Outline of Process for U.S. Student Fulbright Program Applicants

UM-St. Louis

Revised: June 3, 2008.

Deadlines for the 2009-2010 U.S. Student Fulbright Competition.

The 2009-2010 competition opened on May 1, 2008. Complete program and application materials are now available. See: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/

The campus deadline is October 6, 2008.

Fulbright on-line applications must be submitted electronically by October 20, 2008.

The Center for International Studies must send hard copies of the application and all supporting documents to IIE in New York by October 22, 2008.

Application.

The application form is available on-line at: http://us.fulbrightonline.org

Campus Fulbright Program Advisor.

Dr. Joel Glassman, Associate Provost, Academic Affairs, and

Director, Center for International Studies

More information.

Bob Baumann, Assistant Director

Center for International Studies

e-mail:

The process.

Fulbright applicants are supposed to complete the application forms on-line, print out a copy for us, and let us look at them. We will review the forms and make suggestions.

Please let us know as soon as possible your “country of study” and give us a brief description of your project.

Note that in most cases it is better for an applicant to have a relationship with an institution in the country of study. So, that is something you should begin working on with your mentors. You should not wait until the last minute to get a letter from the foreign institution or organization indicating that they are willing to host you and help you with your research especially in terms of allowing you access to their offices or facilities or data, etc. Since the academic calendars differ by country, it is wise to get started on this as soon as possible.

After you have completed and revised the application materials, we schedule a campus interview around the time of the campus deadline. (Our campus deadline is October 6, 2008). If you are ready to do the interview earlier we will try to schedule it earlier. Note that Dr. Glassman sometimes has to travel as part of his job and so he may not always be available. So, it is wise to schedule the interview as soon as possible.

Usually the campus interview committee consists of 3 people: Dr. Glassman and two other faculty members. We would ask you to suggest one or two people to serve on the interview committee and we will try to get your first choice to participate. Then, we try to get another person from some other field of study to serve on the committee. We do this because most applications will be read by non-experts in your field when reviewed by the National Screening Committee organized by IIE.

The interview usually lasts from 25-40 minutes and focuses on the soundness of the project, the applicant’s readiness to do the project, knowledge of host country, adaptability, seriousness, language skills, etc.

In addition, the committee rates your application and submits it to the Fulbright people by the national deadline along with all the other applications from our campus. Note that the committee is rating applications against a national standard and not against the other campus applications. So, we can submit all of our applications with a top rating and that is often what we do.

During the interview, the committee usually makes some suggestions for improvement of the application and then you have some days to incorporate those suggestions into the final version of your application.

Only then would you submit the final version electronically and give us a hard copy of the documents.

Then, we have to bundle together all the applications from our campus and send the hard copies to the Fulbright people at IIE by their deadline. Applications are then reviewed by the National Screening Committee. Final selections for Fulbright awards are made by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Applicants are notified by mail about the status of their application by January 31. Final decisions for recommended applicants are made between April and June.

I hope that helps explain the process. If you would like to see a few examples of successful applications, or if you have other questions, please let me know.

Bob Baumann, Center for International Studies

e-mail: