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How to Read Your PhD Program Offer Letter

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Congratulations on receiving an official offer of admission to a PhD program! This is truly an exhilarating period in your academic career. After celebrating your admission and letting the giddiness wear off, whip out your magnifying glass: It’s time to take a close look at your offer letter to figure out what it actually means. Offer letters can be a bit difficult to decipher (sometimes intentionally!), but this is a vital step so that you go into your PhD program with your eyes wide open regarding your financial situation. This article covers how to discern what your program is offering you regarding your stipend/salary, out-of-pocket tuition and fees, the type of pay you receive and whether it comes with a work requirement, health insurance, “guarantees,” and how your funding package evolves as you move through your PhD program.

PhD offer letter

If your offer letter doesn’t answer all the following questions (and you’re seriously considering taking it), turn to the offering department’s administrative assistant (for official answers) and/or current graduate students (for this-is-how-things-actually-work answers).

Gross Stipend/Salary

Right away your eye might be drawn to a phrase like “Your total financial aid package is worth…” and some huge number like $50,000 or $90,000. Don’t be distracted by it! You need to know what your actual pay will be – what is usually referred to as your stipend. The letter should delineate between your stipend and the cost of the tuition and fees paid on your behalf. The important take-away is what’s going into your pocket (before taxes) as this is the money that will pay your living expenses and fund your financial goals.

Tuition and Fees (Your Responsibility)

If your offer letter includes funding, it should say that some aspect of your tuition and/or fees will be paid on your behalf. However, when determining how much money you actually get to keep at the end of the day, you have to know: Are you responsible for paying any (partial) tuition and fees out of your own pocket? For example, perhaps your tuition is being paid on your behalf, but out of your stipend you are expected to pay a relatively small fee. Don’t be impressed by huge numbers in tuition and fees being paid for you! What matters is how much you have to pay out of your own pocket; ideally $0 or close to it!

Source of Stipend

Your offer letter will likely tell you the source(s) of your stipend: an assistantship or fellowship. One of the key differences between these two types of funding is whether there is a work requirement.

Fellowships do not have “work requirements,” and to maintain them you are generally just expected to make satisfactory progress toward your degree with respect to your coursework and dissertation progress.

Assistantships do have a work requirement; you are technically an employee of your university. Research assistantships with your dissertation advisor usually allow you to combine your work requirement with your dissertation research (with some exceptions). Teaching and graduate assistantships require you to teach or perform some other kind of service for your university (most often officially capped at 20 hours/week), after which you are free to work on your coursework and/or dissertation.

It’s vital to know whether you have a work requirement in your first year or really any requirements to maintain your funding (e.g., attending a seminar series, submitting progress reports). If you don’t meet those requirements, your funding could be revoked.
Your stipend offer letter should clearly state what your work requirement is or whether you need to secure one prior to the start of the school year. For example, you might be offered funding from a teaching assistantship, but it could be still up to you to actually arrange with a professor to TA a certain course.

Knowing about a work requirement will help you properly envision how you’ll spend your time during your first year in your PhD program.

Duration of Stipend

Your offer letter should tell you over what period you will be paid your stipend. Ideally, the answer is 12 months, although carefully note if the source of the stipend changes during that time. (For example, I was paid in my first 9 months of graduate school by a training grant and in the next 3 months by a research assistantship, and this was all spelled out in my offer letter.) If the offer letter says the stipend lasts any period shorter than 12 months, you need to follow up: Does that mean you actually won’t be paid (you’ll have to plan financially for that, obviously) or that you are going to have to secure other funding after the initial period?

Who Pays What for Health Insurance?

Health insurance is a huge issue for graduate students, and universities handle it differently. The key answers you need from your offer letter are:

  • Will you have an opportunity to buy student health insurance through the university? (Almost certainly the answer is yes.)
  • What is the yearly premium for the student health insurance?
  • If you sign up for student health insurance, is the premium paid on your behalf (similar to tuition and fees) or do you pay (part of) it out of pocket?
  • Are dental and vision insurance bundled along with health insurance, or would you have to buy them separately?

Even if you plan to stay on your parents’ insurance for some years at the start of your PhD, it’s important to understand what you may be paying for premiums once you switch to insurance through your university.

Is There a Guarantee?

Does the word ‘guarantee’ appear anywhere in your offer letter, e.g., is your funding guaranteed for 2 years, 5 years? A guarantee is nice to have, but it shouldn’t necessarily be a deal-breaker. If you don’t have guaranteed funding throughout your PhD (which might very well go beyond 5 years!), find out from current students whether students all pretty much stay funded or whether funding becomes tight/competitive in later years.

