Applying for fellowships is an essential component of your PhD training. My fellowship application advice is to apply for a few relevant fellowships as a prospective PhD student, whether you are coming from an undergraduate degree, master’s degree, job, or other fellowship. It’s also a great idea to keep applying for fellowships and grants throughout your PhD and postdoc for any years when you’re not already a fellow.
The advice in this article is on why, where, and how to apply for fellowships successfully. It has a particular focus on outside fellowships that are portable (you can use them at any institution), remunerative (they provide at least stipend/salary support), and broad (many research fields are eligible).
Fellowships at the graduate level are similar to scholarships at the undergraduate level in that they are awards that are given based on merit, and sometimes only a narrow slice of students is eligible. They are “free money” similar to scholarships and grants in the sense that they do not have to be repaid. What is different is that fellowships typically pay part or all of a PhD student or postdoc’s stipend/salary and may also include some money for tuition and fees. However, as a fellow you do have the responsibility of making progress in your research or else your fellowship is not likely to be renewed. PhD-level fellows are free to focus their attention solely on their research (in addition to classes in the early stage of training).
Further Reading:
- How to Financially Manage Your NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
- Weird Tax Situations for Fellowship Recipients
- The Complete Guide to Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients
- Fellowship Recipients Can Save for Retirement Outside an IRA
Why Apply for Fellowships
Regularly applying for outside funding is an expectation in graduate school (and often before and after) that should be made more explicit. Even if you are fully funded by your program or group, you will benefit from applying for fellowships throughout your PhD and postdoc. The only reason to forgo submitting at least one fellowship application in a given year is if you are already funded by an outside fellowship in the upcoming year.
Further Reading: Why You Should Apply for Fellowships Even If You’re Fully Funded
There are numerous reasons apply for fellowships regularly, some of which apply even if you don’t ultimately win a fellowship.
1) A Higher Stipend/Salary
Often, outside fellowships are structured to pay a higher stipend than what is typically paid to a graduate student or postdoc. This is especially true for the prestigious, competitive, national fellowships. Winning an outside fellowship that awards a higher stipend/salary is one of the very few ways a graduate student or postdoc can secure a significant raise within the same career stage. Even if the fellowship pays a stipend/salary lower than the baseline amount for the department, typically the department will supplement the fellowship stipend/salary up to or even above the baseline pay as a gesture of appreciation to the student or postdoc for winning the fellowship.
2) Greater Independence
Depending on the PhD’s stage and department, an outside fellowship may confer an increased degree of research independence. For example, a fellow may be able to set up a new collaboration, pursue a side project, or complete additional lab rotations when a graduate student funded by another means would not be given permission. This is because the fellow’s funding is not tied to working on any specific project the way a grant would specify.
3) Negotiation Power
Virtually all PhD students and many postdocs assume there is no room for negotiation in their funding package. However, there are two points at which negotiation is possible: Upon admission to a program and upon winning an outside fellowship (best if combined). If you are funding yourself through a fellowship, that’s money that your advisor/department does not have to spend on you (assuming they would have), and that money has now been freed up for other purposes.
After finding out that you have won a fellowship, you can tactfully ask your advisor or department chair if it is possible for you to receive an extra benefit. You could ask for an increase in pay, a one-time or yearly bonus, or one of the extra degrees of independence listed above.
4) Excused from Work
One aspect of PhD funding that is not necessarily widely discussed is the difference between being funded by a fellowship and being funded by an assistantship.
A research assistant, teaching assistant, or graduate assistant is virtually always an employee of her university (as well as a student). You can be sure of this status if you receive a W-2 at tax time. The graduate student’s stipend or salary is being paid for work she does: teaching, research, or another type of service.
A fellowship, on the other hand, is an award, and there is not supposed to be any work requirement tied to it, although in practice the PhD student must of course make adequate degree progress.
There is not much of a functional day-to-day difference between graduate students funded by research assistantships in which the research is included in their dissertations and graduate students funded by fellowships. In both cases, 100% of the graduate student’s time (less time spent completing courses) can be devoted to his dissertation.
