Scholarships & Awards

Scholarships + Awards

Each year, we award scholarships to deserving students for academic achievement, community involvement, and enthusiastic Collins spirit. You can read about past winners by clicking on the buttons for each award below.

All Collins LLC awards are funded by contributions from alumni and friends of Collins and recipients are chosen by a committee of faculty and staff. Please note that eligibility to receive financial awards or scholarships may be limited if IU considers your financial need to have already been met. Awards are only available to current Collinsites.

Each application requires a short statement (250-500 words) providing examples that address the prompt and will be evaluated by the awards committee using the rubric below.

Your IU scholarship application should be submitted by March 22 (except for the Retention Award, which has a due date of September 22).

How to apply through IU Scholarships

To be considered for these funding opportunities, you will need to complete the IU Scholarships general application, which consists of answering 7 required questions, electronically signing, and submitting. This application may be submitted at any time during the academic year, but you will not be considered for awards in the system until it is submitted. The general application contains many questions which are designed for undergraduate applicants applying to IU. Continuing undergraduate and graduate students need only complete the required 7 questions. The College has created a guide for those students on how to navigate to and complete this general application.

Awards Application Rubric:

Quality (0-5)

0: Response shows no or little thought; or poor grammar and structure impede understanding.

1-2: Response shows limited thought; or poor grammar and structure interfere with understanding.

3-4: Response shows thought but may not provide clarity; Grammar and structure do not interfere with understanding.

5: Thoughtful reasoning; Writing is clear with proper grammar and structure.

Content (0-10)

0: No examples related to prompt; prompt content not addressed.

1-4: Response offers weak or limited examples related to prompt.

5-7: Response demonstrates adequate but not strong examples related to prompt.

8-10: Response demonstrates strong examples related to prompt.

Retention Award

This award is intended for current Collinsites who plan to return to Collins LLC next year. It is awarded based on a student’s current involvement and planned future involvement in the LLC. The $1000 award is renewable as long as you live within the buildings of Collins LLC.

Freshman Award

This $300 award is intended to encourage current freshmen at Collins to engage in the community in multiple ways: by joining various existing student groups, by developing new initiatives, by the completion of a thoughtful Q project that builds community at Collins, and/or by taking on a position of student leadership.

Ernest and Eva Bernhardt-Kabisch Award

This $300 award is for a current Collinsite who combines academic excellence with involvement in the Collins community. Although not a GPA contest, the awards committee will look at the applicant’s major(s) and minor(s) and current and cumulative GPA.

The Retention Award scholarship helped relieve some of my financial burden. It also gave me more incentive to be active within the Collins community because I wanted to give back. I became a Q-teacher, a co-chair of BOEP, and a Welcome Week leader for both my junior and senior years.
Nathan Abbott, Collins alumnus, Retention Award recipient

Collins Living-Learning Center

Scholarships & Awards