Welcome to the Gulf Coast State College Foundation’s scoring committee page. Thank you for taking your time to help us find deserving students for our scholarships.
Your 2025-2026 Scoring Committee Chair is Ben Schmidt, Director of Student Accounting at GCSC. Ben can be reach at (850) 873-3562 or [email protected]. Your Foundation contacts are Dunkin McLane, Assistant Director at the Foundation and Kara Gray, Foundation Assistant.
In general, you will review and score all scholarship applications assigned to you. You will be provided with a rubric to help you determine an application score. All of your scoring will be processed online using a system called Blackbaud Award Management (formerly Academic Works) . You will access your application by logging into your MYGCSC portal and locating the Scholarship Application link. Once the scoring period is over, all applications will be ranked by score from highest to lowest. The Foundation staff will review the rankings and begin the task of finding scholarships that best suit both the donor’s intent, as well as the student’s needs.
Abuse, Behavioral Intervention and Risk: When reading an applicant’s essay answers, scorers must be aware of behavioral situations (i.e. domestic violence, physical abuse, suicide, misconduct, or abuse and neglect) that may cause risk or harm to the applicant. If a scorer determines that an applicant’s narrative states or notes a behavioral situation that could put an applicant at risk or harm, the scorer must report the situation to the scholarship scoring committee chairperson immediately. Please give the chairperson the name of the applicant, the student’s GCSC ID number, what established the concern and where the narrative is located. The chairperson will be responsible for reporting the incident to the College. Please contact Ben Schmidt at [email protected].
Conflict of Interest Policy: Applicants are comprised of students attending or planning to attend Gulf Coast State College. It is a realization that members of any review and scoring committee may have some interaction or contact with scholarship applicants due to job duties. It is this interaction that the following rules exist for the members who participate in the review and scoring of scholarship applications and/or the selection of scholarship recipients.
Rules Violation: If a member of any scholarship scoring and/or selection committee violates any rule and it is reported to the Foundation, the Foundation will forward the complaint to the College if deemed necessary. If it is determined that a violation has occurred, the member will be removed from all Foundation scoring and selection committees.
Acceptance of Cash or Gifts: A member of any scholarship scoring and/or selection committee is prohibited from accepting a cash payment, stipend, or gifts in return for: 1) Selecting a particular scholarship applicant or applicants. 2) For advice or guidance. (Advice or guidance must be free). 3) Completing or helping to complete a scholarship application. 4) Drafting or writing of a scholarship essay question or questions.
Falsifying Information: A member of any scholarship scoring and/or selection committee is prohibited from helping an applicant falsify or plagiarize information on a scholarship application.
Immediate Family: A member of any scholarship scoring and/or selection committee is prohibited from scoring an application or selecting a member of their immediate member must “abstain” from participating. A member should notify the Chairperson or Foundation staff member if this situation occurs.
Opting Out (Scoring Committee): A member of any scholarship scoring and/or selection committee has the option of not scoring a scholarship application or participating in the selection of a particular applicant. Especially if the scoring or selection causes a personal or professional conflict of interest. A member should notify the Chairperson if this situation occurs. Please contact Ben Schmidt at [email protected].
Here are the scoring steps:
- Please make sure your personal account is active inside the award management system. Please contact Ben Schmidt, Scoring Committee Chair at [email protected] or Dunkin McLane at [email protected] for assistance.
- Please review the Reviewer Portal Overview (.pdf) or the Reviewer Portal Overview Video (3.22 min)
- Log in to your MyGCSC account and click on the Foundation Scholarship link
- Find the “References and Reviewers” tab
- Log-in. Your password is one that you created. The Foundation staff cannot reset passwords. If you have trouble signing in, please hit the “Trouble signing in?” link.
- Have your scoring rubric available
- Remember to save your work
- Lastly….THANK YOU!
Rubrics:
2025 General Scholarship Scoring Rubric
2025 Summer Scholarship Scoring Rubric
2025 Cycle 2/2nd Chance Scoring Rubric
If you have any questions, please contact your committee chair – Ben Schmidt at [email protected] or (850) 872-3562 or your Foundation contacts – Dunkin McLane and Kara Gray.