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Steps in Applying to NPSC

What Happens Next?

Information to Collect

Application Period

Online Application

What Happens Next?

1. The NPSC applicant database is made available to all NPSC member universities and employers for their internal recruitment efforts. Note that you may receive application materials and encouragement to apply to universities that you have not contacted. Some employers may contact you about employment accompanied by graduate school support.
2. Soon after the application period closes, the NPSC Academic Screening Committee (ASC) reviews applications as they demonstrate preparedness for high-quality doctoral work. The ASC includes deans and faculty members from member universities.
3. NPSC Member employers receive from the ASC the prescreened applications and summaries. Each NPSC employer evaluates fellowship applicants based on potential as well as the employer's need for summer interns and projected research requirements.
4. At the Employer Selection Meeting, employers identify those students whom they wish to sponsor. NPSC typically announces its fellowship awards in early March.
5. Students selected for a Fellowship are initially contacted by phone and receive a follow-up letter of notification. The student is given a specified period within which to confirm acceptance of the Fellowship offer. NPSC provides appropriate letters and documentation, but the student is responsible for contacting the universities to which they have applied, to ensure that those departments know the student has an NPSC Fellowship and has received an NPSC announcement letter. The university a student decides to attend must accept that student as an NPSC Fellow, knowing they will be waiving tuition and fees.
6. If a student receives and accepts an NPSC Fellowship, it is reserved for that student until the student receives acceptance from one of the NPSC participating universities as an NPSC Fellow. A student who receives another national fellowship offer should call NPSC to discuss and compare the two programs. The student may be able to accept both by deferring one . Next, the student should discuss the offers with the advisor and gaining graduate department.
7. An NPSC Fellow normally starts the program the immediately following summer, interning with their sponsoring employer, then begins graduate school that fall.
8. Final closure of the recruitment season is announced by e-mail to all non-selected students as soon as NPSC has final acceptance from the students who were offered fellowships. This may not occur until mid-April or later.
9. Note: the final selection for an NPSC fellowship is made not by NPSC or by the ASC, but by an employer, who use criteria in addition to academic excellence, such as, for example, the particular research specialty. Thus students who are not selected for an NPSC fellowship need not feel that their academic work or research potential have necessarily been judged to be inferior to those who are selected.

© Copyright 2004, National Physical Science Consortium.