However, being funded by a fellowship makes an enormous difference in the day-to-day life of a graduate student who would otherwise be funded by an assistantship that requires non-dissertation-related work. That work requirement is typically 20 hours per week. Winning a fellowship excuses the graduate student from that work requirement, meaning that 20 hours per week can be devoted to research that furthers the student’s degree progress. This might very well shorten the time it takes for the student to complete his PhD.
5) CV-Booster
One of the unsung but most important benefits of winning a fellowship, particularly a prestigious national fellowship, is its effect on your CV. Once one fellowship committee has deemed you worthy of funding, that stands as a testament to your ability that is seen by every subsequent funding committee. Winning your first fellowship gives you momentum toward career success. Assuming you continue to be an excellent candidate, winning subsequent fellowships and grants becomes more likely.
6) Shows Initiative/Effort
In my opinion, applying for at least one outside fellowship concurrently with applying for graduate school is an unspoken requirement. Being able to say on your grad school application or in your interviews that you have applied for outside funding (even if you don’t ultimately win) shows the faculty members reviewing your application that you take initiative and are ambitious. Even once you are settled into a department and group in grad school, attempting to fund yourself will almost certainly be viewed favorably by your advisor, even if you are not awarded a fellowship.
7) Applying Forces You to Frame and Justify Your Research
Writing a fellowship application can be a wonder pause and possibly reset point in your research progress. You have to step back from your day-to-day work, think about the underlying motivations and aspirations for your project, and explain why they (and you) are worth being funded. This exercise alone is likely to benefit your research and experimental design.
8) Good Practice
The final benefit of applying for fellowships is that it’s good practice. If you stay in academia or research long-term, applying for grants is likely to become part of your regular work rhythm. You may as well start early, gain experience, and hone your message.
When to Apply for Fellowships
Most fellowship application deadlines are in the fall, though a few occur at other points in the academic year. Over each summer, you should create a list of the fellowships you plan to apply for in the upcoming academic year, including ones with deadlines later in the year. Create calendar reminders leading up to each fellowship deadline to ensure that your applications stay on track.
Where to Find Fellowship Opportunities
Your first stop for finding fellowship opportunities should be your research and/or program advisor (postdoc, graduate, or undergraduate). Ask him or her what fellowships you should consider applying to and what fellowships other students and postdocs at your same stage apply to. You can also ask your peers which fellowships they have applied to in the past or are applying to now.
Another great place to look are websites that maintain databases of fellowship opportunities. Your university or department may cultivate such a list. In the next section, I have provided my own list of broad fellowships to consider. Other great databases can be found at:
Finally, try a simple Google search with keyword combinations of “fellowship” or “scholarship” along with anything particular to you, such as your field, research interests, career stage, demographics, standout qualities, etc. You may find a fellowship or scholarship that is tailored to you that your peers wouldn’t qualify for and therefore overlooked.
When looking for fellowship descriptions and listings, always consider both the large, well-known programs that fund a lot of fellows and lesser-known opportunities that may be a good match for you in particular, either because of your demographics or your research area. All of the advantages of fellowship funding apply to both types.
Fellowship Programs for Graduate Students and Postdocs
Below is a list of portable fellowship programs that are granted to a large number of fellows each year in a broad array of fields. These fellowships provide full or nearly full levels of stipend/salary support, often in addition to tuition and fees.
