MyGrant.ie to be launched

Hello,

Back in March, I endeavored to create a website based on further publicising the Maintenance Grant Scheme for all students around the country, as well as giving those prospective students who would be looking for information on grants some basic introductory details on how to apply for a grant. This website is almost complete, though several of the details have to be checked for accuracy still.

I would appreciate if anyone reading this could criticise and comment on the website as is, with a view of any problems to be cleared prior to the launch. My e-mail address is education@tcdsu.org.

http://www.mygrant.ie/test/

Cheers,

Dónal

Chakar

Looks good with the first click, gives information right away with links on the homepage.Excellent site.

DrIndy

Its good and inspiring.

I'm going to start a website called MyPants.ie

lostexpectation

excellent long needed, this is the sorta thing SU should be doing all the time/ perhaps spending money to get functionality into the site re checking/documenting progress of grants/authorities.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

can't open it, might be my connection.

my initial thought about the name - substitute 'i' for 'y' in the web address, and i wouldn't post it on after hours - they're not tolerant towards that type of crowd on there!

look forward to seeing it tomorrow and will post up some feedback.

Roundtower2

Roundtower2 wrote:

can't open it, might be my connection.

my initial thought about the name - substitute 'i' for 'y' in the web address, and i wouldn't post it on after hours - they're not tolerant towards that type of crowd on there!

look forward to seeing it tomorrow and will post up some feedback.

Hrm, what browser/OS are you using? Anyone else get this problem?

lostexpectation wrote:

excellent long needed, this is the sorta thing SU should be doing all the time/ perhaps spending money to get functionality into the site re checking/documenting progress of grants/authorities.

I was considering something along that line, but decided to go as simple as I could - for example, the 'other grants' section doesn't have too much information. Plan would be to give basic information for 2006/7 as an introduction, and see what changes could be made for 2007/8 (presuming the Dept of Education don't introduce something themselves).

DrIndy wrote:

Its good and inspiring.

I'm going to start a website called MyPants.ie

Way ahead of you.

Black_Couch

looks good and serves its' function. Fair play

Cheers. If (for one reason or another) you wish to comment confidentially, you can just fill out one of the blank forms here: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~donalmcc/grants/

(ignore wherever it has any of the questions, it'll get sent without any name to my gmail anyways!)

John

Looks good Dónal. By the way I haven't forgotten about writing a comment for you.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

just got into it now. think i had a poor connection this morning.

brilliant website. love the design, rss feed option, info. fair play on you.

as the only possible and minor improvement option - you could make it a bit more 'web 2.0' and allow users to input their experience of applying for grants, etc.

Roundtower2

Roundtower2 wrote:

...rss feed option...

That link is currently blank

Cheers for the suggestion, the only problem is that I'll be away for July/August, and will be checking from time to time only, so I wouldn't be able to moderate what comments would go up.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Myth wrote:

That link is currently blank

lol

didnt check!

re mod-ship - could you have it as a hosted forum on here? once again, its just a small suggestion.

Roundtower2

Roundtower2 wrote:

lol

didnt check!

re mod-ship - could you have it as a hosted forum on here? once again, its just a small suggestion.

Interesting suggestion, will give it some thought.

lostexpectation

Myth wrote:

Hrm, what browser/OS are you using? Anyone else get this problem?



I was considering something along that line, but decided to go as simple as I could - for example, the 'other grants' section doesn't have too much information. Plan would be to give basic information for 2006/7 as an introduction, and see what changes could be made for 2007/8 (presuming the Dept of Education don't introduce something themselves).

Way ahead of you.

yeah ok but how much of the infomation is not already on oasis or somewhere, I don't know?

ya gotta have inside info helpful to people

what about a authority/college by authority/college analysis

lostexpectation

lostexpectation wrote:

yeah ok but how much of the infomation is not already on oasis or somewhere, I don't know?

ya gotta have inside info helpful to people

what about a authority/college by authority/colege analysis

Yeah, I get what you mean.

A lot of the information is dotted around oasis, education.ie, welfare.ie, and on other County Council websites - but not all. If you're going to UCD (for example) and you're in Cavan and you look at that County Council website, the only hint about the HEG is a link in their 'links' page, so the amount of information does seem to change per CC/VEC (and when you're applying the first time, it may not cross your mind to look at other CCs if your own one has a small bit of information). The plan was to try and have a decent amount of information on one site, so as to allow anyone who is looking for a grant and doesn't know the ins and outs of the system to see the basics, and also to increase the publicity of the closing date and how it can take time to get all the documentation together.

Cheers for the comment though - I'm looking into something at the moment.

masteroftherealm

lostexpectation wrote:

yeah ok but how much of the infomation is not already on oasis or somewhere, I don't know?

ya gotta have inside info helpful to people

what about a authority/college by authority/college analysis

You just proved the point that myth is trying to help.
To find info on a government website will take hours and hours and can be a horrible exerience.
This is well layed out and easy to use, a few clicks and u have your info. Excellent site and well dont dude, u do more than half of the government do for students!!

Schoolteacher

I'm new to these boards, therefore am not too sure how they work. I hope someone can answer my question.

My son (17) will be doing his LC next year, 2007, and hopefully he will go on to do some third level course, whether it's a PLC, academic or any of the courses offered by the institutes of technology.

