Our PTO awards a scholarship to a graduating senior at the end of each year. Does anyone else do anything similar? I would like to know how others handle the application process and how the selection committees are devised. Right now we have no set rules or criteria for the selction process.

We have an award and the start of the process is handled by the high school, getting the info to the students. Once the apps come in, for the last few years, they have been given to the teachers to look at and they pick one and give us the name. We write the check and get it to the high school for the presentation.

In the past our PTO has given a scholarship at graduation. The award goes to a graduating senior who will be entering into the field of education. If there are multiple graduates entering this field, it isn't necessarily the student with the highest gpa who receives the award. We also take into consideration the students outside activities. This sort of goes in hands with guidelines for the National Honor Society also.

We award 2 scholarships each year. Our Board members, including 2 or 3 teachers, the principal and the vice-principal, get to vote on this. Our criteria includes GPA, family income, number of siblings, student activities and work schedule. We make allowances for students who might not be involved in extracurricular activities if their family situation requires them to work. Our final criteria is the number of years they spent at our school. We then rank them on a scale of 1-5 and the 2 with the highest scores are our winners. Hope this helps!