{"id":126,"date":"2024-04-26T13:30:44","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T13:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/financial-aid\/?page_id=126"},"modified":"2026-07-28T09:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:14:15","slug":"private","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/financial-aid\/private\/","title":{"rendered":"Private Scholarships"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
An untold number of private scholarships are offered by corporations, clubs, civic groups, and other organizations. These awards amount to billions of dollars in scholarship funds to American students each year! Criteria for private scholarships may be academic in nature, such as a certain GPA or ACT score, or they may be based on characteristics of you or your family. For example, you may be able to win a scholarship for being active in a certain club, choosing a particular major, or for participating in community service activities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beware of Scams! In your search for money for college, be careful to watch for people who just want your <\/em>money. If someone asks you to pay for scholarship information, just say no. The information should generally be available without charge through other sources, such as a high school guidance office or free scholarship search websites (listed at the bottom of this page<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did you win a scholarship? Congratulations! Please be aware that if you do receive a private scholarship, not administered through MTSU, you are required to notify the Financial Aid & Scholarship Office at MTSU. Regardless of the amount of the award, or whether or not the award is paid to you directly by a donor or through the university, you are responsible for insuring that your MTSU Financial Aid file reflects all scholarship funds that you receive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is important to ensure that you\u2014and we!\u2014don\u2019t inadvertently violate any federal regulations regarding your total eligibility for other forms of financial aid. When you receive notification of any award from a donor other than MTSU, please immediately notify the One Stop.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you receive a private scholarship check, please submit the scholarship check to us immediately upon receipt by the donor. Checks should be submitted no later than August 1 for the fall term, December 15 for the spring term, and April 15 for the summer term in order for them to be processed by the first Fee Payment Deadline. Checks submitted after those dates may not be applied in time to assist you with bill payment. If the donor will not be able to provide payment by these suggested deadlines, please refer to the \u201cRequesting a Scholarship Deferment<\/a>\u201d section below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you have a check that was sent to you by the scholarship donor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We recommend that all scholarships for an upcoming aid year be submitted by July 1, if possible, so that the award can be applied before bills are calculated for the fall term. However, many private scholarship donors simply do not issue payments until much later; some well after the semester has begun. We ask that you notify us of an expected scholarship award as early as possible so that we may apply a scholarship deferment to your financial aid package. This temporary placeholder will help reduce the amount of money you need to pay out-of-pocket by the Fee Payment Deadline if payment has not been received from the donor by then. It will also help us insure that you are not over-awarded in accordance with federal rules pertaining to the estimated Cost of Attendance (COA). If an expected scholarship is not reflected on your financial aid package by the time your bill is calculated, please submit the official scholarship award notification to us. To request a deferment, please complete the following steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n During your junior year in high school, begin searching for scholarships. You may want to register with a free scholarship search Web site to find information about awards that match your profile. When thinking about where to search for scholarships and what to search for, think outside the box. Yes, the internet is a great resource, but so are high school counselors, professors, church youth coordinators and pastors, college financial aid web sites, and local community organizations. Don\u2019t forget to use your contacts!<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a number of websites devoted to connecting students to potential scholarship opportunities. You might begin your search by looking at any of the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n An untold number of private scholarships are offered by corporations, clubs, civic groups, and other organizations. These awards amount to billions of dollars in scholarship funds to American students each year! Criteria for private scholarships may be academic in nature, such as a certain GPA or ACT score, or they may be based on characteristics of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-126","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/financial-aid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/financial-aid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/financial-aid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/financial-aid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/financial-aid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/financial-aid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1658,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/financial-aid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/126\/revisions\/1658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/financial-aid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Submitting scholarships to MTSU<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What happens next?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Does the donor wish to mail your scholarship check directly to MTSU? Please ask the donor to follow these directions to ensure efficient processing of your award.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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What happens next?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Requesting a scholarship deferment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Searching and applying for scholarships<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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