Scholarship Review Process
Each year the Alamo Colleges Foundations awards over $3 million dollars in competitive scholarships to over 3,000 students. Your participation in this process is crucial to the success of our scholarship program. This page will serve as a resource for you during the scholarship application review process. Thank you for your continued support of our students.
The 2026 Scholarship Judging event is completely remote and will consist of scoring applications on an online platform during the week of May 19 – May 28, 2026. On average, we estimate volunteer judges may spend up to 4 hours scoring scholarship applications. The scoring process asks that you are objective and non-discriminatory, and able to commit to as few or many hours during the review period as you would like.
If you are interested in reviewing applications with us, please click HERE to volunteer!
Reviewer Details
Scholarships provide the momentum that propels students forward and on to graduation. As a supporter of scholarships at Alamo Colleges, you understand and appreciate how it makes a difference for our students.
Volunteer scholarship reviewers participate in an on-line, double-blind judging event. Applications are reviewed remotely on an online platform and can be completed anytime during the review period. This is a unique opportunity to be a part of the scholarship award process.
On average, we host over 300 judges that will spend up to 4 hours over the course of the week, reviewing scholarship applications that will become awards to over 3000 students. Below are several resources that will assist you in the judging process, and help keep overall scoring objective and non-discriminatory.
We are so thankful for all who volunteer their time and are willing to partner with us in the scholarship review process. This process is designed to support students at Alamo Colleges in a fair and unbiased way. Please review the following expectations and let us know if you have any questions:
- This process requires that reviewers are as unbiased as possible. If for any reason you feel like you cannot review an application fairly, please skip that application and we can re-assign to other reviewers.
- This process requires confidentiality. We are so proud of our students and know that many essays will have personal information. Please respect and protect their stories.
- This process requires positivity. We are looking to honor our students and score applications mainly on effort and ability to respond to the prompts. Reviewers need to be able to score content and grammar separately.
- This process requires communication with our team. We are so grateful for any number of reviewers each volunteer can complete. Please just let us know when you are done reviewing and we will close your account. Otherwise, you will receive new applications to review throughout the cycle. Whenever you no longer want additional applications, contact the Scholarship Team at dst-scholarship@alamo.edu and we will be able to redistribute your list of applications to other reviewers.
Once all reviews are completed, students are scored based on two reviews and then placed into pools and ranked according to scholarship criteria. Our team will keep you informed through the award cycle of the number of applications and awards so you can see your impact! In 2025, over $3.3 million dollars were awarded in competitive scholarship to over 3,000 students.This process makes a difference!
FAQs
You’ll receive an email invitation with a login link the morning of the first day of the review period.
New Reviewers:
- If you do not already have a user account in Award Management, you will automatically receive an invitation email on the Begin Review Period date set for your opportunity.
- The email will come from dst-scholarship@alamo.edu.
- Click the invitation link in the email to access the system and set up your account.
Return Reviewers:
- If you already have an account, you'll receive a notification email when you have reviews assigned.
- You'll only receive these emails any time a new review is assigned.
Important Notes:
- Reviewers using Alamo Colleges Single Sign-On (ACES) will not need to create a password.
- Reviewers and references using Single Sign-On (SSO) may still be prompted to set a password depending on access type.
- External volunteers will be required to use a multi-factor authentication (MFA) when logging in.
- If you are navigating back to the review portal after your initial log in, confirm you are on the References and Reviewers tab, enter your log-in information and select Sign In.
- If you experience issues accessing the portal, please contact the Scholarship Team at nvc-scholarship@alamo.edu or 210-485-0140.
Please make sure you are logging in under the 'Reference and Reviewers' tab. Here is a direct link: https://alamo.academicworks.com/users/sign_in#references_and_reviewers
If you need additional assistance, please email us at dst-scholarship@alamo.edu.
The Reviewer Portal displays a list of your assigned opportunities.
Click on the opportunity name (General Application) or the number of assigned reviews to view applications. The number of assigned applications may change throughout the review period.
Whenever you no longer want additional applications, contact the Scholarship Team at dst-scholarship@alamo.edu and we will be able to redistribute your list of applications to other reviewers.
To begin, click on the blue BEGIN button to review an individual application.
Side-by-Side View
When reviewing an application, it is recommended to use the side-by-side view.
- Select the Side-by-Side button to view the application and evaluation sections
- This view allows you review and evaluate the application at the same time
- View is available for computers or tablets; may be hard to read if evaluating on a phone
If you prefer to access them separately, the Application Tab displays all application
materials and the Review Tab is used to evaluate and score the application based on
the provided criteria.
If you return to the opportunity in the Reviewer portal, you will see one of three buttons
beside any application:
- Begin button - to start working on a new application (not yet saved or submitted)
- Finish button - to return to a saved review and continue working
- Update button - to update a submitted review (prior to the End Review Period date)
Please click here is quick video overview of how to access reviews in the reviewer portal.
Incomplete reviews can delay scholarship decisions, especially since your scores are needed for ranking applicants. The review committee may not have a complete set of evaluations to make fair decisions.
Your remaining applications may be reassigned to other reviewers.
After the first week of the review period, any applications assigned to a reviewer who has not started their reviews may be reassigned to other reviewers to keep the process on track.
If you need your applications reassigned, please feel free to contact us, and we will be happy to assist.
If you are unavailable to complete your assigned reviews, please let us know. Please contact the Scholarship Team at dst-scholarship@alamo.edu. They will be able to redistribute your list of applications to other reviewers.
It is recommended to check your list of applicants throughout the reviewing period. Additional applications can be distributed to reviewers daily.
If you are available to complete additional reviews, please let us know, and we can reach out to you when more applications become available.
If, while reviewing an essay, you determine that you cannot remain unbiased, please contact the scholarship team so the application can be reassigned.
Additionally, if you believe you may recognize the identity of a student based on their essay, please notify us so we can reassign the application.
You can email the Scholarship Team at dst-scholarship@alamo.edu.
Please click here or more information on our Confidentiality, Document Security and Conflict of Interest Policy.
Please contact dst-scholarship@alamo.edu with any questions or concerns.