FAQ

• Create an OSAC account
• Select the Scholarship Application apply button
• Complete all sections of the OSAC Scholarship Application and upload all required transcripts, extra documents, essays and extra questions.
• Submit a complete error free application before the final deadline of March 1.

The application opens November 1 each year. Be sure to also submit your FAFSA or ORSAA as soon as possible on or after October 1.

• Log into your OSAC Scholarship Application.
• From the "My Dashboard" page, you can review your information and check the status to see whether OSAC considers your application complete.
• Sections that are incomplete provide an explanation in red.
• Check that all of your transcripts are uploaded or scanned into the application from a mailed transcript.
• The transcript section will show that the section is complete if you chose to upload your transcript later or that you will mail in a transcript. If this action is not complete, the section will not be complete.
• You can edit some sections of your submitted application up to the final deadline.

You can log in to your Student Profile. If you have forgotten your User Name or Password, click the blue button "Forgot User Name or Password?” The quickest way for you to get assistance is to use our contact form. 

Read and follow all the instructions. Utilize a mentor to review the application for spelling and clerical errors. Submit a valid FAFSA or ORSSA and all the required documents before the March 1, deadline. The applicants that follow the instructions and submit completed applications with all supporting documents are considered for scholarships.

• Transcripts are reviewed and processed by OSAC.
• An applicant pool is developed for each scholarship program based on individual scholarship criteria and information provided by applicants.
• Recipients are selected by selection committees for each program. Additional information may be requested.
• You will receive an email notification when your application is submitted, reviewed, and if you are awarded.
• After submitting your application some fields can be updated, and scholarships can be added until the application deadline.
• Beginning in late April, you should regularly log in to your Dashboard to check the status of your scholarships.

Yes. Many OSAC scholarships are open to home-schooled students.

You must submit the following documents with your OSAC scholarship application (requirements may be different if not an Oregon resident):

• A copy of the Confirmation of Enrollment letter on file at your local Educational Service District (ESD) (also called “Letter of Intent to home-school”). A DMV receipt or record will not suffice.
• A copy of the results of a tenth-grade standardized achievement test, required for all Oregon home-school students who have registered with their ESD.
• A transcript from your home-school with letter grades assigned.

The quickest way for you to get assistance is to use our contact form.  https://oregonstudentaid.gov/contact.aspx

Generally, scholarships are awarded May through August with a few awarded at a later date.

• Check the awarding status of the scholarships you applied for, by logging in to your Student Profile.
• Scholarship awardees will be notified by email.
• If awarded a scholarship please accept the award online as soon as you can, there is a deadline to accept the award.
• You will be given the opportunity to change your college of choice during the acceptance process.
• If you have questions about the award please fill out a contact ticket online, selecting Scholarships – Help for award recipients from the subject line drop down. This will put you in contact with the Scholarship Portfolio Coordinator for your specific fund. www.OregonStudenAid.gov

OSAC disburses funds directly to your school's financial aid office shortly before the beginning of each term/semester. Please note fall term disbursement may be delayed for some scholarships due to annual funds processing requirements. If your award is less than $1,000, it will be a one-time disbursement to your school fall term. If you do not attend school for a term, you will not be eligible to receive that portion of your award. Students must maintain the required enrollment status and satisfactory academic progress to receive disbursements throughout the year.

OSAC offers more than 95 scholarships for graduate-level students. The best way to determine which scholarships you are eligible to apply for is to complete the profile section of the application and continue to the Scholarship Application to view the recommended and employer/membership list(s) of scholarships. The recommended scholarship list will populate based on your answers to the profile questions. Read each scholarship requirement to determine if you qualify.

Yes.

• See the OSAC website www.OregonStudenAid.gov and select Grants from the green ribbon.
• The Barbers and Hairdressers Grant is listed on the right hand side.
• You can also apply for scholarships, a listing of OSAC Scholarships is located in the OSAC Scholarship Catalog.
• You can use the search function to find specific words, such as cosmetology, hairdresser, hair design or barbering.
• The best way to search for scholarships is to complete the OSAC Scholarship Application profile, the filtering in the application will give you a recommended list to view, you will choose the scholarships that you qualify for and want to apply for.

