Due to the intense 48-hour time constraint, I made a conscious decision to prioritize the algorithm's functionality over data integrity in non-essential fields. The Problem: Manually collecting and validating of every unique scholarship application links would have taken a huge amount of time, preventing the completion of the matching logic. The Solution: We used placeholder links (e.g., https://example.com/scholarship-name) for the url field in the initial dataset. The Justification: This allowed us to complete and fully test the core matching and sorting engine (the unique value of ScholarMatch). The algorithm is now fully functional and ready to be connected to a robust, real-world data source later.
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