Garden Club of South Carolina Scholarships
Scholarship Sponsored by Garden Club of South Carolina, Inc.
APPLICANT ELIGIBILITY
- Applicants must satisfy all of the following requirements:
- Be a U.S. citizen and fulfill the qualifications for residency in South Carolina.
- International students, foreign-exchange students, and those enrolled in doctoral programs are ineligible.
- Be either a graduating high school senior or a currently enrolled college student carrying at least 12 graded credit hours as an undergraduate or at least 9 graded credit hours as a graduate student.
- Hold a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale.
SELECTION PROCESS
- Applications submitted to the GCSC Chairman will be reviewed by the chairman together with an eight-member committee to determine the recipients.
- Following completion of state-level judging, the application(s) will be forwarded to the SAR and NGC Scholarship Chairmen for their review; these must be received by March 1.
- The committee may use the following sample scoring breakdown when evaluating applications:
- Academic record: 40%
- Applicant’s essay: 25%
- Honors / extracurricular activities / work experience: 13%
- Financial need: 15%
- Recommendations: 5%
- Conformance to requirements: 2%
- All applicants will be notified in writing of the committee’s decision on or before March 15. Selected recipients will be recognized at the April GCSC State Meeting.
- Applicants who continue to maintain at least a 3.0 GPA are encouraged to reapply the following year.
AWARD PAYMENT AND CONDITIONS
- Scholarship checks for selected recipients will be mailed in mid‑July to the Financial Aid Office of the college or university where the student is enrolled. Payments will not be sent directly to students.
- The institution’s Financial Aid Office will disburse funds according to its academic term schedule unless the recipient has only one term remaining before program completion.
- If a recipient withdraws from or transfers away from the original institution, any remaining scholarship funds must be returned to GCSC. No funds will be released to a different institution until GCSC has received any balance due.