What Happens after the First Year?

Probably of the most important things to know about funding during your PhD is what happens in later years. A PhD is long, after all, and your offer letters might only discuss funding in the first year. Your offer letter might include hints of funding changes in the future, such as by saying you received a first-year fellowship or one-time bonus, or saying that your funding source will change starting in your second year.

You should be particularly wary of your stipend decreasing after your first year due to a one-time/first year-only bolus of money (a promotional offer, so to speak). It would be quite painful to find out at the last minute that your stipend is going down and have to scramble to adjust your living expenses. Better to build your life and budget around your ongoing stipend amount and use the first-year increase for one-time expenses or savings.

If you are seriously considering accepting an offer, you should definitely inquire about what funding looks like in the second and following years. The departmental administrative assistant may not be able to say for sure what will happen in your case, but he/she and current students can tell you the precedent.

  • What will my after-tuition/fees stipend (and its term) be in my second and subsequent years (lower, higher, pretty much the same)?
  • What will the source of my funding be in later years, and am I responsible for securing it? (For example, in your first year you might be funded from a training grant so you can rotate among potential advisors, but starting in your second year you must secure a research assistantship with your dissertation advisor.)
  • Are yearly cost-of-living raises typical?

Don’t be dazzled by a pumped-up first-year offer if the reality behind it is a department where students compete with one another for limited funding and you’re paid the same stipend in your fifth year that you were in your first!

You can see that to properly understand your funding during your PhD you need a lot more information from your stipend offer letter than just the number that will hit your bank account each month! Again, you only need to investigate beyond the offer letter to the degree that you are considering accepting the offer (most likely based on other factors). But even if you don’t care about money at all, I strongly encourage you to find answers to these questions for the program that you ultimately accept before you commit to a lease or move.

Do I Owe Income Tax on My Fellowship?

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Postbac, graduate student, and postdoc fellows frequently ask whether their fellowships are considered taxable income. PhD-type fellowships that are not reported on a W-2 are non-compensatory income. They might be reported on a 1098-T in Box 5, on a 1099-MISC in Box 3, or on a courtesy letter or not reported at all, which accounts for the widespread confusion. Publication 970 answers the question of when a fellowship can be considered tax-free. Fellowships are considered part of the recipient’s taxable income unless they go toward paying qualified education expenses (students only).

Links Mentioned in the Episode

income tax fellowship

Transcript

Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast – a higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Emily Roberts.

I’m doing something a little bit different in this special bonus episode for Season 2.

I’m using it to answer a frequently asked question that I receive about taxes. The question is: Do I owe income tax on my fellowship?

In this episode, I’m speaking to citizens and residents in the United States. And I’m also talking about PhD-type fellowships whether at the postbac level, the graduate student level, or the postdoc level.

What’s going on with these fellowships that makes the recipient question whether or not they are taxable is that they are not reported on a W-2. They might not be reported at all, or they may be reported on a 1098-T in Box 5, on a 1099-MISC in Box 3, or on a courtesy letter, which is not an official tax form but rather just a letter that states what the amount of the fellowship was in that calendar year.

Fellowship income is considered part of your taxable income. Now, you may not actually end up paying tax on your fellowship income depending on the rest of your return, like the deductions and credits you’re going to be able to take, but it is considered part of that taxable income.

Now, I know you’re not inclined to just believe me right off the bat. I mean, there’s a strong incentive for you to believe that your fellowship income is not taxable, so I’m going to give you a bit of evidence here.

IRS Publication 970 is the definitive publication on the taxability of fellowship and scholarship income. I’ll read you a few excerpts from Chapter 1 of Publication 970.

First, some definitions:

A scholarship is generally an amount paid or allowed to, or for the benefit of, a student (whether an undergraduate or a graduate) at an educational institution to aid in the pursuit of his or her studies.

A fellowship grant is generally an amount paid for the benefit of an individual to aid in the pursuit of study or research.

So you can see that fellowship grants are much more broad; they can be issued to non-students, whereas scholarships only go to students.

Chapter 1 of Publication 970 approaches fellowships and scholarships from the perspective of trying to make them tax-free.

So let’s see how that can happen:

A scholarship or fellowship grant is tax free (excludable from gross income) only if you are a candidate for a degree at an eligible educational institution.

So right off the bat we know that anybody who is receiving a fellowship who is not a student cannot make their fellowship tax-free, i.e., it is part of their taxable income.

