any reason, please let us know so that we can apply a scholarship deferment to the expected recipient's account.  This will let the Business Office know that we are expecting a scholarship on the student's behalf;  the deferment may reduce the amount of money the student must pay out-of-pocket by the Fee Payment Deadline.

The student recipient can request a deferment by following the instructions on our Scholarship Deferment webpage, or you can notify us of the award and ask that a deferment be applied for the student. To do so, you may fax an award letter to us at (615) 494-7770 or email Bonnie McCarty or Julie Hughes.  Please provide the following information:

• The scholarship name and/or donor's name, as well as the expected scholarship amount.
• The student's full name and MTSU ID number.  If you do not have the ID number, please include some other form of identification.
• A note requesting a scholarship deferment for the student.
• If the scholarship is intended for one specific semester, please be sure to include those instructions.

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Submitting a Scholarship Check

If you have selected an MTSU student as a scholarship recipient and need to submit the scholarship check, please follow these steps:

• Make sure that you provide the student's name and MTSU ID number listed in the Memo section at the bottom of the check or in an accompanying letter. If the student goes by a nickname or a middle name, be sure to provide the student's legal first name.  If you do not have the MTSU ID number, please include some other form of identification.
• Make the check payable to MTSU. Please do not include the student in the "Pay to the Order of" line. If the check is made to both MTSU and the student, the student will need to endorse the check by signing the back of it, which may require us to hold the check for weeks before the student can come sign it and have it applied. If you must make the check to the student, please send it directly to the student, with instructions to sign it and forward it to us.
• Include a copy of the student's award letter, or include a cover letter with any instructions you wish for us to follow. For example, do you want the scholarship to be applied to the fall semester, or be split between fall and spring?
• Include a contact person's name, phone number, and email address in case we have questions about the scholarship or its requirements.
• Mail the scholarship check and any accompanying paperwork or information to MTSU to be applied to the student's account. Please be sure to use the correct address; sending the check to the wrong MTSU department will result in delays of a few days or more!

MTSU Scholarship Office
MTSU Box 31
1301 East Main Street
Murfreesboro, TN 37132
Fax: 615-494-7770

What happens next?

• We will generally apply the scholarship to the student's account within two business days of receipt. If we experience delays due to issues such as a missing signature, we will notify the student via email or phone.
• Through Early December: We will divide the scholarship into two equal portions for fall and spring, unless you provide alternate instructions in an accompanying letter. If you are sending only the fall disbursement of a two-semester scholarship, be sure to let us know so that we can make a note of the expected spring disbursement.
• After Early December: We will apply the full scholarship amount to the spring semester, unless you provide alternate instructions in an accompanying letter.
• We will add a message to the student's account, so that he or she can see which scholarship has been applied. The student can view this message in RaiderNet, MTSU's online information portal for students.
• We will mail a receipt letter to you, confirming that the scholarship was applied. During particularly busy times of the year such as the months of July, August, and January, the receipt letter will be sent approximately one month after the scholarship check is applied. During other months, the receipt letter will generally be sent within two weeks after receipt of the scholarship check.

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Requesting a Listing on MTSU's Private Scholarships Webpage

If you wish to be included in our list of private scholarships, please provide the following information to Bonnie McCarty:

• Scholarship Name
• Scholarship Donor
• Scholarship Criteria
• Award Amount
• Website (That is, where can students go to find more information?)
• Contact Name
• Contact Email
• Contact Phone Number
• Has this scholarship been awarded to an MTSU student at least once in the last five years?
• Does this scholarship require an application fee or any have any other monetary requirement (such as paying dues to join an organization)?

We will review your request to determine whether the scholarship can be listed. Generally, scholarships which have been awarded to MTSU students in the past will be included in our Confirmed Scholarships section. Scholarships which have not been awarded to an MTSU student within the last five years will generally be listed in our Possible Scholarships section.

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Questions? Please contact us!

Return to the MTSU Scholarship homepage

Updated October 2012