This is the seventh entry in our “Top 10″ list to assist you with understanding the process of submitting your 2012 admission application to SIPA. This entry is focused on advice regarding the section of the application entitled “Fellowship Statement.”

Funding a graduate school education can be challenging and I will offer additional insight regarding financial aid in some future entries.  The point of this entry is to provide guidance on the information that we ask for on the admission application.

Question: What do I need to do to be considered for a scholarship from SIPA?

Answer: Every single person that applies to SIPA is considered for SIPA scholarship funding. Thus, all you need to do to be considered is to complete the admission application.

When an Admission Committee member reads the application and fills out a review sheet, he or she can note that they wish for the candidate to be considered for scholarship from SIPA. After all of our admission decisions are made the Committee then takes files that have been marked “consider for fellowship” and deliberates on who will be awarded funding.

Question: Are international students treated differently in the scholarship consideration process?

Answer: No.  All applicants are treated the same regardless of citizenship. Scholarships are based on merit and we are looking for the best possible candidates for admission. This may lead to the question . . .

Question: “What characteristics does a successful scholarship candidate possess?”

Candidates we typically award first year scholarships to “stand out” among the crowd so to speak. You could say that along with academic and professional excellence, scholarship recipients possess a unique story, motivation, and/or drive backed by action that sets them apart from the rest of the pool of applicants.

It might also be a candidate that overcame extreme obstacles to achieve success. There is no formula or checklist that we use to nominate candidates for first year fellowship, we typically tell the Committee to identify the top 10-15% of files they read as worthy of scholarship consideration.

The decision of who to award scholarships to is very difficult for a few reasons. First, our applicant pools are extremely qualified each year. Every admitted applicant possesses an impressive record of accomplishments matched by unique characteristics that the Committee believes will make a strong contribution to the admitted class.

Second, the Committee is only able to award funding to approximately 10-15% of the admitted class. SIPA reserves the majority of scholarship funding for second year students. Not receiving a scholarship offer from SIPA as a newly admitted candidate should not be taken as a slight, it has more to do with the very accomplished pool of applicants and the limited amount of funding for the first year of study.

Non-Columbia Fellowships

SIPA does partner with several organizations to provide funding for admitted candidates. In some cases we provide matching funding and in other cases we just wish to recognize the affiliation by granting our own scholarship to a candidate. The organizations we partner with are listed in a drop down menu on the Fellowship Statement Page of the application. See below for a picture:

You may choose up to two organizations you either have an affiliation with or organizations you have submitted applications to for funding. The process is competitive and we are often not able to award funding to everyone that has a relationship with an affiliated organization.

For example, we receive applications from many qualified alumni of the Peace Corps and we do set aside funding to recognize excellence during service in the Peace Corps, however with the large number of Peace Corps alumni applying we are unable to provide funding to every qualified candidate.

You can access the same list that is on the application by clicking here.

Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) – Timing

U.S. citizens and permanent residents interested in receiving funding from the Federal Government should submit the FAFSA, but please do not do so prior to January 1^st, 2012. The 2012-2013 FAFSA will be needed and the Department of Education does not post the form online until the new year starts.  Our FAFSA code is 002707.

Question: What is meant by “head of household?”

Answer: By head of household we mean that you are either entirely responsible for your own finances or that you are the main source of income in a family unit. The family unit should not include your mother or father. An example of head of household would be that live on your own or that you are married and have been earning 50.1% or more of the income for your household (which might or might not include children).

Assets and Liabilities Sections

The instructions are fairly clear on the site, please only enter your assets/liabilities and if married include those of your spouse. Do not include parental information.

Question: Do I need to provide proof of the ability to pay for my education costs when I apply?

Answer: No. Admission decisions take into account merit only, not the ability to pay. International students admitted to the program will have to provide proof of funding to have a visa issued, however this process does not take place until after an international candidate has been admitted and paid an enrollment deposit.

Question: Is the International Fellows Program (IFP) and/or Lemann Fellowship different from general SIPA scholarship funding?

