Applicant Timeline

The best way to make yourself competitive for prestigious scholarships and fellowships is to make a long range plan. Most of the scholarsips for which the OES advises students are for post-graduate study, but you can start preparing for the application process as early as your first year. You'll notice that some of the advice for first-year students is the same for sophomores and juniors: this is no mistake - a big component of your resume for scholarships will be consistency.

First-Year Students

Sophomores

Juniors

Seniors

For most fellowship applicants, senior year is not as strenous and busy as the junior year, but there are still important issues to consider.

Finalize any components to your applications early in the semester, if you are applying for awards with fall due dates.

If you succeed in becoming a finalist for a Rhodes or Marshall or other scholarship that requires an interview, we will help you prepare by conducting mock interviews.

Continue to add strong items to your resume by way of campus involvement and strong academic performance. You might even consider taking a graduate level course if one of your faculty contacts recommends you for a spot in the class. Think in terms of success: if your project proposal for a Fulbright grant in Zimbabwe is successful, what courses should you take, research should you do, contacts should you make so that your Fulbright project is as successful as possible? And even if you don't succeed with one scholarship, another opportunity might become possible as a result of your hard work.

The application process is not over yet, by the way. Many of the scholarships will provide funding to a school of your choice, but you still have to apply to graduate school. It's important that you work to prepare your graduate school applications on time.