Stupid Question about Fellowships

[linden]

One of the schools to which I am applying offers a number of fellowships. To compete for the fellowships, candidates must write essays. Out of the all the fellowships offered, I picked a few that mirrored my interests. Nevertheless, the fellowships do vary in terms of the required qualifications; mostly they vary in terms of what the student's careers plans are after graduation. Will the same committee read all the fellowships and wonder why one minute I am pledging my life to one goal in one essay and then saying that my life's mission is something slightly different in another?

Thanks for your feedback.

Linden

[rising_star]

Hard to say, linden. Different schools do it different ways.

[plisar]

In my R1 school, departments are given a certain amount of funding from the graduate school (about $250,000-500,000) each year to fund graduate student "recruitment". This money is usually spent on creating "fellowships" for incoming first year students. Beyond this, students are typically allotted an additional one or two named fellowships to give out to students. Depending on the size of the department, $250,000 will usually fund about 5-8 students for a full academic term. Humanities and social sciences receive more of this funding than the sciences, because have more access to grant funds to hire RA's.

After the departments go through their funds, they can also opt to fund first year students through assistantships (TA's or RA's) if such positions exist.

[splic]

I think I see a fellow KSG applicant. I'm in the same position myself, wondering how different my MYFAID essays need to be. I heard from a friend at Harvard that the individual fellowship committees don't even have access to your main file, which is why they ask for a copy of your resume. I'm assuming that means I can nick some stuff off my SOP then, and write similar-sounding essays. But this is all hearsay - if you hear something more authoritative, please post it!

[linden]

Splic:

Ha, ha. Indeed. I am still slogging through those essays. Yes, many of them have ended up sounding a lot like my SOP, yet, they delve more deeply into plans or experiences that were only mentioned in my SOP.

Good luck!

Linden

[younglions]

I directly asked the question to the financial aid contact. People on the fellowship committees don't have access to your main file. I did a bit more than nick some stuff from my SOP for two of the essays--in fact, they're pretty much verbatim, only a little truncated. I worked hard on the SOP, and if they people handing out the money can't read it, I figured I would use large parts of it again.