Answer: Yes. Consideration for scholarship funding through the International Fellows program or Lemann Fellowship is different from general SIPA scholarships. To apply, applicants must submit a 300 word statement about why they wish to be considered (separate essay for each program).

It is not mandatory to apply for IFP  or Lemann funding.  Applying for these funds is optional and candidates who do not apply will not be viewed negatively. For more information on these programs please see the Special Fellowships Section on the bottom of this page.

Recently we posted information on a $33,000 scholarship opportunity for U.S. citizens, nationals, or permanent residents.  For this entry we have a scholarship opportunity that has provided an average award of $35,000 a year to nationals of World Bank Member countries.

The Joint Japan World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program (JJ/WBGSP) is a wonderful opportunity for those that qualify and wish to submit an application.  It does require a completely separate application from the application submitted to SIPA and it is available via the JJ/WBGSP web site.  The deadline to apply is March 31, 2011.

Here is a brief description of the basic qualifications needed to apply, see the site referenced above for full details.

To apply for a JJ/WBGSP scholarship under the Regular Program, an applicant must:

* Be a national of a World Bank member country eligible to borrow.
* Be born after March 31, 1971.
* Have, by March 31, 2011, at least 2, preferably 4 to 5, years of recent full time professional experience acquired after a university degree, in the applicant’s home country or in another developing country.
* Hold a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent.
* Be in good health.
* Be of good character.
* Not be a permanent resident or a national of any industrialized country.
* Not be residing in an industrialized country for more than one year.
* Not be an Executive Director, his/her alternate, staff of the World Bank Group (the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, International Development Association, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, and International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes), consultant, or relative of the aforementioned.

U.S. citizens, nationals, or permanent residents who are proficient in certain languages may be interested in submitting an application for a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS).  SIPA will consider newly admitted applicants for funding through this program.  Graduate school student recipients receive $18,000 toward tuition and a $15,000 stipend.

The timing of our admission decisions and the FLAS deadline makes it a little tricky.  Basically those interested in the FLAS must submit an application  for FLAS before the SIPA Admissions Committee has made admissions decisions.  The FLAS application deadline is March 4th and full details regarding the application process and eligible languages can be found on the FLAS application web site.

Unfortunately, it is not likely that we will start publishing admissions decisions prior to March 4th.  We will do our best to start publishing decisions early in March, but we do not set a specific date.  When decisions get sent is dependent upon a variety of factors and this is a topic I will address in a future blog entry.

What this means is that if you are interested in being considered for a FLAS award, you should submit your FLAS application prior to knowing your SIPA admission decision.   Due to the extremely generous nature of the fellowship, I think it would well be worth the time if you qualify and are interested.

Here is a brief description of the FLAS Award taken directly from the FLAS web site:

The Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship Program is predicated on the belief that “the security, stability, and economic vitality of the United States in a complex global era depend upon American experts and citizens knowledgeable about world regions, foreign languages, and international affairs, as well as upon a strong research base in these areas.”

FLAS fellowships strengthen the nation’s ability to respond to security threats and to compete effectively in the modern world by promoting foreign language competence and area and international knowledge and by ensuring the continuance of area expertise in a variety of fields, including academe.

If you have questions or require further information regarding FLAS, please email Sandra Peters at scp3@columbia.edu

I know what you are thinking . . . the January 5th admission deadline has passed, now I can kick my feet up and wait for my admission decision in March.  While this might be one possible option, it is not the option I recommend.

It is no secret, attending graduate school can be expensive.  The time to look into financing your education is not after you get an offer of admission, it is now.  It is a terrible feeling to get an offer of admission and only then realize you might not be able to attend due to financing.

My advice is that if you have not started already, that you set aside time each week to research issues related to the cost of graduate school and the payment options available.

There are many kinds of aid available including:

• Institutional funding provided by SIPA
• External Scholarships (i.e. Fulbright, Pickering)
• Federal Loans (for U.S. citizens and permanent residents)
• Private Loans
• Work Study
• Grants
• Sponsorship funds from agencies/organizations

Most SIPA students utilize a combination of resources to make attending possible.  Each year students bring in several million dollars of funding that does not need to be repaid by researching and applying for funding.  My feeling has always been that applicants should spend twice the amount of time researching financial aid as is spent on the process of applying for admission.  I covered this topic in a past post entitled The Rule of Two.