American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowships
- Website
- Fields: All
- Eligibility: US citizen or permanent residents; current PhD students who will complete their dissertations between April 1 and June 30, 2020
- Award: $20,000
- Number of Awards: Not specified
- Deadline: 11/1/2018
Department of Defense Science, Mathematics & Research for Transformation (SMART)
- Website
- Fields: Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Biosciences, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Cognitive, Neural, and Behavioral Sciences, Computer and Computational Sciences and Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Geosciences, Industrial and Systems Engineering (technical tracks only), Information Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, Oceanography, Operations Research (technical tracks only), Physics
- Eligibility: Prospective and current graduate students able to accept internships and one year of post-graduation employment with the DoD for each year of support
- Award: 1-5 years of support; $25,000-38,000/year stipend, full tuition and fees, $1,200 health insurance allowance, $1,000 miscellaneous supplies allowance
- Number of Awards: 65 to PhD students in 2018
- Deadline: 12/1/2018
Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF)
- Website
- Fields: Broad STEM as long as applicant uses mathematics or computers
- Eligibility: Prospective and first-year PhD students
- Award: up to 4 years of support; $36,000/year stipend, full tuition and fees, academic allowance of $5,000 in the first year and $1,000 per year following
- Number of Awards: not stated (there are ~80 current fellows)
- Deadline: not yet announced; previous cycle was 1/17/2018
Ford Foundation Dissertation
- Website
- Fields: American studies, anthropology, archaeology, art and theater history, astronomy, chemistry, communications, computer science, cultural studies, earth sciences, economics, engineering, ethnic studies, ethnomusicology, geography, history, international relations, language, life sciences, linguistics, literature, mathematics, performance study, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, religious studies, sociology, urban planning, and women’s studies; interdisciplinary ethnic studies programs and other interdisciplinary programs
- Eligibility: Current PhD students who will complete their dissertations in the 2019-2020 academic year; US citizens, nationals, permanent residents, and DACA recipients; Alaska Natives (Aleut, Eskimo, or other Indigenous People of Alaska), Black/African Americans, Mexican Americans/Chicanas/Chicanos, Native American Indians, Native Pacific Islanders (Hawaiian/Polynesian/Micronesian), Puerto Ricans
- Award: 1 year of support; $25,000/year stipend
- Number of Awards: ~36
- Deadline: 12/6/2018
Ford Foundation Postdoctoral
- Website
- Fields: American studies, anthropology, archaeology, art and theater history, astronomy, chemistry, communications, computer science, cultural studies, earth sciences, economics, engineering, ethnic studies, ethnomusicology, geography, history, international relations, language, life sciences, linguistics, literature, mathematics, performance study, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, religious studies, sociology, urban planning, and women’s studies; interdisciplinary ethnic studies programs and other interdisciplinary programs
- Eligibility: Individuals who completed or will complete their PhDs or ScDs between 12/6/2011 and 12/6/2018; US citizens, nationals, permanent residents, and DACA recipients; Alaska Natives (Aleut, Eskimo, or other Indigenous People of Alaska), Black/African Americans, Mexican Americans/Chicanas/Chicanos, Native American Indians, Native Pacific Islanders (Hawaiian/Polynesian/Micronesian), Puerto Ricans
- Award: 1 year of support; $45,000/year stipend
- Number of Awards: ~24
- Deadline: 12/6/2018
Ford Foundation Predoctoral
- Website
- Fields: Biological & Biomedical Sciences, Ecological, Environmental, & Evolutionary Sciences, Education, Engineering, History, Interdisciplinary Study (Social Sciences & Humanities), Literature & Languages, Performance Studies, Communication, & Art History, Philosophy & Religious Studies, Physical Sciences, Mathematics, & Computer Science, Psychology, Social Sciences, Social/Cultural Anthropology, and Archaeology, Sociology
- Eligibility: Prospective and current PhD students with at least 3 years of study remaining; US citizens, nationals, permanent residents, and DACA recipients; Alaska Natives (Aleut, Eskimo, or other Indigenous People of Alaska), Black/African Americans, Mexican Americans/Chicanas/Chicanos, Native American Indians, Native Pacific Islanders (Hawaiian/Polynesian/Micronesian), Puerto Ricans
- Award: 3 years of support; $24,000/year stipend
- Number of Awards: ~70
- Deadline: 12/13/2018
Hertz Foundation
- Website
- Fields: Applied physical, biological, and engineering sciences or mathematics
- Eligibility: Prospective and first-year PhD students
- Award: Up to 5 years of support; $34,000/year stipend and full tuition
- Number of Awards: Unspecified; 1,200 in the history of the program
- Deadline: 10/24/2018
Life Sciences Research Foundation
- Website
- Fields: Life sciences
- Eligibility: PhD or MD recipients (awarded less than 5 years ago); US citizens working in any geographic location and non-US citizens working in US laboratories
