The scholarship is not need based. It is merit based, but the award amount will be need based. The award amounts are $500-$5000.
Actually, to quote the web site: “Scholars are selected based on merit. Award amounts range from $500 - $5,000, based on relative need.”
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Great thanks!
And that’s false. Award amounts start at zero. Its very misleading.
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Still not false, maybe slightly misleading but it says it right on the website:
- Finally, and importantly, HSF awards more than $30 million in Scholarships annually and, depending upon available funds, HSF Scholars may also be eligible to receive a scholarship, which range from $500-$5,000 and awarded directly to students
Key words being “may also be eligible”
So, if you are selected as an HSF Scholar, you receive all the benefits listed and depending on funds, you may also receive a scholarship when the funds are released at the end of the year.
When notifications of HSF Scholars go out, the notification letter also says if you are receiving a scholarship (but just that the amount will be between $500-$5000). In some cases, it says you are on a waiting list for a scholarship. Some people are notified that they are waitlisted as an HSF Scholar as well.
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Is misleading, is a run on sentence and has grammar errors to boot. They have 10000 scholars and 30 million dollars clearly it says right? Simple math says 3000 is the average award, right? So, 500 should be given to anyone that becomes a scholar easily. But they somehow runout of money? Probably to pay executive salaries and who knows what else. It’s misleading. It’s very suspicious. My opinions is the HSF is a data collection agency and something weird is going on. Seems to me they are taking advantage of the high cost of education to gather data and sell it. Have you seen the questions they ask? All mandatory. All these benefits they claim to give you. Who can use them? Most kids are super busy studying, doing research, doing internships etc. The number of Hispanic kids who are truly in need and can have a 4.0 and high SAT ACT scores and are excellent is not very high. Those that do get full rides from a university already. I have not read about anyone getting anything over 500. Just a few got kids got 500. They are using the Hispanic community to make money. They are not charitable, they are profitable. 6 million is salaries for all their employees. How many are there? I have all these links fom kids on reddit and all say about the same. Reddit - Dive into anything
https://www.reddit.com/r/scholarships/comments/zwwq30/hispanic_scholarship_fund_from_waitlist_to/
One of the benefits for scholars is internships and jobs with corporate partners. Yet we can’t find any info about how to access those benefits? We don’t see a job board with internships and jobs posted for example. My daughter used the message center to ask how students connect with corporate partners and hasn’t received a response. Anyone have any insight? My daughter’s program requires a “semester away” her junior year. Full semester internships in her field are very difficult to obtain. Disney and Warner Bros are corporate partners of HSF. So we are hoping this can help her obtain an internship but we can’t find out how to actually leverage the HSF Scholar with these corporate partners? Any ideas?
I don’t know what else to say. I looked at these reddits you linked, and they consist of people who were either waitlisted for scholarships or waitlisted for HSF Scholar status for the most part. For the ones who said they were scholars and followed the process, it is not at all clear that they followed the process (as one references June, and another says they submitted their proof of enrollment). If that is the last thing those two people did, then one missed several steps, and the other missed the last step in December.
The salaries of the top people are in their financial report. The CEO makes $657,000. The COO makes $355,000, the next person makes $240,000. While those salaries may seem high, for an organization with $152,000,000 in assets, probably far below average. For a non-profit, probably typical.
One thing that isn’t clear to me: Do they fund scholarships outside of HSF? Based on this statement: “HSF awards more than $30 million in Scholarships annually and, depending upon available funds, HSF Scholars may also be eligible to receive a scholarship” I would say they do. So, the $30 million is not only going to the HSF scholars. When you look at the details and see $520k going to Harvard and over $1 million going to Stanford, over $400,000 going to Yale, nearly $700k going to Columbia, and $240k going to NYU. I have to wonder how many HSF scholars are at these schools and how much they received. By comparison UNC Chapel Hill $7,900, University of Houston $5100 etc. So, I wonder if (but do not know) they may be partially funding some larger scholarships given to Hispanic students at some private universities. The total going to schools adds up to about $24 million. There is another $8.99 million listed on another line of section IX also as Grants and Scholarships to domestic organizations and governments. So, this seems to say that the Scholars are receiving ~$24 million in scholarships directly at most and organizations receive an additional $9 million for a total of ~$33 million in 2021.
As for data collection, there is nothing in the application that the applicants have not listed on every college application. I would say there is far less data then given on most college applications and far far less than FAFSA or CSS Profile.
In regard to the Reddit threads: In this thread on CC which is only a handful of people and is far more functional than anything on Reddit - there is somebody who’s child (mine) was designated a scholar and a scholarship winner in June. She followed the process and ultimately received her check in late December. There were 2-3 people whose children were HSF Scholars and waitlisted for scholarships. They followed the process and in early December they were notified that they were no longer on the waitlist, and they would receive a check in late December (I assume they did). And there were a couple people whose children were waitlisted as HSF Scholar’s and received notice the first week of December that they are now officially HSF Scholars. They were also notified that if there are any funds left in March 2023, they may receive a scholarship. My advice as always is, follow the process.
I will agree that they can streamline some of their processes, and it would be nice if when applicants submitted their applications and whatever comes next, it showed on the portal, that they have submitted what was required for that phase. They could also probably clarify some wording to avoid confusion, but I still don’t see any evidence that anything weird is going on. They are handing out tens of millions in scholarships every year, and unlike other organizations, their financial data is right on their web site and easy to find. I also saw somewhere in the report that they hold 63% of their funds in reserve. That seems a little high to me. I feel like they probably could hold a little less in reserve.
