There are many scholarship opportunities at Bakersfield College, according to Primavera Arvizu, Financial Aid and Extended Opportunity Programs and Services director.
“I think students should always apply, even though they think ‘I’m not good enough,’ or ‘I don’t have a chance,’” she said, explaining there are scholarships of different criteria that might cater to students of diverse backgrounds and intellect.
“Sometimes the criteria is very dense and very outlined and sometimes the criteria very general,” she said, “So, it depends on the private donor.”
The funding for scholarships is not provided by BC itself, but private donors, foundations and agencies, according to Arvizu. She said that the financial aid office processes applications and filters information, which is sometimes then sent to committees or private donors to then select the recipient for each scholarship.
The eligibility requirements come from the criteria that donors set up for their scholarships. Some might dictate that they want their funds to go to a student with a certain grade point average and aspirations of a certain career goal, while others might specifically want to fund a student that is struggling but still continues to go to school despite the obstacles, according to Arvizu.
Arvizu explained that she felt that in addition to the scholarship being a resource of funding, it is also important that the student and family are together when the student gets awarded the scholarship.
“For the family to see that student receive something, I think it is great, and joyful, and prideful.”
Whether or not to list scholarships as an achievement on certain applications might often be a question that students get. “We always advise students to list scholarships because it’s an accomplishment,” Arvizu said.
She said that it might be most pertinent to list scholarships when applying for internships, campus jobs, or four-year schools, for example.
Some scholarships do not get a large number of applicants, like art scholarships, according to Arvizu. “What we do is, we reach out to faculty in that department and we ask them to help us outreach to get students to apply.”
The majority of scholarship applications are due by Dec 13, with a few exceptions being due February and March. Students do not have to be a financial aid student to qualify.
This semester the financial aid office has started a new practice in which students receive emails stating that their application has been received and whether or not it is complete.
“I just thought it was appropriate to let the student know, ‘Look, we did receive your scholarship,’ because we were receiving a lot of phone calls,” she said.
“There wasn’t any communication from the office back to the student … So, I thought it would be putting the student first.”
The funds awarded to students through scholarships do count as part of their resources for their financial aid eligibility, according to Arvizu.
She used the example of a student with the “unmet need” of $15,000. If the student receives work study, EOP&S, and a scholarship, then that could max out the ability to receive additional resources.