A Guide to Equitable Awarding

Scholarships are a particularly vital resource for students of certain socioeconomic backgrounds and can contribute to equity (or a lack thereof) in representation across majors and, eventually, careers. But the very students who need scholarships the most commonly face a variety of barriers to overcome before securing one. For these reasons, we believe it’s more important than ever to make scholarship access as equitable as possible. We’re committed to helping institutions increase access to scholarships, make equitable awarding decisions, and track their progress toward true equity across their program. Here are the actions that we recommend to administrators with the same commitment:

Before you award:

• Use inclusive language when configuring your application. If students feel that they don’t have a right answer when applying, they may abandon the task altogether and miss out on a scholarship they really needed.
• Simplify requirements for targeted scholarships. If you have a “Women in STEM” scholarship, you’ll get even fewer applicants if you require two essays and two letters of recommendation for that specific scholarship. Simplifying requirements means more applicants and more equitable awarding.
• Get peace of mind with automated matching. With AwardSpring, you can rest assured that none of your applicants avoided applying because they don’t think they’re “good enough”; every applicant is automatically matched to the opportunities for which they qualify. This feature also levels the playing field to ensure that requirements are applied consistently across all applicants.
• Use the available additional fields on your recommendation requests. If you simplify recommendation request fields using similar language and discrete scoring, you can reduce the impact of a poorly written recommendation that shouldn’t reflect badly on the applicant. Ask us for help; we’ve made recommendations on this for a number of our partners.
• Target outreach toward communities with known equity gaps. Reach out to the schools, clubs, and other organizations that might not otherwise find out about your program to advertise your scholarships to potential applicants.

As you review and award:

• Use reviewer blinding. This is a best practice that can reduce bias in the assessment process.

• Use a consistent scoring rubric across applicants for a specific scholarship. We recommend against any kind of “discretionary points” in rubrics as they introduce the potential for bias and discrimination.
• Rely more heavily on reviewer scores to make awarding decisions. There are always external variables to take into account, but enacting policies that ensure all applicants receive an award or admit administrator discretion in the process can lead to bias. Combined with the review recommendations above, prioritizing reviewer scores over all else can lead to more equitable outcomes.
• Create a custom report that aggregates awards based on demographic data. This allows you to see how you’re performing long-term against benchmarks and goals for equitable awarding.

We’re always happy to talk with you one-on-one to discuss ways to make your program more equitable. Just email us at support@awardspring.com for help.