Scholarships

RVC Foundation Scholarships are provided by donors who believe in your right to receive a good education at a quality institution. Many of them are alumni of Rock Valley College, others are your neighbors, friends and employers, and still more believe in the Rockford community as a whole and know that education is the key to economic growth. Whatever their reasons, our donors are passionate people. Some make big gifts that will fund a scholarship for years to come, others make small gifts month after month, year after year. They all have one goal in mind – to give you a chance at a brighter future.

Be a student in good standing (2.0 cumulative GPA and 67% completion rate), complete the financial aid process at RVC or NIU, and register for fall classes. That’s it. This does not mean you’ll be matched with every scholarship the RVC Foundation offers, but you will match many of them. And finally, write out your statements ahead of time. Put some thought into them. Remember, you are not writing a text message! Your statements are the way that the donor and the scholarship committee get to know you. You’ll need 3 of them: 1) What it will mean to you if you should receive an RVC Foundation Scholarship; 2) Your education and career goals; and 3) Financial information that you are willing to share.

Both the preliminary award email and the final award email will be sent to your RVC student email account. It is your responsibility to monitor your RVC student email account. Any email we send will come from RVC-Foundation@RockValleyCollege.edu. Please add our email to your contacts list. We also require that you provide a textable cell number for notification purposes. You may also provide a personal email address.

It depends. The more information you provide, the better matched you’ll be to multiple scholarships. See above. In general, unless a donor has specified a particular dollar amount, scholarships are awarded based on how many credits you will be taking in the fall, your official student status (freshman, sophomore) and your GPA.

At the top of the RVC Foundation scholarship web page is a list of important dates. Check your RVC student email account when those dates occur. NOTE: Even though we make every attempt to get all notices out to applicants as stated, there is a chance that our scholarship provider will hold the emails in a queue and release them in the middle of the night. You may not see your notice until the next day.

Your scholarship award will be posted to your financial aid account shortly after you receive your final award notice. The date will be provided within that notice. This allows you to see the balance of tuition owed and make arrangements for payment. However, the funds will not be released to you until after the 10th day of classes, in either fall or spring semester. As long as your scholarship shows as "pending", you have nothing to worry about. If there's any other message by the scholarship name, please contact the Foundation office at RVC-Foundation@RockValleyCollege.edu so that we may investigate and make sure your funds go through.

Call us at (815) 921-4500 for the Foundation office, or (815) 921-4506 to reach the scholarship manager. We all love to talk to students, and will be happy to answer your questions and help you through the process. You can also email RVC-Foundation@RockValleyCollege.edu.