The Oregon Opportunity Grant and OSAC Scholarships do not support international students. Contact the college you plan to attend to see if they have aid available.

Yes, there are several scholarship programs specifically for transfer students.

For example, the Oregon Scholarship Fund Transfer Student Award (Scholarship Code 902) is awarded specifically to transfer students who are Oregon residents currently enrolled in their second year at a community college and planning to transfer to a 4-year college in the fall.

See the Scholarship Catalog for a complete listing of our scholarships. Also, the Oregon Opportunity Grant is available for transfer students and non-transfer students alike.

For OSAC-administered scholarships, a USA college is an institution located in a state and recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as eligible to participate in Title IV student financial aid programs. Ask the school you wish to attend if it meets these requirements.

Yes, but only if you are in the United States for other than a temporary purpose and intend to become a permanent resident of the United States. If you are a foreign student, be aware that all public four-year universities in Oregon offer limited scholarship help through the foreign student fee remission program.

Contact the admissions office at the school you plan to attend for more information about this program.

There are a few, although most OSAC scholarships require that applicants live in Oregon at least one year prior to September 1 of the school year applied for (e.g., for the 2022-23 school year, applicants will have had to start living in Oregon no later than September 1, 2021). For dependent students, Oregon residency is determined by the parents' state of residence. Eligible non-citizens who are Oregon residents are able to apply.

You may still be able to apply under certain circumstances, view the full definition of Oregon residency at: https://oregonstudentaid.gov/scholarships-eligibility.aspx

Yes, many OSAC scholarships are portable to non-Oregon colleges and universities. When you list your college in section 9 as an out of state college, the recommended list of scholarships will only include scholarships that include out of state colleges.

You can find the link to file your FAFSA or ORSAA online at OregonStudentAid.gov.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or the Oregon Student Aid Application (ORSAA) helps determine the amount of student financial aid you are eligible to receive.

Please see the FAFSA and ORSAA web page to determine which application you should complete, https://oregonstudentaid.gov/

The information from the FAFSA is used by colleges for determining eligibility for the Pell Grant along with campus-based aid such as work-study and Perkins Loans.

The FAFSA and the ORSAA information is used by OSAC to determine eligibility for the Oregon Opportunity Grant and many of the scholarships administered by OSAC. You should file your FAFSA/ORSAA on October 1 or soon thereafter so that you will receive the maximum student aid that you are eligible for. Campus-based aid and the Oregon Opportunity Grants are limited. Many financially needy students who are otherwise eligible miss out on these funds because they file their FAFSA too late. In addition, OSAC scholarships that are need-based require FAFSAs to be filed and any errors fixed in a timely manner. So don't wait! File your FAFSA/ORSAA as soon after October 1 as possible. Waiting to file the FAFSA/ORSAA for the current year is no longer required, the FAFSA will pull the prior year’s tax numbers.

Oregon residents who complete their FAFSA, automatically apply for the following programs:

• Oregon Opportunity Grant
• Federal Pell Grant
• Federal SEOG Grant
• Federal Work Study
• Perkins Loans
• Stafford Loans
• PLUS Loans
• Certain campus-based aid programs (check with your college financial aid office for additional applications).

When you have a clean FAFSA (no errors) and provided any documentation that the college asks for, the student will receive notice from the school telling the student what type of financial aid package they have put together, based on the information from your FAFSA. Usually, you will receive this information in April or May. The package may include grants, loans, and work study funds, provided you indicated you would accept these types of financial aid on your FAFSA. You should always indicate you would accept any type of aid. It doesn’t obligate you to accept them at the time you file your FAFSA. You can tell the school later exactly what you agree to accept by signing their proposed financial aid package notice and returning it to them.

