Evaluator User Guide
The purpose of this guide is to walk you through the process of reviewing applications for all scholarships administered by the Central New York Community Foundation that your committee evaluates. All important dates can be found on the Scholarship Resources page on our website.
Information to Know Before You Begin
We encourage you to go to the scholarships descriptions page on our website to read more about each scholarship to help you understand why it was created and how to choose the applicant that best fits the criteria. A summarized version of the criteria is at the top of your evaluation form and will change based on the scholarship you are reviewing.
Scoring Applications
As evaluators, how you want to go through applications is up to you. Your committee can meet as a group to discuss the applications and have one member submit the evaluations OR each member of the committee can fill out an evaluation for each of the applicants – the system is designed for either option. The CNYCF Scholarship Team just requires that all applicants are evaluated and receive either a Yes or No recommendation on their evaluation form.
Review scholarships section by section, and score applicants as you go. We have established a standard set of scorecards that you will use and for any scholarships with specific additional criteria, more scoring questions will be available. The most important part is the committees’ response to why they recommend or don’t recommend an applicant, especially for the applicants who are chosen as recipients.
Scoring Tips
Scoring is subjective, and different people evaluate qualities differently. The most important thing is to be consistent, so you judge fairly.
The CNYCF Scholarship Portal is objective, so for each scholarship that has set specific qualifications, your applicants have already been filtered by that specification. For example, if the scholarship requires a minimum GPA of 3.5, then your queue will not include students with a GPA below that number. Or, if you require that a student plan to study music at a four-year college, those parameters have already been met.
All of our scholarships have different eligibility criteria and application requirements. The Opportunity (scholarship) name and evaluator description will be visible at the top of every evaluation page. Please review this information before submitting each evaluation form to confirm that you are evaluating and selecting applicants based on the correct criteria. The description will also include the amount of awards available, which indicates how many applicants can be chosen (“recommended”) for that scholarship.
Selecting Your Scholarship Recipient
Although your applications will be ranked by scores, you do not have to award your scholarship to the applicant with the highest score. The recipient(s) must be chosen by answering “Yes” to the recommendation question in the evaluation. Your committee may award the scholarship to any student you wish from your applicant pool. If the CNYCF Scholarship Team has any questions about the recipient chosen, we will reach out to the committee chairperson(s) before the decisions are made public to students.
Student Notification
The Universal Application system will make the scholarship decisions visible to students on the notification date. An email will also be sent to all applicants notifying them when decisions are available. All scholarship recipients (those chosen for a scholarship) will receive additional information on next steps, including how to accept their scholarship(s). Forms must be completed and information must be provided by the deadlines specified in the emails and Scholarship Resources page.
Accessing Your Account & Evaluations
To access the CNYCF Scholarship Portal, simply visit www.cnycf.org and click on Scholarship Login at the top of our homepage. The site can be accessed from any web browser or device (including smartphones and tablets).
This will take you to the Login Page. We have created an account for you in the software using the email we have for you on file, so you will only need to set your password before you can log on.
- If this is your first time here, enter your email and click Forgot Your Password to securely set your password.
- Going forward, you may enter your logon credentials and click Log On.
- Do not click Create New Account, as that option is for applicants only. Contact us at scholarship@cnycf.org to change your email or to confirm what email address we created your account with.
Your dashboard will display all of the evaluations that are assigned to your committee. You can always return to your dashboard by clicking the Home Icon in the top navigation bar.
Under the Your Evaluations tab, you will see a visual representation of your assigned evaluations.
Clicking a status in this bar (i.e., Pending, Draft, etc.) will filter your list to only show evaluations in that status. Clicking the status again will remove the filter.
- Pending: The evaluations that you have not started yet.
- Draft: The evaluations that you have started, but haven’t finished yet.
- Complete: The evaluations that you have finished.
- Closed: The evaluations that have been closed by the organization administrator and can no longer be updated or completed. Be sure to check the Scholarship Resources page for the evaluation deadline date and have your recommendations in by then. The system will automatically close all evaluations by that date and no changes can be made after that.
*Evaluations in the Pending, Draft or Complete status can still be updated until the evaluation deadline.
Below the status bar is the Quick Search field. You can use this field to search for a specific applicant OR a specific scholarship. Other ways to filter the list of assigned evaluations:
- The Filter option under the Quick Search field allows you to filter the list by different conditions and field.
- The Process option allows you to filter by scholarship opportunities. Use this when you want to view/evaluate applicants for one or more scholarships at a time.
- The page option at the bottom of your screen allows you to adjust the number of applications that you want to see on each page.
Note: Be sure to remove all filters prior to the evaluation deadline to confirm that all assigned evaluations have been completed.
Once evaluations come in, an evaluator will be able to see the scores for each applicant. The Score column shows the percentage that the applicant received based on the responses to the evaluation form questions.
Below the Quick Search field is the list of your committee’s assigned evaluations.
- The columns in this table can be sorted (i.e. by applicant or by scholarship) by clicking on the column header.
- The Review Icon (in the farthest column to the right), indicates the status of each evaluation. You can click on any of these icons to open that specific evaluation:
- Start: These are the evaluations that you have not started yet.
- Continue: These are the evaluations that you have started, but have not finished yet.
- Update: These are the evaluations that you have finished. This allows you to review your responses and make changes as needed.
View: The evaluations that have been closed by the organization administrator and can no longer be updated or completed. This allows you to review your responses, but no changes can be made once all evaluations are closed on the evaluation due date
All of the applicants for the scholarships that your committee reviews will be listed on your dashboard. After logging into the site, locate the evaluation to be worked on, and then click Start, Continue, or Update located next to the score column.
This will take you to the assigned evaluation form for the scholarship request. On this page, the screen is split to show your evaluation form and the student’s application. Several options are available on this page.
At the top of the screen you’ll find the Opportunity (scholarship) name and the scholarship description. This description will include the scholarship eligibility criteria, number of awards available, as well as any application requirements (i.e. recommendations, transcripts, etc.). Use this description to evaluate the student based on the criteria listed.
Click any of the tabs, such as Documents, to read additional information about the request, applicant, and organization (if applicable), and any comments or documents the administrator has uploaded.
The side-by-side view allows you to have the evaluation form on one side of the screen and the scholarship application on the other. Click the arrow icon to flip the order of these forms. You can also hold and drag the slide arrows to make one form larger than the other.
- On the Your Evaluation side, click Evaluation Packet to download a .pdf of the evaluation form.
- On the View Application side, click Application Packet to download a .pdf of the form you are evaluating.
Go through Your Evaluation and fill out the questions. Required questions are indicated with an asterisk. Click Save at the bottom of the page when the evaluation is completed.
- The system automatically saves your work after every 100 characters entered or when clicking out of a question. However, the Save button can be used at any time.
- Even after all the required questions for an evaluation have been completed, the responses can be edited up until the evaluation deadline.
Once you have completed your evaluation, you will be taken to the Confirmation page. This page lists any required questions that have not yet been answered and gives the option to navigate back to the same evaluation, to the dashboard, or to the next pending evaluation.
Note: If your scholarship committee evaluates multiple scholarship opportunities, you may see the same applicant more than once. The applicant should be evaluated and scored differently based on the unique criteria of each scholarship opportunity. Use the Opportunity name and description at the top of the screen to confirm which scholarship you are assessing and how you should be evaluating the applicant.
Contact us!
If any of the following issues arise or you have additional questions, please contact us:
- If you’d like us to check whether a student has applied and is eligible for your committee’s scholarship
- If you are looking for a specific student and they are not on your list
- If there are no applicants for a scholarship your committee evaluates