Frequently Asked Questions: Fellowships & Online Application

Do students have to be officially “admitted” to a program before they can be nominated for a fellowship?

No, there simply has to be the “intent to admit” for the nomination to go forward. That is to say, you should only nominate students who rank highly enough that you plan to admit them whether or not they receive the fellowship award. The student does need to be admitted before the offer letter is sent.

Can recruitment fellowship awards be spread across two years?

Decentralized recruitment fellowships may be spread across as many as five years. The Harrington Recruitment Fellowship is for more than one year, but other centralized Graduate School fellowships are only for the first year (McNair, West Texas, South Texas, Mentoring and Powers).

Can we nominate a student for a recruitment fellowship and for the Harrington in parallel? What happens to the recruitment award if the nominee is selected for a Harrington?

Yes, we will make an exception in this situation. Your Harrington nominee can also be recommended for a McNair, West Texas, South Texas or Mentoring recruitment award. The selection process for these fellowships normally happens in parallel, so students selected for a Harrington will then be excluded from also being offered another recruitment fellowship.

Can we offer a student one of our decentralized recruitment fellowships and nominate him or her for the Harrington in parallel?

Yes, you may offer the student one of the decentralized fellowships. If the amount is small, we might allow it on top of the Harrington. If you offer a larger (or full) fellowship amount, the Harrington will replace the decentralized award.

Do letter of recommendation requests have to go to faculty before the student is chosen to be nominated for a continuing fellowship?

Yes. We think the committee that decides whom to nominate would want to see the letters of recommendation to make an informed decision. Programs that do not wish to see letters can always ask for copies of the CV and personal statement from the students outside of the online application (as they have done in the past). They would then initiate the nomination process for those selected and the students selected would be contacted to complete the online portion of their nomination.

Some departments don’t want the graduate adviser (GA) to be the only one who can submit a nomination. Graduate coordinators (GC) were also concerned about who would submit nominations if the GA is ill or unavailable. Can this problem be addressed?

The Graduate School prefers that the GA submit nominations, but we have made changes that will enable the “worksheet signers”—those people who are authorized to stamp the worksheet with admit/deny decisions—to submit nominations as well. All GAs and GCs are normally also “worksheet signers,” as are admission coordinators. This means that in addition to the GAs, GCs and admission coordinators, anyone authorized as a worksheet signer will now be able to submit a nomination.

Can nominations be routed to the chair of the department for purposes of assigning rankings?

No. We do not have such routing features built in the fellowship nominations, but we have enabled any authorized worksheet signer to submit nominations.

Can students in performance and other areas submit supporting materials that go beyond what they would be able to list on their CV or put in their personal statement, such as an AV file, artwork, etc.?

Yes, if they have those materials available on a webpage. We have added a question to the student section of the continuing fellowship nomination form where the student can input an address to link to additional supporting materials of this nature. Please ask students to test the link before submitting their forms, as we do not have the ability to audit whether the link is viable.

Should the table for department/program support on the “Funding” page reflect just the estimated stipend, or should it include the stipend plus the value of tuition and health benefits provide to the nominee?

Please estimate and report only the stipend amount. This is now noted on the form.

Can nominators submit their continuing nomination forms before the student has submitted his or her information?

No, the file needs to be complete in order to submit it to the Graduate School.

If a nomination has to be returned for a correction or some other reason, who can resubmit it?

Anyone who is authorized to create a nomination is authorized to resubmit it.Anyone who is authorized to create a nomination is authorized to resubmit it.

What should I do if I get an error when using the online award system?

If this occurs, please copy the error message on the screen, the UT EID of the student and the award you were working with. Email that information to gs_fellowships@utlists.utexas.edu, along with a note describing what you were doing when the error occurred.

Is there anything else I need to do once I’ve submitted my continuing fellowship nomination materials?

This depends on whether all of your students’ letters of reference are on file and complete at the time you submit the nomination. Until all letters have been received and the application is “complete,” the Graduate School will not have access to the forms to process them. You and the student are responsible for ensuring that letters are received before the award deadline.

You can check on the status of letters of reference by opening the submitted nomination view. Nominators will be able to view the letters that have been received. The student will be able to view a summary of their submitted application materials with an indicator as to the status of their letters. Only letters viewable by the nominator (or marked “received” in the student’s summary) are on file and complete.

If any of your students’ recommenders cannot locate the email linking them to the letter of reference upload site, the request email and link can be resent. Please request a resend by emailing the fellowships team at gs_fellowships@utlists.utexas.edu. Include the name of the award competition, the name and UT EID of the student and the name of the recommender.