Although obtaining scholarships and fellowships for graduate school is more complicated than finding scholarships for an undergraduate degree, there are definitely opportunities out there – though more will be expected from your application. This makes sense, given that you are being trained to be an expert in your field, which will undoubtedly be reflected in your CV and other application materials.
However, before you can prepare a brilliant application, you first need to find scholarships and fellowships to apply for! Both identifying opportunities and applying for them will require strategy and work, but once you get the hang of things, the process will become much less onerous. To help guide you in this endeavor, I have five tips for discovering relevant scholarships and fellowships and then submitting a successful application for them.
But first, let me clarify the difference between scholarships and fellowships. Scholarships can support you more broadly in your studies and often come with fewer expected deliverables from the recipients. Fellowships are usually awarded for research and sometimes involve research requirements or even structured programs. Fellowships are more common in graduate study, because most money at this level is intended to support research.
When exploring your options, pay attention to what stage you are in in your program. This is typically less important for master’s programs, but PhD fellowships/scholarships are usually divided into the three broad categories of pre-dissertation stage, dissertation stage, and postdoc for after graduation/early career. Sometimes, the same organization will offer a fellowship for each of these stages, so investigate all your options, and save any relevant info for the future.
1. Start your search for scholarships/fellowships local.
When looking for available scholarships and fellowships, think locally first, and then expand your search outward. By this, I mean that you should look first within your program, then your university, then your region, then your country, then internationally. This will ensure that you don’t overlook anything. Opportunities within your program might not be well advertised, but professors and fellow graduate students can help. Reach out to peers and mentors in your area of study to see which scholarships/fellowships they have applied for. Also, make sure to sign up for any university newsletters or social media that might advertise opportunities outside of your department. Also, check the campus resources available to all graduate programs at your school. Regionally, consider local chapters of major professional organizations. For example, the Modern Language Association is the main professional organization for the study of literature, and it has regional chapters that offer additional resources for students in the area. Look also at the webpages/resources for similar university programs. They might advertise local, national, or even international scholarships/fellowships for which you could be eligible but that are not well advertised at your institution.
2. Identify your specialties and the stakeholders for that area of study.
Funding at the graduate level depends significantly on which area within your field you plan to study. For example, the very broad field of engineering encompasses numerous areas, including electrical, computer/software, and chemical. And within these specialties are even more areas of specialization. You might be in a chemical engineering program and work on manufacturing research, while a fellow engineer in your program is focused on nuclear energy. To identify appropriate scholarships/fellowships, you need to have a clear sense of the areas of study you want to focus on and the professional organizations, corporations, government agencies, university departments, and other groups that might be invested in that type of work. This is especially the case if your work could intersect with other fields of study. A good example of this is environmental studies; centers and organizations around the country concentrate on multiple fields that address environmental concerns (e.g., sociology, engineering, legal). Don’t ignore the possibility of funding from these types of multidisciplinary organizations.
3. Work smarter, not harder, to expand your scope and increase your chances.
At first, applying for scholarships/fellowships might feel like a chore on top of all your other responsibilities. This isn’t helped by the fact that it is a numbers game, and even the most compelling applicant will need to apply for multiple opportunities to see results. In fact, in a recent trend on social media, academics shared their “failure CVs,” listing all the fellowships and awards they applied for and didn’t get! Once you have completed one or two fellowship applications, though, you will begin to see the broad similarities between them, which will allow you to start reusing materials. In the broadest strokes possible, most scholarships/fellowships require some description of your current or planned research project(s) and a CV highlighting your past research experience. Once you have prepared these two elements, you will be able to copy and paste quite a bit when applying to new opportunities.
4. Learn how to explain your research or practical experience to people outside your specialty within a field.
Imagine your audience. The readers of some of your applications will be experts in your specific area of study, but the readers for other applications might be experts in different fields. I therefore suggest preparing two descriptions of your research/work. The first should be for fellow scholars in your research area. It can be very technical and specific. The second should be for readers who are in your field of study but have a different research focus. It should be more understandable to people outside your specialization. Having these two versions on hand will serve you very well when applying.
5. Learn to describe your impact on the scholarly community.
Explaining your scholarly impact is an important component of most scholarship/fellowship applications, though what this means will vary by opportunity. For some applications, your scholarly impact refers to the intervention you are making in a field of study (e.g., “People have studied X, but no one had studied Y until I came along!”). For other applications, it could refer to the real-world impact your work will have on a societal issue (e.g., “My engineering work on nuclear power safety will give the United States better options for energy consumption.”). If you can describe your work in terms of impact, you will be well prepared to tackle any application.
Vanessa Febo has ten years of experience teaching academic and professional writing at UCLA, with a special certification in teaching writing techniques. She has drawn on this expertise to guide clients to placements at top institutions, including Harvard, Stanford, and USC. Before joining Accepted, Vanessa coached UCLA students through the application process for graduate programs, major grants, fellowships, and scholarships, including the Fulbright, Stanford Knight-Hennessey, and the Ford Foundation Fellowship. Additionally, Vanessa has extensive experience successfully guiding clients through applications for a diverse range of programs, including those in business, humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields. Want Vanessa to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!
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