Frequently Asked Questions

The application asks you to submit the name of the college you’ll be attending in the fall and whether or not you’ve been accepted. If you don’t know which school you’ll be attending, indicate which school you feel is the one you’ll most likely attend. If you are not planning on attending college in the fall, you shouldn’t be applying.

No, an unofficial transcript will work. Be sure that the transcript is the most recent transcript. 

Make sure the file you’re trying to upload is the correct file type—only  .PDF, .DOC, and .JPG files are allowed. Also, be sure the file name doesn’t have any punctuation in it, specifically, no period (.), comma  (,), question mark (?), or apostrophe (‘). 

 A letter of reference from a teacher, principal, counselor, coach, church  leader, community leader, or employer will be considered. However, letters of reference from an immediate family member will not be eligible. Ideally, you should identify someone who can speak about what  makes you a good candidate for a scholarship. 

Your Student Aid Report (SAR), which is sent to you after you complete the  FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), is not required to apply for a Matteson or a Keokuk Area Community Foundation Scholarship.  

You should receive an automatic email confirmation. If you don’t receive that, please contact Philip Ricketts, Administrator. 

There are a number of scholarship selection committees that review, score, and make recommendations to the Keokuk Area Community Foundation’s Board of Directors for approval. Committee members are representatives of our  communities. 

If you are a high school student and were selected for a scholarship, you will find out at your high school’s award ceremony, typically at the end of May of each year. For all other applicants, if you were selected for  a scholarship, you will be notified via email in early June. Every applicant will know the results of your application—successful or  otherwise—by email in mid-June. 

You will receive a phone call from Philip Ricketts notifying you of your  scholarship.  Every student who is awarded a scholarship will be sent an email and called on the phone in May with instructions on how to complete the Matteson Scholarship Agreement. The Matteson Scholarship Agreement will be asking you to submit the following: proof of enrollment and a thank you letter for the donor. You have the option of  submitting a photo that can be used when the Keokuk Area Community Foundation announces the scholarship recipients. 

Proof of Enrollment can come in many, many forms. You might be surprised at  how many documents you already have that would qualify as proof of enrollment. Something qualifies as proof of enrollment if it was issued by your college and has the following three details:
•    Your name
•    Your student ID number
•    School’s name

Dates enrolled (can say “fall 201x”, “201x-201x” or something similar.  Things like housing contracts, tuition bills, financial aid award letters, screenshots of online accounts, degree audits, etc. are all  examples of documents that may qualify for proof of enrollment. The only thing that won’t qualify as proof of enrollment is a letter of admission. 

It may, but only if it has the three required details listed above. 

It may, but only if it has the three required details listed above. 

Does it have the three required details listed above? Then, yes it will work. If not, then it won’t work. 

Your school’s definition of proof of enrollment is different than the Keokuk Area Community Foundation’s. We only need a document that has the four details as outlined above. It can come in many forms, including housing  contracts, tuition bills, etc. Colleges and universities might not think  of a tuition bill as proof of enrollment, but if that document has the four details on it, then it works for proof of enrollment for your scholarship. 

No. 

Make sure the file you’re trying to upload is the correct file type—only  .PDF, .DOC, and .JPG files are allowed. Also, be sure the file name doesn’t have any punctuation in it, specifically, no period (.), comma  (,), question mark (?), or apostrophe (‘). 

Make sure the file you’re trying to upload is the correct file type—only  .JPG, .JPEG, and .TIF files are allowed. Also, be sure the file name  doesn’t have any punctuation in it, specifically, no period (.), comma  (,), question mark (?), or apostrophe (‘). 

After submitting your scholarship acceptance materials, you won’t receive a confirmation email. Instead, your information will be reviewed by our staff to ensure everything is in order. If so, we’ll begin processing your scholarship payment. If not, we’ll contact you and request additional documentation.  

First of all, you won’t be receiving a check. Instead, the check will be issued to your college/university. If you’ve submitted your scholarship acceptance materials on time and correctly, your check will be issued in July/August. 

Typically, there’s an overlap – at the same time that your scholarship check is being issued and sent in the mail, your college is sending out its  latest bill. So, that usually means the scholarship payment is not  reflected on the bill in early August. We encourage you to wait 5  business days after we issued your scholarship before contacting your  school to confirm receipt of the scholarship payment. 

Typically, colleges will apply half of the scholarship to your fall tuition and half to your spring tuition. That’s why you only see half of the scholarship amount on your fall bill. 

Your college will typically refund any unspent portion of your scholarship to the Keokuk Area Community Foundation. We can re-issue that refund to your new college, but we need you to contact us to let us know which school you’re transferring to. Like your first school, we’ll need proof of enrollment in order to reissue the scholarship refund. 

Each summer you will be contacted by our office to submit the necessary documentation for the new school year’s payment.