Awarding Overview

 Entrance Awards for Fall Admits

• Generally offered to students in the spring/summer in conjunction with admissions and submitted for processing between June and August.
• Traditionally the awards for undergraduates are split 50% for Fall/Winter and paid to the Student Fee Account.

In-Course Awards and Renewals (includes Dean’s Honour List - DHL)

• Based on the academic performance at the end of years 1 or 2 or 3 etc. and awarded to the recipient for the following year of study.
• Recipients must still be registered full-time in the same program in order to receive the in-course award.
• Undergraduate awards are determined by Faculty Scholarship Committees that meet at the end of the Winter term once the final grades are submitted. Committees for in-course awards tend to meet between May and June when they can tackle both convocation and in-course awarding.
• Submission and processing of in-course awards is done around the same period as entrance awards – between June and August.
• Exception for faculties that operate on a 3-term academic year: processing for in-course awards and renewals is done between mid-September and October (deadline Oct 30th). The Faculty Scholarship Committee must wait for the grades of the Summer session to assess academic performance and then award.

Convocation Awards

• Based on the overall academic performance of the recipient and processed at the end of the final year of study.
• Traditionally the awards are made payable directly to the recipient. It is crucial that they be advised to keep their bank account active until after the convocation period.
• Submission and processing of convocation awards is done around mid-May for all faculties (deadline of May 31st). Awards must be submitted/processed in BSA within a very short period of the grades being available and the Scholarship Committees' convening. It should also be noted that all this must be done prior to Senate meeting for approval of degrees, diplomas, etc. which is communicated to all faculties each year.
• NOTE: 
  • May 31st is the ABSOLUTE DEADLINE. 
  • On June 1st, the new academic year is made available for Undergraduate award processing. Current year undergraduate awarding will not be possible using the Award Processing Form.

Processing Timeline

The timing of the award submission is critical for undergraduate students as some of these are recorded on the academic transcript. BSA has programming in place that will automatically insert the Scholarship/Designation in the appropriate place – provided the award was submitted in the expected time frame.

• Entrance Awards - are to be recorded at the top of year 1 (0) for an undergraduate student.
• In-Course Awards and Renewals - are to be recorded at the end of the Winter term (exception for Health Sciences: Student Funding runs a report ad-hoc to identify the recipients and then manually adjust the award record in order to force the Award/Designation to appear at the end of the summer term for years 1 or 2 or 3, etc.)
• Convocation Awards - (in conjunction with Enrolment Services) will appear at the end of the Winter term (including Health Sciences).

Identify All Funding Sources

• Student aid and award funds are typically classified with fund types 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D or 2E.
• Determine endowment income by multiplying the number of units by the McGill Investment Pool (MIP) rate, using the FNIEBAL form in Banner.
  • Place special emphasis on spending down all endowment income before the end of each fiscal year.
• Tabulate all direct donations exclusively in support of student awards. Confirm the amounts with University Advancement if there are any questions.
• Some funds are shared by two or more faculties. Make sure to communicate with the other stakeholders for effective sharing and to prevent under or over-spending.
• Compile a list of non-monetary prizes such as books and medals.
• Once the budget for all funds has been identified, review the award terms to determine the number of awards available in each fund.

Preparations for Awarding

• Convene the Faculty Scholarships Committee.
• Provide the list of students in the top 10% of the faculty – the Dean’s Honour List (DHL). Include their program and year of study, sessional credit load, sessional GPA, any renewable entrance scholarships they may hold, notes (exchanges, incompletes, etc.). The committee will start with the top students and work down the list until the budget is spent.
• Provide committees with details of award availability by department, donor restrictions on awards, the central faculty budget for awards and the list of non-monetary prizes.
• In the past, the University Committee on Scholarship and Student Aid (UCSSA) and now the Committee on Enrolment and Student Affairs (CESA) had established a number of regulations for the University as a whole and faculties are welcome to use them as guidelines when awarding in-course awards:
  • Students must have completed at least 27 graded credits (courses completed under the S/U option are excluded) during the regular academic year to be eligible for DHL and monetary awards.
  • Students registered for only one term must have completed 14 graded credits.
  • Students who spent one term in each of two different faculties should be recommended by the last faculty attended, and the GPA should be calculated for the whole year.
  • Courses taken through the Inter-University Transfer Agreement may be counted toward in-course awards, to a maximum of 6 credits per academic year (3 credits per term).
  • Credits earned for courses taken while on exchange or study away are not eligible for in-course awards, unless the faculty decides to loosen this restriction.
  • Since most internships are remunerated, students who leave on internship will have their in-course awards deferred until they resume their studies.
  • Faculties may decide whether to hold the in-course award for a student who has taken a term or year off. They may do so for up to one year and then re-instate it when the student is re-admitted.

Processing of Awards

• Once the committee has finalized its decisions, update the original list with the names of the awards for each student and the aid fund code for each award.
• Proceed to process the awards using the Award Processing Form (APF) on Minerva for payment to the student.
• The APF must be used for recording the students receiving the Dean's Honor List designation.
• APF processing results in the awards being automatically uploaded to the student transcripts.
• If errors or problems arise, notify Student Funding immediately by student.funding [at] mcgill.ca (email).
• In-course awards are credited to the student’s fee account, one half for each of the Fall and Winter terms, as long as the student is registered on a full-time basis in a McGill undergraduate degree program for the entire academic year.