Requesting Outside Funding

[Guest]

So I'm looking at the request for outside funding form...I was under the impression that we could accept up to $5k of other scholarships and that the permission was more of a formality than anything else. But they ask why I'm requesting it, in an essay area. Is there some sort of response they are looking for or they generally decline? Any scholarship I get is more money in my pocket so I can save that stipend...

[rjb]

I haven't actually looked at the outside funding form yet, but I know when I was looking at the handbook, that it makes clear that any other scholarships are not extra money in your pocket. I'm not sure if you realized this or not when you were looking at everything, so I just wanted to clarify. What will happen is that money will be applied to your school account and then DOD will pay the remaining that they determine is eligible. We're not allowed to accept any form of refund check or distribution of money from the schools. Doing so could get us terminated from the program. I'm just informing you on this so that you know before you go ahead and submit that. I know I was upset cause I had about 1250 per semester I was hoping to keep in my pocket, and I realized I may just not accept it at all cause it's not really going to help me at all. And if you know this already, I apologize, I was just wanting to clarify so that you didn't get your hopes up too high like I did.
~rjb

[Guest]

Well yeah, I'm certainly aware of that, but I was referring to a stipend.

Obviously the tuition expenses go to the school. BUT if I submit this outside funding request form they then I can get this $5k a year scholarship I have. Then THAT scholarship can come straight to my pocket (or to my housing, which SMART doesn't cover).

If they declined my request, I would have to start using my stipend to pay for housing...which isn't a problem but it would just be spending more money than I wanted too.

Basically what it comes down too is if I can get this $5k scholarship with permission from SMART, then I have $5k/yr more than I did before.

[MDW]

I have the same issue because I have a scholarship that I received before being selected for SMART that pays $5000 per year. I emailed the SPO office and was told that it would be no problem for me to accept the scholarship as long as it is under $5k, and that I just needed to fill out the outside funding source form. I was told that we'd hear all about it at the orientation.