What is awards confirmation?

Modified on Fri, 15 Sep, 2023 at 2:50 PM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pre-term Award Confirmation
Post-drop Award Confirmation

Pre-term Awards Confirmation

Pre-term Awards Confirmation is a courtesy review the Financial Aid team provides to students before the semester begins. The goal is to provide students with an accurate view of the financial aid based on their current enrollment (registered courses at the time of review) rather than the presumed full-time enrollment on which institutional financial aid awards are based.

What we do

Approximately 2 weeks prior to the start of the semester, the Financial Aid Office conducts an enrollment census for all students. During this census, we determine whether a student is enrolled full-time, 3/4-time, half-time, less than half-time, or not enrolled. Here's how that breaks down for undergraduate, graduate, and advanced students:

Student	Full-time	3/4-time	Half-time	Less than 1/2-time
Undergraduate	12+ credit hours	9-11 credit hours	6-8 credit hours	1-5 credit hours
Graduate	9+ credit hours	5-8 credit hours	n/a	1-4 credit hours
Advanced	1+ credit hours	n/a	n/a	n/a

What you can expect

After checking a student's enrollment, we provide an update notifying students what their enrollment is at the time of review and how that enrollment determines their financial aid eligibility if it remains unchanged.

As a reminder, most scholarships require students to be enrolled full-time to receive 100% of their scholarship, while students enrolled 3/4-time will receive 50% of their award, and students enrolled half-time or below will have their award removed. However, some scholarships require full-time enrollment to receive the scholarship, and any enrollment less than full-time will cause the award to be removed. Your scholarship award letter will detail any enrollment requirements you must maintain to retain your award.

As a courtesy for students who are enrolled less than full-time, we will provide a form they can fill out to certify that they do not plan to increase their enrollment. Our office will then reduce/remove their aid accordingly so their account balance accurately reflects the financial aid they will receive for the semester.

For students who do not fill out the form, no changes will be made to their balance during pre-term awards confirmation based on enrollment.

Our office also conducts an initial Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) check during pre-term awards confirmation and notifies students of the results. Any students who are placed on SAP termination will have their awards removed during this process.

For more information on SAP, including the appeals process, please see the following articles:

Post-drop Awards Confirmation

Post-drop Awards Confirmation is the official eligibility review the Financial Aid Office performs to verify students' Financial Aid eligibility according to the requirements of each individual scholarship. This process begins immediately following the add and drop dates, after which students can no longer make enrollment adjustments.

What we do

Our office reviews the account of each student receiving financial aid to evaluate whether they are meeting the requirements necessary to maintain their scholarship(s). For students who are not meeting the appropriate criteria for a given scholarship, the award will be adjusted accordingly. The most common adjustments we make are as follows:

Reducing scholarships for students who are enrolled 3/4-time
Removing scholarships for students who are enrolled half-time or below
Reducing or removing scholarships for students who are overfunded

What you can expect

The post-drop award confirmation process generally takes two to three weeks. Following this process, students receive an e-mail notifying them that the Post-drop Award Confirmation process has been completed. It is the student's responsibility to review their student account balance and, if any scholarships have been adjusted, pay any resulting balance.

If a student has questions about why a change has been made, he or she can contact the Financial Aid Office. It is important to remember that students are responsible for understanding and adhering to the eligibility requirements for their scholarships.

For more information on eligibility, please see the following articles: