By VICTORIA CHUNG
The Redlands Community Scholarship Foundation is a program that contributes over hundreds to thousands of dollars in scholarship money to qualified seniors from a large range of high schools within the Redlands community.
In order to receive a scholarship, students compete with others and apply to individual scholarships that apply to their qualifications, such as a minimum GPA and extracurricular involvement, and fill out a detailed application on their achievements. Mandatory for all applicants is a personal essay explaining their career goals and aspirations–some specific scholarships even require supplementary essays.
On the Redlands Community Scholarship site, it states, “LATE APPLICATIONS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. POSITIVELY NO EXCEPTIONS!” as a looming cloud over all the students attempting to submit their applications the night of February 1, the day before the deadline. However, students encountered online traffic on the homepage of the scholarship portal. Over 100 students were on the site attempting to finish their application at once which led to high traffic and waiting times.
Students stayed up all night to be able to submit their applications only to be greeted to a text reminder the following day: “Due to website problems, the Redlands Community Scholarship website will be available to students until Sunday, February 4th, at 3pm.”
Many reacted with frustration and anger, complaining that the website did not have problems but instead there were too many students on the portal attempting to finish their application the night before the deadline. Those who turned in their application on time view the extension as unfair, as applications cannot be revised after submission.
Monica Lopez, senior at Redlands East Valley, is unhappy with the extension. She claims that “people who weren’t going to apply because they didn’t make the deadline now have two extra days to get those scholarships” which only “increases the competition” for the punctual students.
Matthew Perez, senior at Redlands East Valley, responds that the foundation is “extending the time for people who procrastinate.”
Hailey Jahromi, senior at Redlands East Valley, voiced her opinion: “I feel that since they decided to change the deadline after explicitly stating that they would not under any circumstances accept anything past the deadline, than those who had already submitted their applications before the previous deadline should be able to reopen the application and alter it as they need.”
Lea Clark, senior at Redlands East Valley, confesses: “I’m very happy about it because it benefits me. I wasn’t going to turn it in originally but now I will. I do feel bad for the people who did turn it on time and were more productive. But do I feel so bad that I won’t turn in my application? No. This is great for me.” She claims, “Mass procrastination has never been more effective.”
Davis Dusick, senior at Redlands East Valley, revealed that he has “no issue with extending the deadline” even though he applied. “It just wouldn’t have been fair to those who couldn’t turn it in due to the site being down.”
The new, official deadline to submit an application to the Redlands Community Scholarship Foundation is 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 4. The RCSF was unavailable to comment at the time of writing.
ETHIC NEWS 
This is not fair! What about all the students who took their time staying up late for countless hours to submit their applications ON TIME because RCSF said there were NO EXCEPTIONS for late applications. Once again the people who follow directions and work hard are getting the short end of the stick. We aren’t allowed to unsubmit our applications and review them but the people who procrastinated get rewarded with a deadline extension. It’s their fault for waiting until the very last day to submit it. We had two weeks to do it. There’s no excuse other than laziness for not submitting it on time. Those of us who did it on time should have priority for scholarships. Students who weren’t even going to submit their applications now get two days to submit it. We all know they’ll wait till Saturday night to do it. If the website crashes what are they going to do? Extend the deadline again? This sucks for those of us who were responsible. The seniors are receiving “free money” towards college just for submitting an application, if they are chosen for the scholarships they applied for. The least students can do is be responsible and turn it in on time.
Since when does “no exceptions” mean a two-day expansion? What is this teaching our students? That working hard gets you no where or that slacking off will give you rewards in the end? It’s unfair, especially due to the fact that many seniors wasted lots of their time over the whole incident. We didn’t just have these scholarships to submit but many seniors have extracurricular activities and what not. Which makes this even more controversial due to that fact that students pulled all nighters and still went to school only to learn that the rules have been bent for irresponsible students. Really shows how unfair RUSD has become.
This is seriously absurd! I worked my back off the first week it was opened, and I had my application signed, sealed, and delivered that Monday! All this does is give the finger to all who actively tried to submit on time and and a the procrastinators! And I’m also seriously peeved that those who submitted on time won’t get their essays back to revise if they want to or need to!
I feel that this also won’t make much of a difference because everyone will just crash the site again and no5hing will get done! RCSF was explicit in saying “2 weeks. Not another day.”
This is not fair. Some kids did not procrastinate because anyone could’ve guessed everyone would’ve tried doing it the last day. We have two weeks to do it and knew there was NO EXCEPTIONS and were reminded repeatedly. If the application was due at midnight of the Feb. 1st they might have an arguement but it isn’t even due till 3PM today. They could’ve gotten up early before school, gone in at lunch, submitted it after school, done it earlier, stayed home from school if they really needed to.. there were ways for them to still be able to finish applications on time.
This is ridiculous! A deadline is a deadline NO EXCEPTIONS! This is unfair to all the seniors who did them on time. Why should students get rewarded for waiting until the last minute. In my opinion the ones who turn them in on Sunday/Monday should be considered last for a scholarship.