External Awards

Organizations, agencies and donors offer scholarship opportunities to students who demonstrate scholastic merit or meet other specific eligibility criteria.

The entity awarding the scholarship, not Penn State, is responsible for selecting the candidate and determining the value of the award. An external award may be split between semesters (fall/spring) based on the specifications provided by the donor/sponsor.

As soon as you receive an award check, send it to our office so it can be reflected on your student account. Students typically receive a letter of notification about a scholarship or award prior to receiving the funds. Please retain these letters for your records and contact your awarding organization to send funds to Penn State.

Our office enters awards as promptly as possible and, in the order received. Your student account will reflect the award once the funds have been received and processed by our office. Due to heavy volume during the months of July, August, November, and December, it can take a few weeks for the award to appear on your student account. The earlier you submit checks, the more likely your award will be reflected on student account.

If a check is made payable to you and Penn State, please be sure to endorse the check before sending it to us. Also, include your name and PSU ID on the memo line. If a check is not endorsed properly, University Park students will receive an email notifying them that their check needs to be signed at 103 Shields Building. Commonwealth campus students will be notified by our office and will receive further instructions. This may delay the posting of the award to your student account. If an awarding entity sends a check directly to our office that needs to be endorsed, we will follow the same procedures as stated above.

You will be responsible for the balance on your student account. A refund will be issued for any credit balance. Please note that external awards do not appear as anticipated aid. 

Mail Check(s) to:

Penn State
Office of the Bursar
Attn: External Awards
109 Shields Building
664 Curtin Road
University Park, PA 16802
Fax: 814-865-6535

Some awarding entities require us to send an invoice before they provide us with payment. This is normally true for school districts paying for their teachers and military reimbursement programs.

To ensure the timely processing of these invoices, please mail or fax all necessary paperwork to: 

Penn State 
Office of the Bursar
Attn: External Awards
109 Shields Building
664 Curtin Road
University Park, PA 16802
 

Fax: 814-865-6535

For more Information about Outside Scholarships visit the Office of Student Aid.