Don’t procrastinate on scholarship application, warns UWI finance body
Published:Wednesday | April 22, 2015 | 12:00 AM
A day after the publication of The Gleaner's scholarships guide,The Office of Student Financing (OSF) at the University of the West Indies (UWI) is urging students to be punctual with applications for the more than 600 scholarships available through its office.
Speaking with The Gleaner, Joy Dickenson, manager of the OSF, said students at the UWI have been waiting until the eleventh hour to apply.
She is asking students to be more proactive when seeking scholarships because of the fact that the demand for scholarships far outweighs the number of scholarships available.
"Jamaicans wait until the last day, so the last three days the line will reach over to the assembly hall because students are coming at the deadline," she said.
She went on to disclose that since applications opened in February, a number of high-school students have been coming in to submit applications. UWI students have however not been making use of the stipulated time during which applications are to be submitted.
The application period began February 2 and will close May 29.
Dickenson said the problem of procrastinating on applications for funding is also a noticeable problem for the Students' Loan Bureau (SLB).
"It's the same thing they do with the SLB and they don't understand that money is short everywhere, so you have to put your foot in from early," she said.
not taken up
The school of graduate studies and research is also making its own plea to those students wishing to pursue studies at the masters level.
Speaking with The Gleaner, administrative officer in the School for Graduate Studies and Research, Allison Atkinson said that a number of scholarships offered for graduate studies are not taken up.
"For various reasons, the scholarships are not utilised," she said.
The postgraduate scholarships available include, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Reduction Insurance Facility (CCRIF) UWI Scholarship, the Universal Service Fund ICT Scholarship and the UWI Graduate Scholarship.