Identify Opportunities

At one time “scholarships” referred only to funding or grants for undergraduate study, while “fellowships” referred to post-baccalaureate funding. Now, these terms have very little distinction and are often used interchangeably. The term “grants” is the most inclusive and refers to any sum of money awarded to aid a particular project or purpose.

Many scholarships are oriented towards graduate study at one level or another in the U.S. or overseas (e.g. NSF Graduate Research Fellowship or Marshall Scholarship). Others are aimed at professional development, language acquisition, public service, or cultural exploration (e.g. Fulbright Grants, Gaither Junior Fellows Program, Boren Scholarship, Luce Scholars Program). Some scholarships help fund undergraduate study at JHU (e.g. Goldwater and Udall Scholarships). Please explore the fellowships section of this website to learn more about the variety of awards available.

Yes! While nationally competitive awards are more widely available to fund research-oriented graduate degrees, there are awards that can be used to fund medical school or law school. Examples include the Truman Scholarship, which can be used for medical or law school if you intend to pursue a career in public service, the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship, which can be used to fund graduate study in any discipline at Stanford University, and the P.D. Soros Fellowships for New Americans, which can be used to fund graduate study of many kinds throughout the U.S.

The fellowships and scholarships for which we provide advising support are designed to allow individuals to pursue study, research, or service of one kind or another, or a professional experience defined by the fellowship grantor. They do not offer funds for an unpaid internship you arrange yourself. If you are looking for funding for an internship, please explore the Life Design Lab’s website.

Generally, GPA may not be the barrier to entry that many assume it to be. In many fellowship selection processes, GPA is less important than how an applicant’s overall academic profile and path, service commitments, and extracurricular activities embody the values and standards of the award’s funders.

It is true that some scholarships require a minimum grade point average, and when that’s the case, it is a firm limit. If a fellowship lists 3.5 or top 25% of your class as the cut off, it’s best to assume they will not consider applicants who fall below that requirement, regardless of extenuating circumstances or strengths in other areas.

More often, scholarships do not list a specific minimum grade point average. Some particularly competitive awards will express their desire for candidates with excellent or outstanding academic performance. That usually means that you should have at least a 3.8, depending on the award, as part of being a strong candidate (e.g., UK/Ireland Scholarships). Others emphasize different kinds of qualifications and are not particularly interested in GPA (e.g., Fulbright English Teach Assistantships or Emerson National Hunger Fellowships).

Keep in mind that GPA is always just one data point. Selectors typically read transcripts holistically, looking at what classes you have taken, how challenging your course loads have been over time, how you performed in key classes for your major(s) vs. in electives, and what trends are evident in your grades over time.

It’s hard not to wonder about this, yet there’s rarely a satisfying answer. Many factors influence the fate of any fellowship application and many awards are so competitive that in the end, the chances of winning are, by definition, small.

The best advice we can give is to carefully consider the selection criteria for the particular fellowship in which you are interested as well as your level of enthusiasm about what the award is offering. If you feel that you fulfill the selection criteria and you are able and willing to work hard on the application within the given timeframe, then you should apply. If, upon careful reflection, you feel that there is not a strong alignment between your goals and values and those of the award, or you know that other commitments will prevent you from giving the application due effort, then it may be better to save your time and energy for another opportunity or the same award at a later time. Many awards have eligibility windows that span several years.

A key point: all applicants who put in the requisite effort do “win” in gaining insights through self-reflection as well as transferable skills—writing compelling proposals, articulating future goals, interviewing, etc.—whether their applications advance or not.

You can apply for as many as you like. But you should weigh the time it takes to complete applications, whether you think you are a competitive candidate, and how much work you want to put into the application process. Some fellowships, though distinct, overlap in terms of field or type of grant, so it would make sense to apply for all that fit with your interests and goals. Yet, because each fellowship is different in style and focus, it makes sense to identify the ones that best suit your credentials and interests, then focus your energies on producing the strongest possible application for those, rather than spreading yourself too thin. Throwing as many applications into the mix as you can to see what happens is rarely the right approach.