Chris Banyas
Staff Writer
A new website dubbed the Bengal Online Scholarship System, BOSS for short, was recently launched and aims to help students apply for and utilize scholarships.
“I talked to some of my colleagues and I realized we were doing paper applications for everything and the way things are now, electronic is kind of the way to go,” said Debbie Green, associate director of scholarships at Idaho State University. “It’s a lot easier for students, it’s a lot more user friendly. They’ll be able to see a lot of scholarships they probably didn’t know they were eligible for.”
The new system began life as an idea about a year ago, and has faced many challenges along the road to becoming what it is today.
“Just like any system, there’s a little bit of challenge because you’re taking everything that’s in files or different fund agreements that all the scholarships have and you’re having to pull it into the system,” said Green.
Along with the challenge of integrating the scholarship data into the program, were the challenges of creating the program itself.
“The technology challenges and the IT challenges are something that I don’t really work with, but we have a wonderful IT department and wonderful staff in our office that really made it happen,” said Green.
With the old system, students would have to spend hours searching through various websites and filling out all sorts of different forms. The new system aims to streamline all of that.
“Once they complete a brief general application, it actually recommends scholarships to them,” said Green. “It’s taking information based on their GPA, their major, class level, all of that and its saying here are some scholarship opportunities that you can apply for.”
While the site is currently live, none of the scholarships that are available will take effect until the 2014 fall semester.
Students should check back regularly as scholarships will be added frequently.
“We’re telling students just like we always have, check it regularly, check it at least once a month if not more,” said Green.
Michael Murphy, a junior and chemistry major at ISU, recently had a chance to try out the new system.
The new system can be found by visiting www.isu.edu/scholar and clicking on BOSS (Bengal Online Scholarship System).