- Award: 3 years of support; $52,000/year for salary and $10,000/year for research
- Number of Awards: 15-25
- Deadline: 10/1/2018
National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG)
- Website
- Fields: Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering; Biosciences; Chemical Engineering; Chemistry; Civil Engineering; Cognitive, Neural, and Behavioral Sciences; Computer and Computational Sciences; Electrical Engineering; Geosciences; Materials Science and Engineering; Mathematics; Mechanical Engineering; Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering; Oceanography; Physics
- Eligibility: Prospective and current (first or second year) PhD students; US citizens
- Award: 3 years of support; $3,200/month in stipend, up to $1,200/year in health insurance, and full tuition and fees
- Number of Awards: ~200 in 2016
- Deadline: Not yet announced; previous cycle was 12/7/2018
National GEM Consortium
- Website
- Fields: Applied science and engineering
- Eligibility: Prospective and current graduate students; under-represented students (American Indian/Native, African American/Black, Hispanic American/Latino); US citizens or permanent residents
- Award: $16,000/year stipend (to be supplemented by the university) in the first year and guarantee of full tuition and fees and stipend through the fifth year
- Number of Awards: ~300 in 2018
- Deadline: 11/12/2018
National Physical Science Consortium
- Website
- Fields: Astronomy, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geology, Materials Science, Mathematical Sciences, Physics, and their subdisciplines, and related engineering fields: Chemical, Computer, Electrical, Environmental, Mechanical
- Eligibility: Prospective and current graduate students available for two summer internships; US citizens
- Award: Up to 6 years of support; $20,000/year stipend, full tuition and fees
- Number of Awards: Varies
- Deadline: Typically 11/30
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP)
- Website
- Fields: STEM and STEM education
- Eligibility: Prospective and current master’s or PhD students (current graduate students can apply only once either in their first or second year)
- Award: 3 years of support; $34,000/year in stipend, $12,000/year to institution
- Number of Awards: 1,500
- Deadline: Between 10/22/2018 and 10/26/2018 depending on field
Paul and Daisy Soros
- Website
- Fields: Unrestricted
- Eligibility: Prospective and current (first or second year) graduate students; immigrants and the children of immigrants under age 30
- Award: 1 or 2 years of support; $25,000/year stipend, 50% of tuition and fees up to $20,000 per year
- Number of Awards: 30
- Deadline: 11/1/2018
How to Create a Winning Fellowship Application
You can’t throw together an excellent fellowship application in a weekend. They take a great deal of time and effort to conceive, write, re-write, and improve with feedback. Below are the steps you must follow to submit a potentially winning fellowship application.
1) Find Fellowships that Are a Good Match for You
You will dramatically increase your odds of winning a fellowship if you are selective about which ones you apply to. Don’t waste time applying to fellowship programs that have been cultivated for candidates with characteristics or research interests that you don’t share or for which you are unambiguously unqualified.
2) Read the Fellowship Application Components and Prompts Carefully
It may seem like all fellowship applications are similar, but there are actually overt or subtle differences among them. Most if not all fellowship programs will want to hear about your research or research interests (research statement) and also about you personally (personal statement), but the particular aspects of each that they are looking for may differ. It’s vital to fully answer the specific prompts for each different application. Make it easy for the evaluators to confirm that you have addressed every component of their rubrics, e.g., intellectual merit and broader impacts (for the NSF GRFP), career aspirations, etc.
You may be able to use similar points and even prose across your fellowship applications, but each application statement must be carefully tailored.
Early on, it’s also important to identify the various non-statement components of the fellowship application so you can gather them without rushing. These components may include letters of recommendation, test scores, and transcripts.
You may be required to receive your current university’s permission (nomination) to apply for a fellowship, so you need to be aware of the requirements and deadline for applying for that pre-selection stage.
3) Select and Notify the Writers of Your Letters of Recommendation
Give the writers of your letters of recommendation plenty of notice regarding the fellowship applications you request that they submit to (at least a couple months). It is helpful to share with them a spreadsheet or similar in which you can list all the different applications, their due dates, and submission links for each application season.
Different fellowship applications may require different types of letter writers, so you may need to reach out to faculty members or other mentors who are not your primary research advisors for one application or another.
Give faculty members who have never written you a letter of recommendation in the past an extra-long period of time to prepare the letter and offer to meet with them to discuss your application.
