Navigating the web site and International Student Scholarshps
Often I need to leave the office to find out how well (whether?) things are working. Anyway, last night after a very well attended college fair in Amman I went to the website to look up some graduate admissions questions. I work primarily in undergraduate admissions, so my graduate admissions knowledge is almost as rusty as my French.
Anyway, cruising the web I went to the International Student section and noted no mention of scholarhship eligibility for international students, nor our introduction of need based financial aid for international undergraduate applicants starting with fall quarter 2008 admission. I was frustrated and embarrassed as I'd been referencing this much of last night.
This past summer involved a redesign of the admissions home page; information that had been pasted into the former format was reorganized and, clearly, in some cases deleted. We are in discussion with other departments where information should be appropriately listed in the admissions section of the university website. There has been concern about possible redundancy cluttering the web design. I will strive, however, to have it more conspicuous so as to be most helpful to international students and their advocates.
Till we get this resolved a few notes:
International undergraduate students are eligible for first time freshman and transfer scholarships -- the same ones for which U.S. citizens and permanent residents are eligible.
There is no separate scholarship application; your scholarship for admission is your application for scholarship consideration.
We do not employ a formula or matrix for scholarship consideration. Selection involves reviewing all applications and then indentifying those most qualified. We batch scholarship decisions and mail them at once: early action first time freshmen will be notified at the end of January; regular decision applicants will be notified the first week of March; transfer applicants will begin to be notified in late March (all these opportunities are for fall quarter applicants.)
A means of application for need based undergraduate international student scholarship consideration is still being determined by the Student Financial Services personnel. I expect that we will have a form posted on the internet sometime in December.
Hopefully this will clarify matters a bit for those who might choose to read my blog. My regrets for any inconvenience heretofore.
By the way, I don't think I have met students any more courteous anywhere in my career than those I have met so far in Jordan. What incredibly lovely people, and apparently very academically focused. They are inspiring.