Additionally:

A scholarship or fellowship grant is tax free only to the extent: It doesn’t exceed your qualified education expenses…

So now we’re just dealing with the graduate student population that has the potential to make a scholarship or fellowship grant tax-free.

The way that we use the terms ‘scholarship’ and ‘fellowship’ in academia, a ‘fellowship’ generally refers to the money that you take home for your living expenses, whereas ‘scholarship’ is the money that goes towards paying your tuition and fees, the qualified education expenses.

Very roughly speaking, your qualified education expenses can make your scholarships tax-free if you’re a fully funded graduate student, but there’s no more qualified education expenses to start making your fellowship income tax-free. Therefore, again, roughly, your fellowship income is included in your taxable income.

So to summarize, fellowship and scholarship income that goes towards paying our qualified education expenses like tuition and fees can be made tax-free, but fellowship and scholarship income that goes towards paying other kinds of expenses like your living expenses can’t be made tax-free.

Now, I’m glossing over some very important details on how you actually calculate your taxable income, so if you want more information about that, please see the tax center on my website, pfforphds.com/tax.

But, there you go, roughly speaking, fellowship income does need to be included in your taxable income, whether you are a postbac, a graduate student, or a postdoc.

Thanks for joining me in this short bonus episode!

Please share this episode on social media and with your peers because this is a message that they need to hear. It’s not a message that they want to hear, but it’s a message that they need to hear to stay on the right side of the IRS.

Show notes for this episode can be found at pfforphds.com/s2be1.

Thanks for joining me today, and I’ll see you in the next episode!

Further reading/viewing:

Negotiating PhD Funding Offers: This Grad Student Did It Successfully

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In this episode, Emily interviews John Vsetecka, a second-year PhD student in History at Michigan State University. When John was a prospective PhD student, he attempted to negotiate the stipend and benefits of the three admissions offers he was seriously considering. John shares exactly how he initiated the negotiation process and the outcomes at each of the universities. His negotiation method is well-researched and well-considered and is applicable to many if not most other prospective graduate students. John and Emily also discuss how prospective PhD students should combat imposter syndrome during the admissions process.

Links mentioned in episode

negotiating PhD offer

0:00 Introduction

1:05 Please Introduce Yourself

John Vsetecka is a second-year PhD student in the Department of History at Michigan State University. He studies modern Ukrainian history, with a focus on the 1932-1933 famine. Before beginning his PhD program, he worked as a GEAR UP advisor. This is a federal grant agency that works with low income students, called Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. He worked in Colorado to help middle school and high school, low income students prepare for college. Before this job, he got a Master of Arts in History in 2014 at the University of Northern Colorado.

2:55 What PhD offers and interview requests did you receive from universities?

When John applied to PhD programs, he applied to eight schools and faced some rejections. He considered four offers, then narrowed his list to three. The first offer he eliminated would have required that he start with MA and work into PhD. Since he already had an MA, he felt he was ready to move on. He seriously considered three offers. He accepted the offer from Michigan State University, where he is now. He visited “University 2” in person for an interview. He had a virtual interview with “University 3.”

4:21 What did you think about the offers from these three universities?

John wasn’t sure what a fair offer was for a PhD position in History. Generally, PhD students are shy about sharing their financial experiences. So he did research and his mentor from the University of Northern Colorado guided him in this process. He talked to other PhD students, who would say they had enough to live on or that they were struggling. He used the websites GradCafe and PhD Stipends. He got a sense of what people were being paid, including their health insurance and fees. From all of this information, he decided two offers were fair and worth considering.

Emily shares an important piece of advice for prospective PhD students is to do your research. Anonymous databases, like PhD Stipends, provide more transparency around these offers. But you should talk to current graduate students, because it’s one thing to look at the numbers, and another thing to get a feel for how it is to live on that amount.

Further Reading: How to Read Your PhD Program Offer Letter

7:54 How did you initiate the negotiation process for your PhD stipend offers?

John negotiated his stipend offers during his interviews. He went to visit two universities in person for interviews, and had a virtual interview a University 3. His first interview was at University 2. During the visit, they have an itinerary and fully scheduled day. The experience is like a whirlwind. He prepared a set of questions for faculty members and set of questions for Graduate Director. With the Graduate Director, he talked about the PhD program as a whole to get their insight. Then he directly asked the Graduate Director if there is any other money available, such as other fellowships, and explained that he has other offers with higher financial value. The Graduate Director is the one that can control the money. The faculty can only put in good word on a student’s behalf. So as a prospective PhD student, you should know who you can talk to and know who you can negotiate with. You don’t need to be afraid to ask tough questions about financial aid.

