To apply for a scholarship, please click here. To modify an existing scholarship application, please click here.
We are open for applications from October 1st through May 1st of each season.
The sooner an application is turned in, the better. We encourage students to apply for funding as soon as they know they are going to audition at a DCI drum corps and/or as soon as they get a contract.
We award applications on a rolling, as-needed basis. In general, we need at least 2 weeks of turnaround time from receiving an application to making a disbursement. If a student applies for funding and needs it in less than two weeks, they should contact the Board of Directors by email explaining their situation and why they need expedited funding. The Board may try to accommodate the expedited application request but makes no guarantee of an expedited decision.
This depends on the time of year. During audition season (roughly October through January), we generally make disbursements once per month - normally closely aligned with common audition weekends. During tuition season (roughly January through May), disbursements are a little more sporadic but we shoot for once a month.
There is no typical scholarship size. Scholarship awards depend on a number of factors, including the audition or tuition cost for the drum corps a student is interested in, the financial resources available to the fund, the number of students that apply for scholarships, and the number the fund awards scholarships to, among other things.
We encourage students and their families to be open and honest about the cost of drum corps and their financial position in regards to paying auditions or tuition. The best way to ensure scholarship funds are awarded fairly and consistently is to have clarity from students regarding their need.
Yes! First of all, there is no character limit to free-response questions on the application. We encourage students to be as detailed as they’d like to be to give us a sense for who they are and why they are marching.
In addition, we welcome reference letters from educators in regards to individual students who have applied - they can be emailed to us anytime after the student has applied for a scholarship. These help us get to know the students better and allocate scholarship funds more fairly.
Once we’ve received an application, a board member will double check to make sure it has all the required information. Once they’ve done so, the fund will send an email (to both the primary and secondary emails in the application) to the applicant letting them know we’ve received the application. This email will also include information necessary to edit the application later.
We will email again once the board has decided on scholarship disbursements - you’ll hear from us whether you receive funds or not. If you have received a scholarship, this email will contain further instructions for processing the scholarship. The specifics vary from corps to corps, but we will typically reach out to the corps, register on your behalf, and give them your contact information. Once they have that, they will generally be in touch with audition packets and other information.
We handle scholarships in the event of a cancelled season on a case-by-case basis. If possible, we prefer to apply the scholarship to the next season the recipient marches. However, sometimes a season is canceled and students decide not to march the next year. In this case, we do our best to ensure our scholarship funds are protected. For more specific information on how we handled the 2020 season cancellation, read our 2020 annual report.
Yes. The Michigan Drum Corps Scholarship Fund takes the privacy and security of our applicants, their families, and their educators very seriously.
Only the Board of Directors have access to information in the application. The Fund’s policy is to keep all these materials confidential to the fullest extent possible, and will not share names, materials, or contact information with any third party. The only exception to this would be any DCI drum corps who needs contact information to properly process scholarships. In the event this information is necessary, our Fund’s policy is to provide as little information as is sufficient.