I highly encourage you to review the entry but the analogy used is one that you might have heard before from a teacher.  It is not uncommon to hear a teacher say that for every hour spent in the classroom, at a minimum a successful student will spend two hours outside of the classroom.

My feeling about admission and financial aid is the same. At a minimum, one should spend twice as much time researching financial aid options as researching admission to a program.  While SIPA does allocate around $6 million each year on fellowships for students, a limited number of first year students receive funding (around 10-15%).

With this in mind, it will benefit you to research costs and other sources of funding so that if admitted you have a plan.  Not having a plan and not having done research is a strategy that most often leads to frustration.  Here are some tips to get you started:

• Check out SIPA’s own fellowship database. We search for scholarships for you and post them to the database.  The database is not SIPA specific.  As we search for and hear about funding, we make the information available to you.

• Use RSS technology to deliver news to your email account or RSS Reader.  RSS allows for news to be delivered to you without having to go look for it every day.  As an example, Gmail accounts have something called the “Alert” tool and I am sure other providers have the same capability.  All you have to do is put in text for searches and a search engine will perform the searches daily and deliver news to your email account.  You can type in search terms like “Graduate School Scholarships” or “International Affairs Scholarships.”  You can also utilize an RSS reader.  RSS readers are free and if you do not know what an RSS reader is, click here for a YouTube tutorial.

• Talk to people you know who have gone to graduate school and find out if they were able to find scholarship opportunities.

• Contact people that have written you a letter of recommendation and have them make multiple copies of the recommendation letter and give them to you in sealed envelops so you are ready if a scholarship opportunity arises and there is a tight deadline.

• Start to familiarize yourself with the cost of living in New York City.  SIPA is only able to provide housing for approximately 30% of our students and most students must find housing the city.  A great resource to get started is Craigslist.  I recommend signing up for an email feed for NYC apartments.  Following rental trends will help familiarize you with costs around the city.

• Familiarize yourself with the payment and billing options available to SIPA students.  You can get started by visiting the Columbia University Student Financial Services home page.

I will not say the process of searching for funding and familiarizing yourself with costs is easy and it can take a considerable amount of effort.  However, the sooner you start to look the more doors you will possibly open – figuratively and literally.

SIPA is proud to be a participant in the Yellow Ribbon Program, a financial aid opportunity under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.  Interested Veterans will need to complete two steps to qualify.  First is to file paperwork with the Department of Veterans Affairs and second is to submit a Web based form to SIPA.  The funding is based on a first-come, first-served basis and applicants will be ranked by when they apply for the program via the Web based form supplied by SIPA.

We are currently working on getting the form set up and when we have more information on when it will become available we will post information to this blog as well as send an email to the email address supplied by applicants when they applied.  Stay tuned for more information.  A general overview of the program is available on the Columbia University Student Financial Services Web site.

Applicants from Colombia who are admitted to SIPA have the opportunity to apply for funding through a special program run by the Colombian government. The objective of the COLFUTURO program is to help Colombian students study abroad with the goal of promoting the economic and social development of Colombia. For information on the program, click here.

Admitted applicants who are citizens of Colombia can fill out the paperwork to be considered. Please see their Web site for specific details.

The World Bank is sponsoring an essay competition on youth unemployment and is welcoming individuals 18-25 to enter.  The topic is introduced as follows:

Current world population includes an estimated 1.2 billion young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years, which is about 24.7% of the world’s working age population. Worldwide youth unemployment is high, almost three times higher than the adult unemployment rate. With the economic downturn, the worldwide youth unemployment is expected to reach 15% in 2009 (International Labor Organization, 2008). In certain parts of the world, i.e., Sub-Saharan Africa, youth unemployment rates can be as high as 60%. More than one third of the young people in the world are unemployed, have completely given up looking for a job or are working but still living below the $2 a day poverty line (ILO), or have migrated. Young job seekers face increasing difficulties finding work in the current economic scenario.

