Ira’s guide to some frequently asked questions and common confusions on filling out the scholarship form:
Do I have to be a Prince William County Student to apply?
Nope! You do not have to be from PWC to apply. We’ll take applications from any high school or college in the United States (we can’t manage international–sorry!)
I learned about this scholarship late! Do you offer deadline extensions?
If you reach out to us prior to the deadline, our scholarship committee may agree to an extension of up to one week for you. We won’t take scholarships sent after the deadline without prior arrangement, though.
Who’s reading these things?
Our Scholarship Committee is made up of 5 of our board members. We each take the time to go through all of the submissions to ensure that awards are distributed in line with our organization’s ideals. You can see who’s on our board here, but we don’t usually specify who’s on the committee each year.
What’s the Committee looking for in my essay?
First and foremost: your relevant experience. We want to award these scholarships to people who are making a difference, be that for themselves in carrying on despite the difficulty or for the community around them, and the best way for us to know that is from how you tell your own story.
Do I have to use my legal name?
We do need your full legal name on the student information sheet, so that we can distribute funds to the appropriate place at your college. This does not need to go anywhere other than the student information sheet – if you would like us to address you by something other than your legal name (i.e. a shortened name, nickname, or other chosen name), please let us know. We do our best to catch these things on emails and from recommendation letters, but sometimes we miss things or mistakenly spell them wrong. If there’s a problem, tell us! We want to represent you correctly and are happy to fix our mistakes.
We can also update the names of previous awardees on the site, if you choose something different later and remember to tell us.
I’m writing a recommendation. What’s most useful to the Scholarship Committee?
We primarily want to know how a bullying incident affected the applicant, or how they stand up to bullying in their community. If they’ve helped you or you’ve seen them help someone else–that sort of thing is most helpful to support their essay. It’s great if they’re a good student, but that’s not what this award is about, and it shouldn’t be the focus of your recommendation.
What’s the technical name of this scholarship?
The Freeze Bullying Scholarship.
Who should letters and emails be addressed to?
The Scholarship Committee.
Have a question not listed here? A confusion we haven’t addressed? Reach out to scholarships@paytonsproject.org and we’ll get back to you asap!