Advancing equitable scholarship awarding through scholarship outreach partnerships

In the 2022–2023 application season, Common App partnered with Scholarship America and Equitable to expand access to private scholarships for underrepresented students. Targeted email outreach encouraged students to apply, resulting in higher engagement, increased applications, and greater scholarship awards.

The changes include:

• High engagement. About 70% of students opened the scholarship emails, and 7.4% clicked through to take action.
• Students who received the emails were more than twice as likely to apply for the Equitable Excellence Scholarship.
• Recipients of the outreach were over twice as likely to receive scholarship awards.
• Outreach led to a 12% increase in first-generation applicants and a 13% increase in underrepresented minority applicants.
• Over $350,000 in additional scholarship funds was allocated to underrepresented students over a four-year period.

These results highlight the effectiveness of coordinated outreach strategies in improving equity and access to scholarship opportunities.