This is a good question - one thing I wonder is if not attending the HSF Scholar Celebration is an issue. My daughter was not able to attend any of the dates over the summer (not even the virtual) and I would really have liked for her to have gone. That would have been the first opportunity to network with the HSF community.
My thought is a lot of it is the events, conferences and Summits. But I would really like to know what the HSF Insider is that is referred to on the website: (“Exclusive access to the HSF Insider which shares invaluable information and career opportunities”). It sounds like it would be a newsletter or something, but not sure.
timan2000 does make a good point about kids being super busy and might have a real hard time participating in these - a couple of things I looked at took place during the school year and would require travel to another city for a few days. A few were listed a virtual too - but still time impact.
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Yes the summits, events and conferences are great but I hope there is also a simple way to connect with corporate partners for internships and jobs for those that can’t go to those events. We still haven’t received an answer from HSF but they did send an answer to my question to clarify HSF status. "Once you have been designated an HSF Scholar, you do not have to re-apply to keep the HSF Scholar designation. However, we encourage you to apply again every year to be considered for a monetary award. " Which confirms what we all said earlier. But just wanted to share the official response.
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I agree with most points. One exception: The questions in the very last stage do seem like data collection to sell to marketers, and were NOT questions asked on any other applications. Stuff like what restaurants from this list do you frequent, what brand of cell service do you use, etc. I recall my daughter filling out pages and pages of such questions because she talked it through with us…
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I never saw the last stage because they had about 2 days at the beginning of December to respond. So that part is new info to me. Yeah, that seems pointless.
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They clearly want more kids in their database and more information to be able to sell it. If not outright sell it, they want to make it so impressive it can gain more donors and make more money. Nonprofit only means they cannot distribute their yearly profit to the owners. The money stays in the company to make more. That 30 million they claim is not for the HSF scholars. That is absolutely misleading. HSF handles the scholarships for the Gates Foundation, Toyota and other scholarships. So that number includes all that money. I looked up their tax return. They do not really advertise how much is given to HSF scholars for good reason. It’s not much. But they combine it all up to sound impressive and get you to sign up. It’s more like bait and switch really. But if you read closely, they are not lying. They say HSF awards 30 million, yes HSF the company totaling all their programs. Clever little marketeers. They have emailed my friends kids about 6 times to sign up. They need more kids in their database. Did you notice the User Interface for the college board recognition program? Does it look familiar? They took over the program I’m almost certain. Got to keep paying those high salaries. Now they have the names of all the kids in the country. If they get them to sign up then they get all the names of the parents, how much they make, where they work, married, degrees, schools, do they live together? One friend signed up for the Totota scholarship which they handle, and it’s supposed to be local. They wanted information on not just parents but grandparents too. One question about siblings they wanted to know if the sibling was older or younger. Seriously? Why?
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Kind of a separate discussion, but are any of you considering HSI colleges (Hispanic Serving Institutions*)? My son has a few on his list: North Park, Barry & Nova Southeastern. And one is an “emerging HSI”-Rollins. My son wants a very diverse college so this is a plus, but what are the benefits of attending one?
*has 25% or higher Hispanic population
My daughter goes to Texas A&M which is an HSI.
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As far as benefits A&M has some info about that on their website.
Transformational Education
- Expand the scope of current student success programs to include pre-admission preparation for enhanced access to stem careers and social mobility growth.
- Incentivize redesigning courses to demonstrate awareness and abilities to provide an equitable and inclusive curriculum.
- Destigmatize “help-seeking” behaviors (e.g., reframe tutoring, counseling, etc. as self-starting)
- Conduct student-migration analysis (e.g., “mapping” students of color in majors, course selection, advising, etc.)
- Measure institutional readiness to serve Latinx students and other student populations.
The main benefit is funding for the university to:
- Improve academic quality, institutional management and fiscal stability, and
- Strengthen physical plants and endowments of institutions of higher education.
For example, federal funding opportunities are available to develop research, teaching, outreach, and community engagement.
More info and full details here
https://diversity.tamu.edu/HSI
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Thank you-very helpful!
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So, like you I wondered about the non-scholarship benefits and how you access/or use them and suggested the summits etc were some ways, but also wondered about the HSF Insider (still not sure what that is). But today, my daughter told me she received an email from the HSF Career Center inviting current freshmen to a multiday immersive consulting workshop with a top consulting firm this spring. Workshop participants will among other things, participate in case simulations, interview prep sessions and may be invited to interview for an extensive internship with the company. There is a brief interest form you have to fill out - not sure what the dates are. So, it looks like once a student is an HSF scholar, they will start to receive emails with opportunities. Hopefully they will start to see more of these.
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My senior son decided to apply for the Hispanic Scholarship Fund which is due 2/15. If he is selected, he’s not expecting much on the $ front but hopefully the networking part will be valuable.
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Not doing this again, way too much work, my son had to even go get an official transcript from the registrar office in person. He wanted to avoid the 5 dollar charge for a service. All for not even a dime. Networking? I suppose if he needed it but they are swamped with rigorous course work now. The CEO makes 600k a year basically handling other people’s money. They may do a good job for the Gates foundation and other scholarship programs, I think they run the College Board National Recognition program too. Can’t confirm it but their user interface is awful familiar. Those programs are done well I think but their own HSF scholarship is a very deceiving program in their advertising.
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Yeah I did mention those negatives when he first got an email encouraging him to apply. And I warned him not to expect any money, certainly not $5000. But he decided to apply and try to take advantage of any benefits (if he is selected) and then he can reconsider for next year. They definitely need to improve their organization and communication-and benefits!
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