After the Event

Final Participant Fee Report

All 4-H Exploration Days fees should be paid before the conference – unless you are paying any remaining balance using a county fund transfer form by Aug. 15. If you have any questions about your costs, you can access your “Final Participant Fee Report” from the Reports menu of the online 4-H Exploration Days Registration System. Please use this report, along with your “Participant Payment Tracking Spreadsheet” that you used before the conference, to reconcile any remaining participant fee balances. Please note that the total amount of all fee payments remitted by your county should equal the total shown at the bottom of the total column. If you had non-4-H youth enroll, the grand total is broken down to show the amount to be deposited into 4-H Exploration Days account DS100010, subaccount 1202 and the amount to deposit into your county 4HHLD account.

If you have questions or concerns regarding any of the amounts listed on your Final Participant Fee Report, please contact the Exploration Days inbox at 4h.expodays@msu.edu

If overpayment was made and you need to request a refund, please email your request to the MSU Extension Business Office at msuebusoffice@anr.msu.edu. Be sure to provide the name of the participant involved, amount to be refunded, payment check number, who/what entity made the original payment, the amount of the original payment, and explain why the refund is due.

MSU Pre-College Scholarship Eligibility & Nominations

After the event, county 4-H staff should determine which of their eligible participants to invite to apply for the Michigan State University Pre-College Program Scholarship. Only students in eighth, nineth or tenth grade following their MSU pre-college program involvement are eligible for consideration. This $2,000 scholarship is applied toward the student’s first year at MSU as a degree-seeking student. Scholarship recipients are not guaranteed admission to MSU and must meet admission requirements upon submitting the MSU application as an incoming undergraduate – either as an incoming freshman or transfer student.

Please note that the scholarship application nomination process for Exploration Days is different than the other 4-H pre-college programs. Each county can submit one applicant or up to five percent (one for every 20) of their total number of students who attended the conference that will be going into grades 8-10 in the fall. You can round up; for example, if you had 21 eligible participants, you’re allowed two applications, etc. To identify who can be considered, pull a report by graduation year from the Exploration Days registration system. Click on the green Reports box, then Future Graduate Report, then enter each graduation year eligible for this year’s scholarship (remember, youth must be entering grades 8-10 following the event). 4-H Exploration Days nominees must be invited to apply by their county MSU Extension 4-H staff. County staff can use the invitation template and provide the application packet to your nominees anytime between July and early September. This is a competitive application process across all MSU pre-college programs. Approximately 60 scholarships are given annually by MSU Admissions.

To help you determine who from your Exploration Days delegation you wish to invite to apply, please consider:

Scholarship recipients are selected based on academic performance, program participation, demonstration of extra-curricular, community service and leadership experience, degree to which the student has overcome personal or environmental obstacles (i.e., resiliency), potential and desire to succeed in post-secondary education, and ability to benefit from the scholarship. County staff may wish to determine student invitation and county selection based on their attitude, behavior, active 4-H participation and whatever other criteria you wish to add.
MSU Admissions has a strong preference for nominees to have an academic performance of B or better. (Students with slightly lower GPAs can be considered but should be extremely strong in other areas to stand a chance at selection.)
There’s a slight tendency for the selection committee to lean toward older kids, however this is primarily because older kids are likely to have more noteworthy experiences to list on their application since they’ve had another year or two to accumulate them. That said, a standout eighth grader will still be weighed equally against a nineth and tenth grader.
Homeschoolers can be selected to apply but must still submit ALL parts of the application – including a teacher recommendation (from a core curriculum “teacher” who is not a parent or other relative) and a complete list of courses, grades and overall GPA from their previously completed school year.

Lost and Found

Counties should notify the State 4-H office if they are informed of lost items. After the event, the residence hall staff will notify the State 4-H staff of items left behind by participants. Items which can be identified to an owner will be returned to the participant’s county. Remaining items will be inventoried and a composite list will be sent to counties or by email approximately two weeks after the event.

Lost and found items not claimed within one month after the event will be given to the Salvation Army.

Evaluation

All counties will be asked to complete general event evaluation forms - one for each youth participant and a different form for each adult. Lead Chaperones should collect completed evaluations and turn them in to the Residence Hall Contact Person. Residence Hall Contacts will turn in all evaluations collected in their residence halls to Headquarters.

Event evaluation results will be compiled and a report sent to county staff and posted on the event web site shortly after the conference.