The PhD program interview was a good time to negotiate PhD stipend offers. John waited until he received all offers to see where he stood across the field, and this gave him some leverage. Negotiating like this is is what people do with any other job. John told the Graduate Director that he had other offers, but he didn’t show them the letters themselves. Negotiating before receiving all other offers and before the interview can seem desperate. But if he negotiated after the visit, it might seem like that offer wasn’t his first choice and he was only negotiating after losing another offer. John also believes that talking in person is the best type of communication. Negotiating in person puts them on the spot.

During his interview visit for University 2, John asked the Graduate Director about the potential for a better financial package. The Graduate Director told John that they would get back to him a couple hours. Later that day, John received an email with a offer for a fellowship package. This showed John that they were willing to work on his behalf. He was surprised by this because he had expected them to negotiate and push back. During the interview visit, the department is most focused on recruitment, so they quickly considered his request and acted on it.

John went into the meeting with a set plan for negotiation. He had a notebook and visibly took notes during the conversation, which indicates that he took the negotiation seriously. Treating graduate school interviews like a professional scenario sets you up for success.

14:35 What new offer did you receive after negotiating?

Because he negotiated with the Graduate Director, John received an offer of a university fellowship instead of a teaching assistantship. The new offer was university-based funding, not department-based funding like his original offer. The university fellowship had different teaching requirements than the department teaching assistantship. It was more money in total, as well as better health care coverage. This showed what kind of control the department and university has over financial awards for PhD students. Even if the university can’t raise stipends, they can cover more fees or provide better benefits.

16:22 What outcomes did you get from negotiating with the other two universities?

John learned that not everyone would negotiate. At Michigan State, he had a generous offer that he was already happy with. Even so, he asked the Director of Graduate Studies at Michigan State about his financial award. The director kindly told him that his original financial award was what the department was willing to offer. John later learned that his department offers different financial packages based on a tiered system, and he was happy with the offer he received.

At University 3, John had a virtual meeting with the department. John brought up that he had offers with much more value than what they had offered him. John says that honestly, he was displeased with University 3’s financial offer. He learned that due to financial constraints at University 3, the department couldn’t offer more money. The department suggested term-to-term options. John didn’t want to be on his toes every semester wondering if he’d get paid. Though University 3 offered paid tuition, the money offered for teaching/research was not enough to even consider.

It’s important for prospective PhD students to recognize that some offers only tell you about the first year, while others present a five-year plan for funding.

19:35 Based on what you experienced, what would you do to negotiate differently?

John says he wouldn’t change much. While he knew negotiation was possible, he personally didn’t know anyone in his cohort group that negotiated their stipend offer. John heard from his advisors and mentors that it’s ok to ask, but you have to know to ask. John says this is one of those hidden things in academia. If prospective graduate students receive multiple offers, this is a chance to use offers against each other.
even if you get one offer, be happy, but if you get more offers you can use them

Emily brings up that often, applicants don’t feel a lot of confidence. They often think, “Who am I to be receiving these offers?” This imposter syndrome deters prospective PhD students from negotiating their stipends and ensuring that they receive the best offer.

22:27 How did you know negotiating your PhD offer would be possible and welcome?

John’s MA program advisor told him how to negotiate PhD stipend offers. First, you have to apply to multiple universities and know their programs well. Second, you need to know who you want to work with. Third, you need to talk with current graduate students. This is the most important advice. If you find their email on department websites, you can email them directly. Fourth, online communities like GradCafe help you connect with people who can help you.

John says that graduate school applicants should treat a PhD position like any other job. John says this profession should not be excluded from the process of negotiation. John’s experience at GEAR UP, where he helped low income students fight for undergraduate school money, showed him that there is a lot of money out there. He says it’s unfortunate so many undergraduates go into a lot of debt, when there are all types of money out there for different skills and talents. John wonders why graduate students can’t have that money too? There are different organizations, based in different fields, but money is out there. He suggests prospective students apply to everything they’re qualified for, but they also ask universities and departments what they can give.

Emily adds that prospective PhD students need to consider cost of living. If you have school A versus school B with higher stipend and in lower cost of living, you can ask the school A’s department what they can do to make the offer comparable.

26:44 Has your negotiation had any lasting impact on your graduate career?

John says the negotiation process doesn’t stop when you receive your final offer. Negotiation is a longer standing issue to think about in the future. At Michigan State, John and his peers negotiate for conference money, travel money, research money for the summer. Some graduate students can’t find money beyond teaching assistantships. Because he considered these benefits in his financial offer, he accepted a position that allows him the time and money to not worry. He has summer funding and he can teach online. For instance, he taught a seven week class online while being in Ukraine for research. He chose a school with an institutional investment. The department is doing well and it is investing in its students. He saw that the department was willing to invest continually in their students. He thinks the investment will continue after he graduates.

29:33 Final Comments

John says prospective graduate students should feel free to reach out to him. He likes to help in any way he can. When you get your offers, the first thing you should do is celebrate, and get a round of applause. After celebrating, look over your financial offer, and look beyond stipend to health insurance and benefits. If you get multiple offers, compare them. Be confident about your acceptance into a program and don’t be afraid to negotiate. Know that you have power in these situations. Even though graduate students often don’t have much power, this is the situation where you do. You have all the power and you should use it while you can.

John treated PhD offers like job offers because it’s also a job, in literal and figurative sense.

31:27 Conclusion

The First Step to Complete Your Grad Student Tax Return (2018)

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There is one vital step grad students need to take when starting to prepare their tax returns. It’s a super simple step, but most often overlooked, and skipping it can lead to an inaccurate return or even overpaying tax. This is the step that you take before you start feeding any numbers to your 1040, your tax software, or your tax preparer, and it is to find and categorize all of your income sources (funded grad students have at least two!).

If you found this video insightful and you want to take the next step to completing your tax return – including one trick to reduce your tax due that your tax software or tax preparer can easily miss – register for my workshop, “How to Complete Your 2018 Grad Student Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!).”

grad student tax return step

The Complete Guide to a Side Hustle for a PhD Student or Postdoc

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It’s no secret that PhD students and postdocs are paid a meager salary, sometimes not even as much as the local living wage. While a fraction of graduate students have probably always pursued side income to supplement their stipends/salaries, e.g., through part-time jobs, moonlighting, or odd jobs, only in recent years has it become easy to make money online or make money from home. Enter the ‘side hustle.’ The term exploded in popularity during the Great Recession along with the ‘gig economy.’ The flexibility of modern side hustles has made it possible for students and postdocs to fit their income-generating activities around their busy research schedules.

This article details why a graduate student or postdoc would want to side hustle, whether it’s allowed by their university/institution, examples of real side hustles held by PhDs, how to best manage the side income, and advice from PhDs with successful side hustles.

side hustle PhD postdoc

Motivations for Side Hustling

The motivations for having a side hustle during your PhD training are to make up for the deficiencies in what the university provides: money (primarily) and career-advancing experiences.

Increase Income

Pursuing your PhD during graduate school or gaining additional training as a postdoc is supposed to be your full-time (or more) pursuit. Research is life, right? Unfortunately, the positions don’t pay anywhere near as well as a regular full-time job.

The best case scenario for a PhD student or postdoc is that you will be paid enough to support yourself without making extreme lifestyle sacrifices, i.e., living in a van. However, there are plenty of programs and universities that do not even meet that low bar for a single person with no dependents. For a graduate student or postdoc with a dependent spouse (e.g., of an international trainee) or children, the low stipend or salary is almost certainly inadequate.

Graduate students almost always turn first to cutting their living expenses to be able to live within their means. They know that they are supposed to devote the lion’s share of their weekly energy to their coursework, research, and teaching. But when their backs are against the wall, some make money on the side to avoid going (further) into debt.

Career-Advancing Experiences

Some graduate students and postdocs are motivated to side hustle not by lack of income but rather lack of practical career preparation.

What careers does a PhD or postdoc prepare you for? These days, the vast majority of PhDs are not hired into tenure-track faculty positions. (Time to stop calling the jobs most PhDs get “alternative”, right?) Some universities have acknowledged this and put in place programming to help PhDs transition out of academia (my alma mater, Duke University, and in particular the Pratt School of Engineering, is innovating in this area), while others are still catching up.

Of course, PhDs have plenty of transferable skills that can be put to use in a wide variety of careers, but landing a job is still challenging.

Further reading: How My PhD Prepared Me for Entrepreneurship

A judiciously chosen side hustle (or even volunteer work) can help a PhD build out her resumé/CV and network to stand out from the other PhD applicants. A side hustle can teach you new skills, give you an opportunity to demonstrate the skills you already possess, and introduce you to professionals who can further your career journey.