I'm a single parent, earn much less than 37,000, and he's my only child. Is he entitled to a Maintenance grant if he continues to live at home with me? Would he be entitled to free fees? Where can I view the relevant application form for school leavers without an income? I've looked at the online application forms for higher education grants etc. and they appear to be written for mature and/or employed candidates.

It's all a bit mind-boggling.

There are three 'candidates' officially...

(i) Mature Independent Candidate (Independent of Parents and over 23)
(ii) Mature Dependenr Candidate (Dependent on parents and over 23)
(iii) Other (which is most students, and where your son would fit into)

So it will be based around your (and his) income as he is under 23, which is why the information you have seen mentions that. When I say that it is based around both your incomes, I mean that if you apply in 2007 for a grant, it will be based around 2006.

The income limit for both him and you is at the highest limit €46,700 (which can go up, depending on circumstances). There's some information on it available half-way down this page, though the income limits are for this year and not for next year (but they usually go up by a fraction). Similarly, the level of grant rate for this year only is in the above link.

I'm a single parent, earn much less than 37,000, and he's my only child. Is he entitled to a Maintenance grant if he continues to live at home with me? Would he be entitled to free fees? Where can I view the relevant application form for school leavers without an income? I've looked at the online application forms for higher education grants etc. and they appear to be written for mature and/or employed candidates.

Most of the information you'll need will be available from your local Vocational Education Committee (who will be administrating the grant scheme in 2007/8 onwards, apparently), so it would be an idea to give them a ring in May or June of next year so that they can send you out the relevant forms. The forms and such you will need can take some weeks to get, so the earlier you contact them, the better (though they will only receive the forms from the Department of Education around May/June).

And on the question of Free Fees, the requirements are here: http://www.oasis.gov.ie/education/third_level_education/fees.html

If there's anything else, have a look at my website (http://www.mygrant.ie), at the forum here, and at the oasis.gov.ie official section on grants here. If it's still confusing, feel free to ask more questions!

Endymion

According to the site you're son should get a grant.

You asked about free fees. Regardless of where he goes, his fees will be paid. The question arises in relation to the registration fee (close to 800 euro). If he recieves any grant, that charge will be paid for him.

The amounth of money he recieves will depend on your income and how close to college he lives. @ less then 37000 you should get a full grant, which is paid in three parts over the course of the year. (from what i remember)

Also, the place to apply for the grant is your local county council. If you live in a disadvantage area, you'll most likely be eligible to apply for other schemes on top of this grant, like travel and book grants. Even one off grants for a computer.

As useless as they tend to be, I'd talk to his school guidance councilor, they tend to be well up on the places to apply and the dead lines.

edit; seems I'm late, Myth knows more about it anyway.

Schoolteacher

Thank you both Carnivore and Myth. Just one more Q. Regarding SSIA savings, investments etc, I suspect from messages I've seen on these boards, that they are included in the overall assessment of elegibility for grants.

Yep, as per my post here.

Hi there, bit of a bump (and apologies if this isn't allowed el moderatories) but just a bit of news...

The website which I was going to launch below (given the test link) has been quite successful during the summer, with August being the best month with 1515 unique views. The highest number of unique visitors in one day was 165 which took place on the 8th August 2006. At the moment even though the closing date for grants was officially the 31st of August, I'm still getting around 20 hits a day.

That's all great and all, but this bump isn't really about an update of how the website is doing. If you have a look on the below link, MyGrant.ie has been nominated for a 2006 Net Visionary Educational Contribution Award.

http://www.netvisionary.ie/votenom.html (9th nomination field down).

There are some good sites down there as well, so I'm not asking you to vote for me (had enough of that running for election two years ago ). But if you feel that it was worthwhile, well I'd never say no to a vote here and there

I'm not being cocky by expecting on winning this by the way (especially since biology.ie rocks!), but it's nice to be nominated for something when it is the first website I've put a fair bit of effort into. So that's it. Bit of a self-important bit of spiel, so sorry about that but I think that it's more of a woohoo than the woohoo thread can provide

Cheers!

Dónal

The_Radiator

Ban him.

Nietzschean

kev you should never make posts involving the word ban, its just bad karma..

The_Radiator

Good point, neil mustn't be up up yet.

Crash

Good morning!

Danger Bob

Dudes, if you have time, go vote for Dónal's site. Seriously. The amount of students who came to me over the summer thanking me (because they'd heard it was TCDSU's Education Officer who built it) for the site was amazing. Also, there were plenty of students who e-mailed or called with very specific grant questions and it was great to be able to say that if they had any further questions, they could check out the site, because it really is better than any other resource available on the grant.

While some of you, just like myself, may have never needed to apply for a grant, there are other students who you all know and probably care about who do, so while Dónal won't ask you to vote for his site, I will. Please take the few seconds out of your day and vote. Thanks.

So this thread is bumped again...

Some of you know this, but I was unsuccessful in being shortlisted. Ah well. There's always next year!

gymrabbit

aww. i voted for you. was your site better than of the sites that got shortlisted instead?

Time Magazine

Ah hard luck Dónal. Give the site a year and then it will get mucho more personal references causing more traffic and thus potential votes .

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

I voted as well, as i think everyone on here did. Just a great idea, kept simple and providing benefit to a lot of students.

(hmmmp ... "used to be someone" ... the cheek!)