Filing a FAFSA or ORSAA is like getting in line. Student aid funds are usually limited, and those who file early have a better chance at receiving funds than those who wait. The FAFSA or ORSAA application opens October 1 each year.

You will receive a Student Aid Report (SAR) when your FAFSA has been processed. A SAR will have all the information you reported on your FAFSA. If any of the information is incorrect on the SAR, you can make corrections to the FAFSA and resubmit it. The FAFSA processing agency may ask you to make certain corrections, also. You may be able to process changes in 72 hours or less by requesting that the financial aid office at your school submit the changes electronically.

As a student or a parent, you may be faced with the prospect of borrowing a loan at some point when considering how to pay for college. The initial step in the financial aid process, even to be awarded a student loan, is to complete the FAFSA on an annual basis. Don’t forget to apply for scholarships and grants, which can be free money that can be applied toward your college expenses.

For detailed information about loan forgiveness, here is a website you can access: Student loan forgiveness

Visit your high school or college counselor. We provide links to free, online databases which list thousands of scholarships. A few valuable website resources for students and parents are:

• www.finaid.org
• www.fastweb.com
• www.collegepossible.org
• www.inroads.org

Students and parents can do extensive scholarship searches on the Internet. You can link to free, online databases such as MACH 25, FastWEB, and ExPAN, all of which list thousands of scholarships. Informative web pages about student financial aid is Finaid! and The SmartStudent Guide to Financial Aid. For more scholarship scam information, go to www.ftc.gov/ or www.finaid.org WARNING: The Attorney General of the State of Oregon and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission have both issued warnings and taken action against companies that “guarantee” scholarships to families using for-a-fee scholarship search services. State and federal authorities would like to remind families that using the word “guarantee” in promotional materials is a questionable activity of scholarship search businesses.

I've forgotten either my Scholarship Application user name or password, so I can't login to edit my application. The program says there is no match for what I used. What do I do?
If you have created a scholarship application in a previous year OSAC will try to find your application via the OSAC Student Portal. If you can't remember your Username or Password, go to the OSAC Student Portal, and then click on the 'Forgot User Name, Password' button. If you enter the same data as used to create your account, the Student Portal will find your account. If your account is not found, check to make sure you have entered the information correctly. If you have changed your email address and no longer have access to the email address located in your OSAC account or your account cannot be found, you will need to contact OSAC directly to protect your secure information, 541-687-7400 or 800-452-8807. Do not attempt to create multiple accounts, call OSAC for assistance.

The OSAC Scholarship Application website is a secure site, protected by an industry standard encryption method, Secure Socket Layers (SSL). All web page addresses on the Scholarship Application website will begin with 'https://app.oregonstudentaid.gov/' or ‘https://appuploads.oregonstudentaid.gov/’; the https indicates a secure site. In most internet browsers users can click on the lock icon in the website address bar to read more details on the security certificate of the website you are visiting.

If your high school did not assign letter grades, check the “My school did not assign letter grades” box in the high school section of the application. Also, in addition to your high school transcript showing all work completed through fall term, upload documentation from your high school regarding how students are evaluated.

If your college did not assign letter grades, check the “My College did not assign grades” box in the college history section of the application and send transcripts of all college work completed through fall term. With the transcript you can include a document regarding how students are evaluated.

If you need proof of awarding, print your award acceptance, or if you received a paper award letter, give the school a copy. If that is not sufficient, have your school contact OSAC at 541-687-7400 for scholarship verification.

The official website for information on college savings plans offered through the State of Oregon is www.oregoncollegesavings.com

Each applicant has a My Dashboard page, created when an applicant first creates an OSAC Scholarship Application. The Dashboard page shows your application status, transcript status, some basic information you provided, scholarships you applied for, and the awarding status of those scholarships. You can also make changes to your name, contact information, college choice, and college major.

Complete scholarship details and eligibility criteria can be found in the OSAC Scholarship Catalog. You can also complete sections 1-9 of the OSAC Scholarship Application and the application will use this information for scholarship recommendation.