Financial Aid 101

Posted 4/5/2024

Here in the Admissions Office at Shawnigan, we always get asked about what financial aid and scholarship options the School has to offer. It is our team’s goal to help support the success of your child and help find the right fit for families, and with that can come the need for financial support to help your child kickstart or continue their Shawnigan Journey and education once they have been accepted into the School. The three main forms of financial aid come in the form of Founder’s Awards, Entrance Awards and Named Scholarships.

Here’s what you need to know, and how each of them are awarded:

Founder’s Awards

Founder’s Awards are needs-based financial aid offerings. More than 30 percent of families receive a Founder’s Award. Financial aid is assessed and awarded by the Founder’s Committee and Admissions Office.

Here is the breakdown of what to expect when applying for a Founder’s Award:

Complete an Admissions application to Shawnigan.
Once a decision of acceptance has been made, families are invited to complete an application through FAST Aid, our external assessment partner.
For your application to be verified by FAST, there are a number of required tax documents that will need to be uploaded.
The tax documents required are the previous year’s T1 General Tax Form, Provincial Form 428, T4 Slips and CRA Notice of Assessment. If you own a business, please upload the tax documents for the business. The verification timeline can look different depending on the time of year, but can take anywhere from 2-4 weeks.
Once documents have been verified, your child’s application will be taken to the Founder’s Committee, where your application will be reviewed and an award amount will be determined if applicable.
If a family is eligible for assistance, then a letter will be sent from the Founder’s Committee with the awarded amount. If a family is not eligible, then a decline letter will be sent.

Although the word "finance" is usually associated with numbers, at Shawnigan we consider those numbers in relation to the mission of the School. Families and students are at the heart of everything we do including the financial aid process. All factors related to your child – including their academic profile, community involvement, extracurriculars and overall character – are considered during the process.

Entrance Awards

Entrance Awards are merit-based, one-time awards provided by the Admissions Office. Students are only eligible for an Entrance Award if they are an incoming first-year student who has been accepted to the School.

The different types of Entrance Awards include:

Indigenous People of Canada Leadership Award
Pacific West Coast Leadership Award
Residents of Alberta Leadership Award
Himalayan Leadership Award
Co-Educational Global Leadership
All-Round Merit Award
Legacy Student Award

There is a separate application process for Entrance Awards. You can expect to fill out a basic information sheet, declare which of the Entrance Awards you are applying to, and then students are invited to use their own creative voice to present their application. This might look like a written essay, a video, a slideshow, or whatever other creative outlet a student chooses to use. We would highly recommend looking at criteria for each Entrance Award before completing the form, and using the guidelines to help you decide how you will present your application. It provides a unique opportunity for students to present to the Admissions team their accomplishments, passions and future goals at the School in a format that best reflects their own personality and creativity.

Once an assessment by the Admissions Team has been made, your family will receive an official letter and the amount awarded would be applied as a credit to a student’s account.

Named Scholarships

The third and final form of financial aid that people ask us most about is our Named Scholarships. These are scholarships awarded to current students by our Founder’s Committee and Education Management Team. The scholarships are all funded by donors who have a close connection with the School; many of which are alumni, graduated class groups, and family members of alumni and previous notable staff members. These generous donors have chosen to give back to support our current students in finding their success within and beyond the gates of Shawnigan.

There is no application necessary for named scholarships, since the group of possible candidates is derived from the applications for financial aid already submitted to the Founder’s Committee. The Founder’s Committee, in collaboration with the EMT (Education Management Team), considers the students’ involvement, leadership abilities, academic success, and other factors when assessing a student’s suitability for a scholarship. Scholarships are awarded based on availability and the donor outlined criteria. Some scholarships are awarded for the remainder of the student’s time at Shawnigan and some are one-year only scholarships.

We hope that by learning more about the financial aid offerings, and through the support of our Admissions Team, we can help families navigate budgeting for your child’s education.

If you are interested in learning more about financial aid at Shawnigan, please contact financialaid@shawnigan.ca or check out the website for more information under the ‘Admissions’ tab.

Admissions Enrollment Coordinator Sarah Sinclair is the Admissions Enrollment Coordinator at Shawnigan and a member of the Founder's Committee. She graduated from Shawnigan in 1990 and was part of the first batch of female students in 1988. She has a BSc in Geography from University of Victoria and worked as a cartographer for 20 years making maps for forestry and hydro-electric companies before coming to Shawnigan in 2016.

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