How can youths be part of the solution?

For full information on the competition, which does include the opportunity to submit a video, visit the essay competition Web site.   The deadline to apply is March 16th.  Winning a competition like this certainly would look good on a résumé  submitted as part of a SIPA application or would be a nice start on helping an admitted student pay for school.

As shared in a previous entry SIPA does partner with a number of organizations to provide scholarship funding.  The process is always competitive and we cannot guarantee funding to all applicants who are affiliated with partner organizations or specific scholarship programs.

We identify most candidates through a mechanism on the the admission application.  In the fellowship portion of the application each applicant has the chance to choose from a drop down list of organizations or scholarship programs they might be affiliated with or for which they have submitted an application for funding.

SIPA does partner with the World Bank to provide scholarships and we highly encourage eligible applicants to apply.   The scholarship selection process involves both an application to SIPA and an application for the World Bank scholarship program. Below is a brief description of the program from their Web site:

The Joint Japan/ World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program (JJ/WBGSP), is in its 23d year. The Program awards scholarships to individuals from World Bank member countries to undertake graduate studies at universities renowned for their development research and teaching. In its Regular Program, the JJ/WBGSP has awarded scholarships to 3,153 scholars chosen from a total of 58,944 applicants.

To apply for a JJ/WBGSP scholarship under the Regular Program, an applicant must:
* Be a national of a World Bank member country eligible to borrow.
* Be born after March 31, 1970.
* Have, by March 31, 2010, at least 2, preferably 4 to 5, years of recent full time professional experience acquired after a university degree, in the applicant’s home country or in another developing country.
* Hold a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent.
* Be in good health.
* Be of good character.
* Not be a permanent resident or a national of any industrialized country.
* Not be residing in an industrialized country for more than one year.
* Not be an Executive Director, his/her alternate, staff of the World Bank Group (the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, International Development Association, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, and International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes), consultant, or relative of the aforementioned.

Full details and the application can be found by clicking here.  The deadline to apply is March 31st, 2010.  Again, to be considered an admission application to SIPA must be submitted and a separate application for the World Bank Fellowship must be submitted.  After admission selections are made SIPA then works with the World Bank to review qualified candidates for consideration.

Good luck and please remember that the SIPA Fellowship Database is a great place to look for additional funding opportunities.

Established in 1991, Fundação Estudar is a non-profit institution that invests in the development of Brazil through the encouragement of education and the training of future leaders.

To do this, it promotes a merit-based selection process that allows the identification of young people with potential to become leaders in their areas of expertise and help in the growth of the country.

Once approved, these young people receive scholarships for the best universities in Brazil and abroad for undergraduate and graduate courses in areas such as Business, Law, Economics, Engineering, Public Policy, International Relations, among others.

Fundação Estudar scholars also count on a Career Development and Networking structure, focused on ensure their professional and personal both during their academic life and post-commencement.

Eligibility:

Brazilian students already accepted in the best undergraduate programs (Business, Economics, Engineering, Political Science, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, among others), MBA, M.A., MSc, LL.M, MPA and MPP programs, with great intellectual and professional potential, leadership spirit, entrepreneurial drive and commitment to Brazil.

2010 Applications:

Undergraduate Programs – from January 1^st to March 14^th

Graduate Programs – from January 1^st to March 21^st

Further Details and Apply Online:

www.estudar.org.br

Each year SIPA is proud to provide funding for some of our admitted applicants with ties to certain professional or academic organizations. For example, SIPA agrees to provide fellowships to a minimum number of Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, and Teach for America alumni each year. The process is competitive and we cannot award funding to every admitted applicant with such experience, but we value the experience applicants to our program gain by working for such organizations.

When filling out the admission application applicants have the opportunity to list experience with specific organizations via a drop down list. To be considered for fellowships with ties to particular organizations simply indicate your affiliation in the appropriate place on the application site. This will alert the Admissions Committee and applicants who are admitted will be considered for such awards.

