Understanding Options for Processing ACG and SMART Grants

100 % manual entry into the eligibility page. You do not run the grant selection process.

This option is for institutions that have very few grant recipients who can be identified independent of the grant process, such as by query. With this option, the grant process would never be run.

Eligible students can also be entered using an external file process. See Business Process II, Verifying Eligibility for Grants, Option 4.

Run selection process to identify candidates and assign HERA academic level and/or CIP code. Students not selected can still be entered manually.

This option would benefit institutions that have too many grant candidates to enter manually.

Run selection process to identify candidates. Use custom equations to assign HERA academic level and/or CIP code. Students not selected can still be entered manually.

This is similar to 2a, except custom equations are used to assign the HERA academic level and CIP code

Do not use equation groups to evaluate students. Review all manually. Update eligibility status for all.

This option is for institutions that want to review each student manually, such as those who have few grant recipients. An institution that already has a process to determine eligibility would not want to create equations to perform the same evaluation.

Use or modify provided equations to perform most evaluations and determine eligibility for some candidates automatically. Manually review the remaining students. Requires the creation and use of equation groups.

You can use various delivered equations to perform some eligibility checks, such as FT enrollment, Eligible CIP code, Pell recipient, but not allow equations to set a final eligibility status. To ensure that the equation groups cannot assign a final eligibility status, one equation must set the review flag.

Create additional equations to automate the review of most candidates. Review the rest manually. Requires the creation and use of equation groups.

Requires extensive equation development to perform grant evaluations based on how the institution collects eligibility information. The main benefit is that the majority of eligibility decisions can be made automatically.

Load eligibility information from an external data file.

institutions that currently keep track of their students' eligibility information externally can load information directly into the eligibility tables by creating and loading an external flat file. The grant process would not need to be run.

Identify changed statuses through an external method. Update eligibility data manually. This option is for institutions that have small grant populations or do not want to use the grant process to re-evaluate ineligible students using equations.

Use the grant process to reprocess ineligible students. This is an option for institutions that already use equations to evaluate their students.

Use disbursement authorization to catch changes in eligibility during disbursement. Use the HERA disbursement rules to verify that the student continues to meet the eligibility requirements for the grant.

Run the grant process with the Reprocess Eligible Records run option set on the Evaluate ACG/SMART Eligibility page. institutions should create new equation groups specific for this re-evaluation run.

If you manually enter eligible students, you can use the Reprocess Eligible Records run option because it does not add new records to the eligibility tables.