4) Begin Drafting Your Fellowship Application Materials Well in Advance of the Deadline
Once you are finished preparing, it’s time to start writing. Again, writing well in advance of the application deadline is imperative. You need to give yourself time for high-quality research, reflection, and crafting. Finish a draft, walk away from it for a few days or a week, and then come back with fresh eyes. At any stage you may ask for feedback: outline, sketchy draft, full draft, or the I-think-it’s-complete draft.
5) Write for the Proper Audience
As with any piece of writing, it’s vital to write for a certain audience. In the case of fellowship applications, you must understand, possibly by reading between the lines, what the evaluators of the fellowship applications are looking for. This is not to say that you will simply tell them what they want to hear, but rather that you will highlight the specific components of your application that you know they have to or want to see included. You should also use language that the evaluator will understand, which likely does not include obscure jargon.
6) Seek Input from Advisors, Peers, and Past Winners
To create a competitive fellowship application, you need outside eyes and expertise. You can get feedback and tips from:
1. Your Research and/or Academic Advisor(s)
Your undergraduate or graduate advisor is the best person to read your statements and give you feedback from his or her perspective as a career researcher who has advised other fellowship applicants and winners. He or she may even be overseeing the project you have proposed in your application, in which case the feedback will be even more specific and useful. Your advisor is likely also writing you a letter of recommendation, so it’s a great idea to give him or her full awareness of what you’re proposing.
2. Other Research and/or Academic Mentors
You may reach out to other faculty or staff members at your current or past institutions to read and provide feedback on your fellowship application. Your university may even designate a specific faculty or staff member as a mentor for certain fellowship applications. Your current institution may hold workshops and seminars to guide you in your applications, which you should make every effort to attend.
3. Your Peers Applying for Fellowships
Forming a reading group for one or more specific fellowship applications is among the most powerful steps you can do to take your application from ordinary to extraordinary. Your group should be composed of your peers of a similar stage and field who are applying to one or more of the same fellowships. You should agree on deadlines for producing outlines and drafts of your statements and read one another’s work at one or more of the stages to help one another improve the ideas and writing therein.
4. Prior Fellowship Winners
You can learn from the past awardees of the fellowships you are applying to. The first network to tap is your personal one: your friends and (older) peers from your college or graduate school who have previously won the fellowship you are applying to. You can also search for advice from fellowship winners online. Ask these winners to share their tips with you, in particular anything that is unique to that one fellowship. Some past winners may even share their statements with you as a model, but if you do read them be quite careful to avoid even inadvertent plagiarism.
7) Finalize Your Fellowship Application
Once you have incorporated the feedback you receive from your mentors and peers, it’s time to finalize your statements and application. Follow all formatting specifications precisely, and even beyond that format your statements so that they are easy to for the evaluators to read.
Be sure to proofread the final version of your statements carefully. While you can complete this step yourself, it is probably even better to ask a friend or family member who has not yet read your statement to go through it with fresh eyes to catch any grammatical, spelling, or formatting mistakes. You might even be able to use your university’s writing center for this step.
Again, don’t wait to the last minute to load your application materials into the application portal. Do this a couple of days in advance of the deadline so you can be sure you have prepared all the materials properly. Finally, you’re ready to submit!
The main advice in this section is to give your application plenty of time and careful attention and to ask for feedback from anyone willing to give it to you!
How to Be an Excellent Fellowship Applicant
This last subject is arguably the most important one of this entire article. Submitting a large number of marvelously written fellowship applications will not propel a weak applicant to success. That is to say, prior to and concurrently with searching out and applying for fellowships, you should also take steps to increase your strength as an applicant.
Of course, fellowships vary in what they look for in a candidate. But there are commonalities:
- Research experience with demonstrated results and/or deliverables (e.g., papers, posters, presentations, patents).
- High grades and test scores.
- Strong and detailed letters of recommendation.
- Community service.
- Stand-out experiences.
- Career commitment to research, teaching, service, etc. (whatever is in line with the ideals of the fellowship program)
It’s a great idea to keep track of accomplishment or activity you participate in throughout your college years and beyond with a few annotations about your contributions to draw upon when preparing fellowship applications.
At the end of the day, what makes you an excellent fellowship applicant has a great deal of overlap with what makes you an excellent undergraduate or graduate student or postdoc, effective researcher, and personable individual. Effort you put toward making yourself a stronger fellowship applicant will benefit many other areas of your life as well.