At SIPA all first-year applicants for the two-year, full-time MIA and MPA programs are considered for institutional fellowships. All that is required to apply for first-year fellowship is to submit an admission application. We do not require a separate application to apply for first-year fellowship.

Due to the fact that we receive admission applications from citizens of over 100 countries each year we do not conduct admission interviews. We rely upon the information in each application to make both admission and fellowship decisions. The Admissions Committee awards institutional fellowships to approximately 15% of the incoming class each year.

Every student who is admitted to SIPA is eligible to apply for second-year fellowship. In the spring of 2009 approximately 75% of second-year students chose to apply for funding through SIPA. Of that 75%, approximately 70% received funding and the average award was just over $19,000. Some students choose not to apply for SIPA funding because they have outside awards that cover their educational costs.

Many students are able to combine external fellowships with institutional funds from SIPA. We highly encourage all applicants to pursue external funding opportunities and the sooner you begin the process, the more likely you are to find out about opportunities that fit your profile. If you have not already, we highly encourage all applicants to explore our external fellowship database.

Our office was recently made aware of a fellowship opportunity that may apply to some of our applicants.  The description and contact information are below.  Good luck!

Institute for Humane Studies

Humane Studies Fellowships are awarded by the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) to students interested in exploring the principles, practices, and institutions necessary for a free society through their academic work. IHS began the program in 1983 as the Claude R. Lambe Fellowships and in 2009 awarded more than 165 fellowships ranging from $2,000 to $12,000.

IHS considers applications from those who will be full-time graduate students, including law and journalism students, or undergraduate juniors or seniors during the 2010-11 academic year and who have a clearly demonstrated research interest in the intellectual and institutional foundations of a free society.

The application deadline is December 31st.  For more information on this program, click here.

With the application deadline now just over one month away I know most applicants probably don’t want to think about yet more work that needs to be done, however I would ask you to ask yourself the following question:

How much time have I spent researching various ways to help pay for school?

I try to provide as much advice as possible on the blog about how to help pay for school.  I see the issue from two sides.  First, it’s obviously a huge part of my job so I look at it from the perspective of an administrator trying help as much as I can.  Second, having gone to graduate school myself, I know it is expensive and I have been through the process myself.

I thought now is as good a time as any to  provide some links back to some of the entries I have written on the topic.  Perhaps this will encourage you to make sure doing financial aid research is on your “to do” list.  The earlier you start, the better off you are.

Keeping informed via this blog can pay off.  I know of at least one SIPA student last year that earned a $23,000 scholarship that was posted on this blog.  Stayed tuned, I keep my eyes open and post opportunities as I find out about them.  Follow the links below for previous entries on the topic.

The Rule of Two covers general principles related to fellowship searches.

If you have been in the U.S. Military you might want to look into the Yellow Ribbon Program.

An entry on SIPA Fellowships provides insight into institutional funding from SIPA.

I wrote an empathetic/sympathetic entry on Paying for School, integrating some of my own experience.

There is help for those from Latin America here.

Korean applicants might find this entry helpful.

The World Bank offers some funding opportunities.

And you can find a list of fellowships that we have accumulated by using our database.

I was recently informed of a tremendous resource for those from Latin American countries. The  Latin American Network Information Center has published a page on financial aid opportunities for applicants living in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.  I highly recommend that applicants check out the page for more information on the types of funds available and the associated deadlines.  Happy hunting!

This is the tenth and final entry in our “Top 10″ list for you to consider when communicating with our office and applying.

Number 10 – Subscribe to this blog!

The best way to stay up-to-date regarding matters of admission is to subscribe to this blog.  Yes the SIPA Web site is a great source of information and you should familiarize yourself with it, but for the most part the Web site is static and is rarely updated.  We try to update it as needed, but the blog is much more informative as far as the day-to-day things going on in our office.

Over in the right menu there is an empty box with “Subscribe” written below it.  Simply enter your email and each and every time this blog is updated, you will receive an email message letting you know here is new content.

