It is always best to start early! You will want to give faculty, supervisors, or other mentors plenty of time to write your letters. In some cases, your reference writers may be able to work with our office to draft letters for these awards. Start looking for letter writers several months before the deadline of the scholarship, as it may take up to 1 month (or even longer) for a professor (or other person who knows you well) to craft a well-written letter.

Each scholarship has different requirements for how many references you must provide and who your letter writers should be. Some may want faculty only, others want those who can attest to your character, leadership, etc. Check each scholarship’s requirements individually. In general, most scholarships prefer letters from professors over graduate students, TAs, etc.

Please review our handout with additional tips for Asking for Letters of Recommendation.

Your reference writers can submit their recommendations by email to sklrship@uci.edu. In most cases, scholarship agencies request that references be formatted on letterhead and include signature. Electronic copies will be sufficient.

Additional tips for reference writers are available in our Best Practices for Writing Letters of Recommendation handout.

For each scholarship, the length and format requirements are usually indicated on the application. If not, use standard MLA or APA format. Because the essay components offer the scholarship committee a chance to view your character and ideas (not just your writing style), you will want to show them that you can communicate flawlessly in standard English. Remember, these scholarships are very prestigious and demand academic excellence, so you will want every part of your application to be honed.

Your school’s registrar or admissions and administration office should have them on file. For UCI, please go here.

Please note that most final scholarship applications require official transcripts from UCI and any other colleges you have attended in the past (ex. junior/community colleges). Always double-check and read their submission instructions carefully! It may be helpful to ask the scholarship foundation directly if you are allowed to open / unseal the official transcripts.

(Typically, scholarships look at many of these factors in your application, but each scholarship weighs each category differently, depending on the goals of the scholarship. Please note that the following links are NOT the only places that offer each opportunity. Explore!)

Leadership/Career Center: ASUCI and other campus organizations (student clubs, teams, etc) have leadership built into their structure in the form of boards and committees. Leadership is also exemplified in areas such as employment and research, where you are in an above-entry position (for example, shift lead, manager, or similar).

Community Service: Numerous student-run organizations are based on community service. Certain campus departments also offer their own volunteer programs.

Research: This may differ by field and major. Check with your academic school to see what research opportunities your academic area is engaged in. You may also consider research in a related field. There are also options for independent research projects.

Study Abroad: There are several departments on campus dedicated to sending Anteaters overseas. To raise your cultural awareness, you may also consider associating yourself with culture-based clubs, UCI Extension and ESL programs, in addition to studying in a foreign country.

The majority of the scholarships facilitated by SOP require campus endorsement or nomination. To be considered for campus endorsement or nomination, please submit all required application materials by our internal deadline. Our office may then convene a campus endorsement interview or review committee to select qualified students. If you are selected, we will work with you to refine your application and ensure your final application is complete. SOP also handles any endorsement or nomination letters/forms.

All official scholarship websites (for example, the Fulbright) list the national deadline, which is the same for all universities (this is the deadline by which each university must submit its applicants for the national competition.) However, each university sets its own campus deadline prior to the national deadline. This is to allow ample time for revisions and for conducting interviews or screening committee meetings. Therefore, lease only pay attention to the UCI deadline for all of our scholarships.

If you must enter in faculty representative information to proceed in the application, please list UC Irvine as your institution and contact our office if you require further assistance.

For Big 10 scholarships (Marshall, Mitchell, Rhodes, Churchill, Fulbright, Gates, NSF, Soros, Knight-Hennessy, and Schwarzman), the workload is approximately the same as a 4 unit class, spread out over the course of 6 months. For all of our other scholarships, the workload is spread out over several months (less than 6, usually) and consists of multiple drafts of the application and essays, and inputting information into the application form. These are prestigious nationally competitive awards, so the application processes reflect this. Our office will work with you throughout the application process and have created internal deadlines to help keep you on track.

Generally, though these are not ‘hard’ requirements, the scholarship foundations want to be assured that they are funding the right person who will commit to their elected field. You must show commitment to this field by listing relevant academic, co-curricular and extracurricular activities, for example, so applicants cannot and should not bluff and state their intentions to go into the field purely to get scholarship funding. However, if you do honestly want to change your field later on (after the duration of the scholarship), it is sometimes possible to do so.

The year-in-school requirements go by graduation date, not by units. If you entered UCI in 2012-2013 and you will graduate in 2016, and the current year is 2013-2014, you are a sophomore, regardless of how many units you have. Therefore, when it says “you must be a junior to apply,” it means “you must graduate in the year following this current year.”

Typically, GPA is a very heavily-weighted factor, but it is only one of many factors considered for funding a scholarship applicant. GPA does not reveal everything about you, and in some cases, other demonstrations of commitment can be more important, depending on the objectives of each scholarship agency.

This varies by scholarship. Please contact our office for specific questions about a particular award.

This varies by scholarship. Please contact our office for specific questions about a particular award.

Many of our awards are for US citizens, but you can contact us for a list of scholarships that do not require US citizenship. If you are in the process of becoming a US citizen, please note that all of your eligibility requirements are determined as soon as you SUBMIT your final application. Therefore, if you will gain US citizenship BEFORE the final application is due, you will be able to change your application to reflect this and therefore be eligible.

Deadlines are strictly enforced. Our office cannot accept late submissions. Late submissions are unfair to other scholarship applicants who submitted materials on time and may jeopardize our office’s internal nomination process, even by a single day.

Please explore the Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships (OFAS) website to help fund your undergraduate education (and not study/research or teaching opportunities after you graduate and to find the undergraduate scholarship(s) that best matches your eligibility, interests, and pursuits while you are still an undergraduate.

Please visit the Study Abroad Center website, and make an appointment to speak with an advisor to discuss your options, including applying for one of the scholarships that support undergraduates who study abroad through the UC Education Abroad Program.

Please visit the Campuswide Honors Collegium website and make an appointment to speak with one of their advisors.

Please visit the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), Volunteer Connection, the Career Center, Campus Organizations, or ASUCI (UCI's student government) to get more involved on campus or in the local community.

Please visit the Graduate Division Resource Center, which offers graduate students a wide range of support and advising services.