• When a nominee has been entered into the system by the coordinator he/she will receive an email with their login information along with a temporary password (their individual email address is their unique User ID). The first portion of their portfolio contains their “Personal Information”, school transcripts and college entrance exam scores which have been entered by the school’s Sterling Scholar Coordinator.

• The second portion is the student portfolio section. Scholars should answer the questions and ensure their answers connect back to their category. This is where you can put a link to your work. You can do a video or use PowerPoint or a similar tool to create a "scrapbook" of sorts with examples of your awards and experiences.

• Each nominee will begin preparing their portfolio with the upload of their “Letter of Recommendation”. For the remainder of your portfolio the acceptable file formats are .PDF, .TXT, .RTF, .JPG, .TIF, WAV, WMA, .MP4, .ACC, .MP3 and .MPG. External links to YouTube, Vimeo or other video sharing sites are the preferred path for videos. The nominee will have an opportunity to upload a supporting document within each section and more at the end of the portfolio.

• Letter of Recommendation: A letter of recommendation by any teacher/instructor should include the teacher’s assessment of the individual with specific reasons for the recommendation plus examples of evidence as to why “This is an outstanding nominee,” etc.

• Category Scholarship Activities: The nominee will have the opportunity to list six different Category Scholarship Activities using 20 words or less.

• Category Scholarship Activity Description: Choosing one of the above listed activities, the nominee will write in detail about that activity (in 500 words or less). They will also be able to upload a supporting document (e.g., a pdf of the actual award, a picture of nominee receiving award, or an external link to a video of the activity itself highlighting the nominee’s participation).

• Leadership Activities and Community Service/Citizenship: The previous two screens will be duplicated for these two section list/essay requirements.

• Unique Qualities (list & essay): Please describe two or three unique things about yourself while relating them to your competition category. The nominee should take this opportunity to relate the challenges they have had to overcome and describe any distinctive experiences they may have had and how they affected them.

• Life Enrichment (essay): How do you think your involvement in this category will enrich your life? Attachments: This section of the portfolio is for the nominee to include examples of their work within their category.

• Note: Each essay section will allow only 500 words maximum so it is recommended that the essay be written in Word®, making sure of the word count, and then copied to the essay screen.

Upon completion of the portfolio each nominee will submit their completed document to their Sterling Scholar Coordinator. The program will ask the nominee to print out the portfolio. This is the nominee’s opportunity to make a hardcopy of their electronic portfolio. Uploaded documents and pictures will be embedded within the portfolio pdf. Any external links for video or audio files will be included as hyperlinks. The coordinator will be notified of the submission. It is recommended that the coordinator meet with the nominee to review the portfolio. If changes are suggested the coordinator may re-open the portfolio for the nominee to make those adjustments. The nominee will then, again, resubmit their portfolio.

When all portfolios have been completed and certified the Sterling Scholar Coordinator will submit them to the Deseret News/KSL Broadcast Group Sterling Scholar Award Program. Once that procedure has been done neither the nominee nor the coordinator will have access to the portfolios. Only the Sterling Scholar Director will be able to release the portfolios.

At some point after the award ceremony, all portfolios and judging documents will be deleted from the Sterling Scholar Award Program servers and documents will be unrecoverable. Coordinators will be notified of this date 10 days before the actual deletion so that Sterling Scholars may have the opportunity to print out their portfolio if they have not previously done so.

Example 1: World Language 2021 Alexandria Norton

Example 2: Instrumental Music 2023 Savannah Gardner

Example 3: Computer Technology 2010 David Christenson

Example 4: Social Science 2015 Nicholas Cockrell (This example is what your portfolio would look like if you only submitted evidence into the website.)

Portfolio Template 

Before you submit your final portfolio, I would like you to plan a meeting with me to go over everything and make sure the portfolio is what you would like it to be to make sure you are competitive in the Sterling Scholar competition.