Why is it a good idea to subscribe?  Well for one we try to monitor common questions and post answers to the site for mass consumption.  Two, this is your window into the admission cycle.  We will update you on what is going on in our office.  And finally, this is a great way to find out more about what is going on at SIPA and to learn about fellowship opportunities.  You can consider this to be the most interactive Web space concerning matters of admission and financial aid.

This is the eighth entry in our “Top 10″ list for you to consider when communicating with our office and applying.

Number 8 – Familiarize Yourself with Expenses and Start searching for fellowhips/grants as soon as possible!

Yes, there is no doubt about it, graduate school is expensive!  We will do as much as we can to educate you on financial options, but by far the number one thing you can do is to be diligent in searching for fellowships and grants.  Do not wait to search until you have applied, you should start the search long before applying.  Each applicant should follow the rule of five described here.  A great resource is our external fellowship database.

Most of the information you need concerning the cost to attend is available on our Web site, such as cost of attendance, types of aid, scholarship information, and information specifically for international students.  Please do note that SIPA scholarships come from one general pool – there is no different in the fellowship award process at SIPA for domestic and international students – all students are equally considered no matter the country of origin.

I remember in college I was always told that for every hour spent in class, I should expect to spend two hours outside of class studying.  I believe that a similar maxim applies to the search for funding to help pay for graduate school.  My belief is that for every hour you spend working on an admission application for graduate school, you should spend at least 2 times the amount of time looking for fellowships.

At first this might seem like a very strange thing for me to say so let me provide some background.  First off, most professional schools like SIPA do provide fellowship funding, but nowhere near the amount that would cover all educationally related costs.  Our program is full-time and you need to pay for tuition, books, rent, food, travel, etc.

I believe that some people apply for graduate school and count on fellowship aid from the school being available.  While it is true that approximately 70% of eligible second year students at SIPA receive fellowship funding, only approximately 10-15 % of first year students receive SIPA fellowship funding.

For many who are admitted without SIPA fellowship funding, the confounding question of how to pay for everything comes up almost immediately.  The good news is that there is evidence that many SIPA applicants are looking for external fellowship funding.  This is evidenced by the fact that each year for the past few years students have brought in close to $5 million total in outside scholarships, fellowships, and grants.  This does not come without a price – and that price is time and effort looking for funding.

So let’s break down an estimate of how many hours go into the application process.  Part 1 of the application process is pretty simple, fill out the online application and submit it, about 30-45 minutes, but let’s round up to 1 hour.  You also have to contact those that will be writing letters of recommendation for you, let’s say 20 minutes per for a total of 1 hour.  So 2 hours on Part 1.

Part 2 is a bit more complex and these are only estimates to get a ballpark figure.  The two required résumés will probably take around 3 hours.  The personal statement is hard to gauge but by the time you are done, three hours is probably a good minimum.  Let’s give getting your transcripts in order and uploaded 1 hour.  Finally there are test scores.  This is a toughie because the time spent studying for these exams can be excessive.  Everyone is different, but let’s give it a nice round figure of 10 hours for calculation purposes.  So what do we have . . .

• 1 Hour on the Application
• 1 Hour on contacting those who will write letters of recommendation
• 3 Hours on résumé preparation
• 3 Hours on your personal statement
• 1 Hour ordering and scanning transcripts for upload
• 10 Hours on test taking and preparation

That puts you at around 19 hours of preparation that go into the application process.  Let’s round up and call it 20 hours.

Thus my belief is that you should spend a minimum of 40 hours looking for and applying for fellowship opportunities.  How do you do this?  There is no one right answer, sometimes we find out about opportunities by happenstance.  However you can improve your chances by engaging in the following:

• Check out SIPA’s own fellowship database. We search for scholarships for you and post them to the database.  The database is not SIPA specific.  As we search for and hear about funding, we make the information available to you.