Video Series: How to Increase Your Income as a Graduate Student

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Are Side Hustles Allowed by Your PhD Program or Postdoc Position?

While some academics may take the view that side hustling distracts from classes, teaching, research, etc., for some people a side hustle is the main factor that enables them to stay in their graduate programs or postdoc positions. They side hustle because they want to keep doing PhD-level research; otherwise, they can just leave and earn more money elsewhere! If conceived and managed properly, a side hustle is not a distraction from the student or postdoc’s training but rather an enhancement of it.

If you think about graduate school or your postdoc as similar to any other type of job, usually the only stipulations regarding your side hustle are that: 1) it does not interfere with your primary job and 2) it does not present a conflict of interest. That logic is helpful for thinking through whether a side hustle is allowed, but the universities sometimes add layers of complexity.

Further reading: Can a Graduate Student Have a Side Hustle?

Side Hustle Permissibility by Position Type: International, Fellow, Employee, Etc.

There may be explicit bans on making money on the side or it may be frowned upon. The income and experience gained from a side hustle is not worth getting kicked out of your graduate program or postdoc position.

International trainees

The F-1 and J-1 visas generally only permit employment directly in your capacity as a graduate student or postdoc. Sometimes, you can seek permission for other employment ventures, such as Optional Practical Training (OPT) for F-1 visa holders. A side hustle that you work on simultaneously with your research will likely not comply with these rules, so it’s a no-go.

Fellowship Recipients (Graduate or Postdoc)

Check the terms of your fellowship funding supplied by your university, employer, or funding agency. There may be a stipulation that no outside income is allowed as the fellowship is designed to support you completely and require your complete dedication. If you choose to pursue a side income against the terms of your fellowship, proceed with extreme caution and recognize the downside is potentially losing your primary funding. In other cases, outside income is not mentioned by the fellowship terms or is even explicitly allowed.

Research and Teaching Assistants

This is the category of graduate students most likely to be able to get away with a side hustle or be explicitly allowed because your responsibilities are generally time-limited to 20 hours per week (officially). Of course, beyond that, you are responsible for your dissertation work, so side hustling might conflict with that important pursuit. If you are in a contract with your university, check its terms. If outside income is not allowed, proceed with caution as you might lose your assistantship. You might, however, find a provision that allows outside income, perhaps up to a certain number of hours per week.

Postdoc Employees

A postdoc employee has a regular job, albeit a demanding one. Your desire to side hustle at that point in your training is more likely motivated by career advancement rather than income. Again, check your contract, but a side hustle may very well be permissible as long as it doesn’t interfere with your work. If you are working in your field, though, it could be a good idea to seek your advisor’s permission in advance.

What Does Your Advisor Think?

The person with the most important opinion on your side hustle–after you–is your advisor. Allowed, disallowed, frowned upon… The status of side hustling in the eyes of your university, department, or funding agency is less important than its status to your advisor. If your advisor is an unforgiving taskmaster who expects his myopic view of the supremacy of research to be adopted by his trainees, a side hustle is a very risky endeavor. However, if your advisor is a reasonable and kind person who respects work-life balance, it may be better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission if your side hustle is discovered and viewed negatively.

The Bottom Line: The Spirit of the Law

The spirit of the law when it comes to side hustling during graduate school or your postdoc is that it should not distract from your training. (This sentiment does not apply to visa holders; the letter of the law is most important in that case.) Financial and career stress itself can easily distract from training, so it may be a matter of choosing the lesser of two ‘evils.’

Prohibitions against outside income make sense when the income comes from a part-time job with fixed hours (meaning that you wouldn’t be able to stay late in lab if necessary) or if it takes so much time overall that you can’t complete your work healthily. But I don’t find prohibitions against outside work that doesn’t interfere with the student or postdoc’s primary ‘job’ any more logical than prohibitions against having a family or a hobby (assuming no conflict of interest).

Ultimately, rules or no rules and advisor’s opinion aside, you are the only person who gets to decide whether to pursue a side hustle. You are the one who will manage it and make sure that it enhances your PhD training instead of detracting from it.

Video Series: How to Increase Your Income as a Graduate Student

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Types of PhD Side Hustles and Examples of PhD Side Hustles

I break side hustles for PhDs into four categories: ones that advance your career, ones that you enjoy, ones that pay well (enough), and passive income. A side hustle that pays well and advances your career is ideal. If you can’t achieve that, doing something you enjoy is obviously preferable to doing something that you dislike or feel neutral toward that simply pays some bills. Passive income is outside of this ranked order as it doesn’t involve trading time directly for money.

