--- title: "How Rhode Island College Leveled the Scholarship Playing Field | AwardSpring" description: "Rhode Island College's Alumni & Foundation put every scholarship behind one application and awarded $1M+ to 400+ students in its first year on AwardSpring, with blind-ID reviews on faculty time." canonical_url: "https://awardspring.com/testimonial/rhode-island-college" markdown_url: "https://awardspring.com/testimonial/rhode-island-college.md" --- ![Aerial view of the Rhode Island College campus in Providence, Rhode Island](https://awardspring.com/_astro/ric-campus-drone-1900x924.B3h4KWz9_1sO8Hw.webp?dpl=dpl_2fvo9zzDTXeKF13AhfMzM1pmfq1o) Customer Story > AwardSpring levels the playing field for all students. Everyone applies in the same way, under the same parameters. Nico Gareca Scholarship Coordinator Rhode Island College Alumni & Foundation $1M+ awarded in year one on the platform 400+ students funded in that first year 1 application behind every foundation scholarship Blind-ID reviews scored on faculty time Rhode Island College case study # When scholarships traveled by word of mouth: Rhode Island College's level playing field ![Nico Gareca, Scholarship Coordinator, Rhode Island College Alumni & Foundation](https://awardspring.com/_astro/nico-gareca-headshot.Dqwj-ZWd_Z2uWlFP.webp?dpl=dpl_2fvo9zzDTXeKF13AhfMzM1pmfq1o) Nico Gareca Scholarship Coordinator Rhode Island College Alumni & Foundation ![Rhode Island College Alumni & Foundation logo](https://awardspring.com/_astro/ric-alumni-foundation-logo.BkVTCNWN_Z2sWx7p.webp?dpl=dpl_2fvo9zzDTXeKF13AhfMzM1pmfq1o) _Foundation scholarships at Rhode Island College once moved department by department, each on its own timeline, and the students who heard about them were the ones in the room. Two years into AwardSpring, every scholarship lives in one place, reviews run behind blind IDs, and the foundation put more than $1 million in front of more than 400 students in a single year._ The Rhode Island College Alumni & Foundation works with donors, alumni, and faculty to build the scholarship funds that keep RIC affordable. Nico Gareca is its scholarship coordinator, and he came to the work from a classroom: Spanish bilingual education, first in bilingual elementary classrooms and then in international higher education, before joining RIC this past spring. Ask him why the job matters and he starts with equity. The point of the foundation’s scholarships is that college stays affordable and accessible to every student, and the point of his role is making sure the money lands the way each fund agreement intends. ## When scholarships traveled by word of mouth The stories that greeted Nico when he arrived were already institutional memory. Before AwardSpring, scholarships moved through individual departments, each on its own calendar, and there was no single way to make sure a student a fund was meant for ever heard the scholarship existed. Students who caught the announcement in class applied; students who went straight to work or straight home often never knew. Timelines varied department by department, and donors sometimes learned only after the fact how their fund had been used. Nothing about it was malicious. It was simply what happens when there is no system: the process ran on proximity. ## One application, one timeline, every student Now every foundation scholarship lives on one platform, on one timeline, behind one application. A student builds a profile once and sees the scholarships that profile matches, so a scholarship reserved for biology majors reaches biology majors instead of collecting applications it can never award. The link travels anywhere, even as a QR code, so hearing about scholarships no longer depends on being in the right room at the right time. In the foundation’s first year on the platform, the 2025-26 school year, that added up to **more than $1 million awarded to more than 400 students**, and this cycle is tracking toward similar numbers, with final figures expected in October. ## Reviews on faculty time, behind blind IDs Each department’s review board scores its applicants inside AwardSpring, against the rubric the foundation sets, with applications presented under blind ID numbers. Faculty review on their own time, in office hours or at home, and the finalist ranking comes out of the scores. No all-hands session, and far less room for anyone’s favorite student to skip the line. Nico onboards each committee himself, walking review boards through the platform on Zoom with annotated screenshots, and the questions that used to fill an in-person review day have mostly disappeared. > “Faculty review on their own time, anonymously, at their own pace. They don’t have to break away from everything to go through every scholarship together in one room.” > > Nico Gareca, Scholarship Coordinator, Rhode Island College Alumni & Foundation > “We had a disjointed, decentralized scholarship system that was impossible to wrangle. AwardSpring helped us centralize our process to be more student centered while giving us the power and ability to be more equitable.” > > Eric Shoen, Executive Director, Rhode Island College Alumni & Foundation ## The loop back to donors Some RIC donors want to be close to their scholarship: helping shape the student profile, meeting winners, celebrating at an event. Others, including funds honoring donors who have passed, are stewarded quietly in their name. The platform holds both. Students send thank-you notes to donors through AwardSpring as a follow-up to their award, and the foundation can see, in the data, exactly how each fund moved. As Nico puts it, the faculty, the review committees, the donors, and the students all meet in the same platform. ## The data he never had Because every application now lives in one record, Nico can ask questions the old process could never answer. Which class years apply, and which do not? Did this year’s first-year students miss the announcement? Why do sophomores outnumber juniors? The reports guide where the foundation promotes scholarships next, and each cycle adds a year to the picture. ## Year two, and the button he likes best His first full cycle closes this fall, and he is already tuning the next one before applications open in December: rubrics personalized to individual scholarships, and application logic that adapts to RIC’s mix of traditional, transfer, and returning adult students. But the part of the job he savors is simpler. When he publishes an award announcement, the thank-you replies from students arrive almost immediately, and he forwards the gratitude to where it belongs: the donors who funded them. > “It feels really good when I publish the announcement to a winner. So many students write back immediately to say thank you to us. (before they write their thank you to the donor of course). It’s always a nice surprise, and it feels good to do my part to make college more accessible.” > > Nico Gareca, Scholarship Coordinator, Rhode Island College Alumni & Foundation ## See AwardSpring on your own funds. A walkthrough shaped to your program: your funds, your students, your questions. [See a demo](https://awardspring.com/demo) [More customer stories](https://awardspring.com/testimonials)