• Use RSS technology to deliver news to your email account or RSS Reader.  RSS allows for news to be delivered to you without having to go look for it every day.  As an example, Gmail accounts have something called the “Alert” tool and I am sure other providers have the same capability.  All you have to do is put in text for searches and a search engine will perform the searches daily and deliver news to your email account.  You can type in search terms like “Graduate School Scholarships” or “International Affairs Scholarships.”  You can also utilize an RSS reader.  They are free and if you do not know what an RSS reader is, click here for a YouTube tutorial.

• Talk to people you know who have gone to graduate school and find out if they were able to find scholarship opportunities.

• Contact people who are willing to write you a letter of recommendation and have them make multiple copies of the recommendation letter and give them to you in sealed envelops so you are ready if a scholarship opportunity arises and there is a tight deadline.

• Speak with people at your undergraduate university – alumni relations, career services, faculty members, etc.

• Talk to the organization you work for to find out if they sponsor students or have grants for furthering your education.

In summary, don’t let “the funding issue” sneak up on you.  Spend adequate time searching for funding sources and to help make your graduate dream a reality.

On April 6th I posted some information about a fellowship opportunity associated with the Center for International Conflict Resolution.  I am happy to say that the deadline to apply has been extended.  For full details of the fellowship, please revisit this post.  Over $20,000 is being awarded and this certainly is a wonderful opportunity if you qualify to apply.

The following is the communication I received:

The Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University has extended the deadline for all Masters and Doctoral students applying for Fellowships at The Fund for Global Environment and Conflict Resolution until 5pm on April 30. Please send all applications and application material to cicrapplications@columbia.edu. You can contact CICR Assistant Director, Josie Lianna Kaye at jlk2149@columbia.edu for more details.

If you have had the opportunity to attend an information session at SIPA that I have led you might remember that I take a minute or two to talk about applying for outside awards and scholarships.  Part of my speech is to always be prepared.  In the instance below, if you are qualified admitted applicant, you could earn $22,500 toward your costs at SIPA.

I talk specifically about two things.  One is that once you start applying for outside scholarships you might recognize that the essay questions might not sound all that different.  Thus if you apply for one or two scholarships and write an essay, you just may very well be able to use the essay again or modify it slightly for submission for another opportunity you discover.

Second is advice that I credit to my high school guidance counselor, Ms. Steele.  Ms. Steele encouraged me to continue to look for scholarships as long as I was a student (the process never stops), and to be prepared, to ask those composing a letter of recommendation for me to print multiple copies, seal them each in an individual envelop, and give them to me so that each time I found out about a new opportunity I would be prepared.  So if I found about ten different scholarship opportunities and I had ten envelops each containing a letter of recommendation, I did not need to bother my recommendation writer ten different times.

You never know when you might find out about an opportunity that fits you, and it helps greatly to be prepared.  It just so happens that I found out about a great opportunity for admitted SIPA applicants, and the deadline is next Wednesday.  Yes, not a lot of time.  Thus being prepared for opportunities like this turns out to be pretty good advice.

The details, application, and program guidelines are below.  Good luck!

The Center for International Conflict Resolution (CICR) at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea of the Italian Government are pleased to announce the establishment of the Fund for Environment and Conflict Resolution (The Fund).

Over a period three years, the $2 Million Fund will provide support for research, teaching and fellowships. Thanks to The Fund, CICR will promote research conducted by prominent scholars at Columbia University, in Italy and other countries around the issue of the global environment and conflict resolution.

The Fund has three major focus areas. First, it will look at the relationships between sustainable development and post-conflict in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Peru and Colombia where the Italian Ministry has on-going activities. Second, the research will focus on the prevention of potential conflicts in the use of natural resources, paying particular attention to China, the Middle East and North Africa. Third, the research will focus on the relationship between climate change and international security. The Fund will also give the opportunity for fellowships and scholarships, for scholars and students interested in these areas.

The student must be from one of the following countries/regions in order to be considered for this fellowship: Italy, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Peru, Colombia, China, the Middle East, and/or North Africa.

For more information on teaching, research and fellowships related to this grant please contact CICR’s Assistant Director, Josie Lianna Kaye, jlk2149@columbia.edu.

CICR Italian Overview

CICR Application