By the way, if you are looking for a way to increase your income that your advisor would be totally on board with, try applying for a fellowship. I’ve created a guide to applying for and winning fellowships that includes a list of broad, portable fellowships that pay full stipends/salaries.

Further reading: How to Find, Apply for, and Win a Fellowship During Your PhD or Postdoc

PhD Side Hustles that Advance Your Career

There’s no better type of side hustle than one that pays you and helps you along in your career. Through this type of side hustle, you put your current skills to use, learn new skills, expand your network, and/or explore a possible career path. Often, this sort of side hustle is related to your current field of research or uses skills you’ve honed during your PhD. You might even be able to start working for a potential future employer while you’re still in training.

Examples of PhD side hustles that advance your career are:

  • Consulting
  • Writing
    • Freelance writing (Derek)
    • Freelance academic writing (Vicki)
    • Journalism
  • Editing
    • Freelance scientific paper editing (Julie and Amy)
    • Freelance scientific paper editing (Jenni)
    • Thesis/dissertation editing
  • Internships
    • Scientific research summer internship (Alice)
    • Engineering summer internship (David)
  • Professional fellowships
    • Science policy fellow (Emily)
  • Analysis
    • Research analyst for investor relations (Adam)
  • Teaching

PhD Side Hustles that You Enjoy

Sometimes an enjoyable hobby can be monetized or you can find meaning and delight in a side hustle. This kind of side hustle is one you would likely spend some time doing even if you weren’t being paid and can be particularly revitalizing during the long slog of your PhD or postdoc.

Examples of PhD side hustles that you might enjoy are:

  • Monetized hobby
  • Non-academic teaching
  • Resident advising
    • Resident advising for graduate students (David)
    • Resident advising for a fraternity (Adrian)

PhD Side Hustles that Pay the Bills

If the only purpose a side hustle fulfills is bringing in some money, it’s done its job. Sometimes these pursuits are necessary for survival, but you shouldn’t spend any more time on them than absolutely necessary.

Examples of PhD side hustles that (likely) simply bring in income are:

  • Tutoring
  • Retail
  • Food service
  • Uber/Lyft
  • Childcare

PhD Passive Income

Passive income has become a bit of a buzzword in recent years. Ostensibly, passive income occurs after you make some kind of investment that then pays a residual.

Making a monetary investment in a rental property or dividend-paying stock is a classic example of passive income. The former is definitely a possible income source for a PhD who owns her own home.

Further reading: Should I Buy a Home During Grad School?

If you don’t have money up front, you can “invest” your time and talent into a product that people will buy over time. The classic example of that type is an author who is paid a royalty with each book sale.

The current fad incarnation of passive investing is a promise that you can “make money while you sleep!” through online business, generally selling previously created digital products. (I do this in my business.) However, almost no online business runs for long without input of time and labor. The upside for a graduate student or postdoc, however, is that the large time investment needed up front to generate passive income and the maintenance over the long term can generally be performed on your own schedule and under the radar.

Examples of PhD side hustles that are passive income:

  • Writing (i.e., published author)
  • Patent holder (licensed)
  • Digital products
    • Flash cards and ebook (Alex)
    • Courses
  • Investing for current income
  • Landlording

Video Series: How to Increase Your Income as a Graduate Student

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Balancing Your Side Hustle with Your PhD Work

Figuring out how to make money and settling into a groove of earning a side income can be exciting. It can even be more gratifying at times than your research as research is basically a series of failures punctuated by occasional successes. In those weeks and month when nothing is going right in your research, being able to turn to an activity with a known outcome ($$!) can be a welcome relief. However, you should not forget why you are pursuing the side hustle in the first place: to finish your PhD and pursue a certain career. (Of course, your side hustle may spur you to leave your program, but only do so after serious reflection! It shouldn’t be about the side hustle per se but a carefully considered evolution of your career plans.)

To that end, there are a few strategies you can use to make sure your side hustle complements and does not compete with your primary role:

1) Track Your Time

Set weekly limits for yourself on the amount of time you will spend on your role as a graduate student or postdoc vs. on your side hustle. If your time spent side hustling creeps too high or your time spent on research dips too low, you know you need to readjust. Expect your weekly time goals to change throughout the seasons of your PhD training.

2) Set Geographic and/or Temporal Boundaries

It’s best if you conduct your side hustle in a different location than your primary PhD workspace; for example, you could work from home on your side hustle and never in your office or on campus. An alternative to geographic boundaries is temporal boundaries, such as never working on your side hustle during daytime working hours. The exact boundaries you set will depend heavily on the nature of both your PhD work and your side hustle.

3) Choose a Flexible Side Hustle

An ideal side hustle for a PhD is one that can be accomplished from anywhere at any time and ramped up or down depending on how busy you are with your research. This is not realistic for all side hustles, but the more axes of flexibility yours has the better it will complement your primary job.

4) Keep Your Side Hustle Quiet (If Possible)

An internship or professional fellowship that requires time away from your graduate program or postdoc obviously can’t be kept secret, but many other side hustles can fly under the radar of your advisor and department if you want them to. The seriousness of the possible repercussions or how “frowned upon” side hustling is should dictate how open you are about your pursuit. Keep in mind that a side hustle in your current field of research may very well get back to your advisor as communities are quite small, so in that case it may be better to be completely above board.

Best Financial Practices for Your Side Hustle

Most side hustles are independent contractor or self-employment positions, which means that you become an entrepreneur (or solopreneur) of a kind. There are some common best practices in self-employment you should put in place from the start of your side hustle.

Further reading:

1) Use a Separate Business Checking Account

Separating your personal transactions from your business transactions at the account level will help you keep track of exactly how much money you are earning after expenses and what is deductible on your tax return. You can make periodic transfers from your business account to your personal account to pay yourself.

2) Set Aside Money for Tax Payments (Quarterly or Annually)

Your PhD side hustle generates (potentially) taxable income, subject not only to income tax but also in many cases self-employment tax. Add your marginal tax brackets at the federal, state, and local levels together with the FICA tax you must pay, and set aside that fraction of each of your side hustle paychecks to ultimately pay the extra tax. If you earn enough in your side hustle compared to your primary job, you eventually will need to start paying quarterly estimated tax. Fellowship recipients who don’t have automatic tax withholding are already familiar with this process. Even if you aren’t required to pay quarterly, expect a larger year-end tax bill.

Further reading: The Complete Guide to Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients

3) Give your Earnings a Job

The best way to ensure you don’t blow your side income is to assign it a job to be completed as soon as it hits your personal account. You could pay a specific bill or two with your side income or only allow yourself certain indulgences from your side income. For example, Jenni saved her side hustle earnings for travel.

Closing Advice and Thoughts from PhD Side Hustlers

“Honestly, it kept me sane to have other things going on… [They] helped me to finish my dissertation more quickly because I was more focused on the time I had, instead of having lots of unstructured time to work.” – Kathayoon

“I’d encourage graduate students to pursue a lot of different opportunities while in school, even ones that are at a slant from what they usually do. It’s easy to get tunnel vision as a grad student, but if you open yourself up, you can develop really useful skills while reinvigorating your academic work.” – Derek

“I definitely recommend finding something in grad school that’s unrelated to the work you do, monetized or not, so that if all your experiments fail one week, you still have something meaningful to throw yourself into.” – Shannon

“This experience was critical for my transition out of graduate school. I ended up getting a full-time offer at the same company after maybe 2 months of hourly work and have been there for almost 2 years now. The best part was that I had an opportunity to try out my job before starting full-time. How else do you know if you want to launch a career in a certain field?” – Adam

How to Find, Apply for, and Win a Fellowship During Your PhD or Postdoc

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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:

fellowship

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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.

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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, 2021
  • Award: $20,000
  • Number of Awards: Not specified
  • Deadline: 11/1/2019

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: 12/3/2019

Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF)

  • Website
  • Fields: Broad STEM as long as applicant uses mathematics or computers; also a new track for basic research in applied mathematics, statistics or computer science research enabling the use of emerging high-performance computing systems
  • Eligibility: Prospective and first-year PhD students
  • Award: up to 4 years of support; $37,000/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; application available in late October 2019

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 2020-2021 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: 12/10/2019

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 12/10/2012 and 12/10/2019; 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: 12/10/2019

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 as of the fall 2020 term; 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: 12/17/2019

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; $34,000/9-month stipend and full tuition
  • Number of Awards: Unspecified; over 1,200 in the history of the program
  • Deadline: 10/23/2019

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: 10/1/2019

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: ~165 in 2019
  • 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: 11/15/2019

National Physical Science Consortium

  • Website
  • Fields: Astronomy, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geology, Materials Science, Mathematical Sciences, Physics, and their sub-disciplines, 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: 12/6/2019

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 10/21/2019 and 10/25/2019 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 age 30 or younger
  • 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: 11/1/2019

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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!

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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.