Fellowships

Fellowships are an important source of funding designed to help graduate students meet expenses. Some fellowships are awarded locally, either by the Graduate School or by college deans and departmental chairs, while others are awarded by external agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the Social Sciences Research Council. Graduate students are encouraged to apply for both types of fellowships, and to contact the Office of Graduate Studies for additional information and assistance as they seek funding for their graduate education.

In addition to the possibility of getting funded, here are three further reasons to apply for a fellowship:

Applying for a fellowship can be an instructive learning experience that will serve you well in academia as you apply for various types of funding, research grants, and faculty leaves.
The process of applying for a fellowship will help you articulate "your case" in a convincing way. This includes presenting your academic credentials, goals for study and research, and letters of recommendation.
The process of applying for a fellowship can serve as a progress check for your academic career, and will help you identify areas that should be enhanced or developed.

You can find information about fellowships in the following locations:

Visit the fellowship web site of the Graduate School. This site has information on a variety of fellowships, including their eligibility criteria and deadlines.
Visit the annual Fellowship Fair which is held each September and will be announced several weeks in advance. At the Fair you can talk with people who are knowledgeable about various types of fellowships awarded by The University of Texas at Austin or by external agencies, or
Come to the Graduate School for discussion or additional printed material on fellowships.

Each year there is a competition for continuing fellowships. They are funded by UT Austin and administered by the Graduate School. The Graduate School awards university-wide fellowships based upon nominations from departments. Applications for these fellowships are not accepted directly from students. The competition for these fellowships is held during the spring semester. The deadline for nominations is in January of each year. Graduate Advisers submit nominations to the Graduate School, which are then reviewed by faculty award committees in each area. During the Continuing Fellowship competition, the top awards provide nine-month stipends and tuition benefits, while other awards provide smaller amounts. More than half of the nominees receive some type of award.

How are applications for continuing fellowships assessed?

The faculty awards committees do not focus on GRE scores or other indicators of performance prior to entering graduate school at UT. Instead, the primary criteria for assessing your application are your academic performance and progress while attending UT Austin, letters of recommendation from faculty, and your statement of interests and goals. Nominations for University Fellowships are generally read and evaluated by diverse groups of committee members who may not be experts in your field, so it is advisable to avoid specialized terminology--if the committee members do not fully understand your proposal, it may not be rated as highly as it deserves. By contrast, when writing external proposals that will be reviewed by experts in your field, it is appropriate to use technical terminology that will clearly communicate your ideas.

When writing proposals for university continuing fellowships remember these four points:

Be transparently clear -- avoid jargon,
Explain why your topic of study is interesting,
Connect your proposal to other areas of research, and
Be enthusiastic, but more importantly, show evidence of careful reflection on the course of your program of research.

This concludes the section on Fellowships. To continue to the next section of the Graduate Student Orientation, click on the button labeled "Next".