ABOUT FULBRIGHT

Fulbright Program: U.S. Applicant Podcast

Transcript For: Fulbright U.S. Student Guidance Session, May, 2008. Part 1

Fulbright U.S. Student Guidance Session, May, 2008. Part 1

Walter: Good afternoon everyone, or good morning, whatever the case may be. My name is Walter Jackson. I’m a manager with the US Student Programs division here at IIE in New York and we’re going to try to answer all your questions about applying for a Department of State funded Fulbright US Student Program Grant. In a little while I will be joined by all the world region program managers. These are the individuals who can best answer your country specific questions. They work with the Fulbright commissions and the American embassies in the host countries on a day to day basis. So if you have questions which are specific to your country or your project, these are the best individuals to answer those. But on behalf of the Department of State and its Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which is the worldwide administrator of the Fulbright Program, and on behalf of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board which is the presidentially appointed board and it is the body, the policy making body for the Fulbright program, and the body that also has the final authority for the confirmation of selections. I’d like to thank you for coming and thank you for your interest in the Fulbright Program.

I’m going to take a brief moment and introduce Theresa Granza. Theresa Granza is the Director of the US Student Programs Division here at IIE in New York.

But let’s get into why you are here, applying for a Fulbright grant. We have now just opened the 2009-2010 competition cycle. I’m sure you’re all aware of that. We’re talking about grants which are going to be tenable during the 2009-2010 academic year abroad in most instances starting in September or October of 2009. The deadlines this year are October 20^th and October 22^nd. October 20^th is the national deadline. October 20^th for the electronic submission of applications; and October 22^nd for the receipt of hard copy, completed hard copy applications. Applications are submitted both electronically and in hard copy for a number of reasons. Two of the most important is that the electronic version is used to do an upload of data about you and your application into our database. And it’s from that database that we create all the documents that we need throughout the competition. It is the actual hard copy that is reviewed by the national screening committee. They do not review the online versions, they review the hard copy applications and all the accompanying support documents. So that is the reason why they are submitted both electronically and in hard copy.

If you are currently enrolled in a US college or university, and there is a Fulbright Program Advisor at your college or university you need to be in touch with them because you are going to have a deadline earlier because you are going to have a deadline earlier than October 20^th and October 22^nd. You will be submitting your application both electronically and in hard copy first to your advisor. There will be an on campus interview prior to the applications coming to us for October 20^th and October 22^nd. So some of you, if you are currently enrolled, may have a deadline as early as early September. So you need, if you have not already done so, to go to our website, in the Thinking of Applying Section, follow the links to find your Fulbright Program Advisor, more commonly referred to by the acronym FPA, and get in touch with them if the campus deadline is not listed on the university page on our site. You definitely want to get in touch with them and let them know that you’re interested in applying, find out what the deadline is, what the campus interview schedule might be, and get on their radar screen. They can be very helpful, extremely helpful in helping you work through this process, and reviewing your applications.

The national screening committee which meets around the United States to make recommendations to the Fulbright Commissions and American Embassies abroad meets during November and December, and they will be reviewing all of the applications received and they make recommendations. They are not selecting individuals, they are making recommendations. A brief note about recommendation: we over-nominate. So if you get an email from us that says you have been recommended, don’t sublet yet! Your application has been forwarded abroad. At least two times the number of applicants are recommended as we anticipate there will be grants available for. Your application has been forwarded abroad. If you get an email from us at the end of January that says your application was not recommended, unfortunately it is no longer under consideration. But that does not mean that you cannot reapply in a subsequent competition; people often do.

Theresa: That does not mean that you can then apply in the mtvU competition either, which has a deadline of March 1^st. You have to make a choice between the mtvU competition or the regular traditional Fulbright competition in October. OK?

Walter: OK. Where was I? Ah, the applications are forwarded abroad to the host country to which you’ve applied where selection takes place. Selection can take place any time between late February and June. Not all countries make their selections at the same time. There are 140 countries that participate in the Fulbright exchange. So, selection can take place any time between late February to June. If your application has been selected by the host country, that selection is then confirmed by the Board of Foreign Scholarships in Washington, DC. So this whole process can take until June. I have to say that most people hear in April. As a ballpark, I’d say April.

If you are selected for a Fulbright grant you would then travel to your host country, more than likely in conjunction with the academic year and would be expected to stay in the host country for the full tenure of the award. Fulbright grants are written for anywhere from 8 – 12 months, it depends on the country. You need to be familiar with the grant tenure information in the individual country summary. Fulbright grants will provide roundtrip transportation to your country of assignment. They will provide a monthly living stipend based on the cost of living in the host country, some additional funds for incidental expenses settling in. Grants can come with tuition or tuition waivers. There are some countries where you may be responsible for tuition. If that is the case it’s noted on the individual country summary on the website. Fulbright grants also provide supplemental health and accident insurance while you are abroad in your country of assignment.

If you are interested in the terms and conditions of a Fulbright award, you’ll find it on our website in the Resources for Current Grantees section. There is actually a sample Fulbright grant contract there.

Fulbright grants: what can I do on a Fulbright grant? Fulbright grants are self-designed programs of study or research abroad. They also can be used in a number of countries to apply for one of our English Teaching Assistantships, where one would work as an assistant in the English classroom in either a host country high school, college, or it might even be an elementary school. There are now 36 countries where this option is available. Very much the same as the mtvU grant, if you are applying, you have to make a decision in this process: do I apply for an English Teaching Assistantship, or am I applying for a study or research grant? You cannot apply for both. It’s one or the other. So you need to make that decision very early on in the process. As I said, there are 46 countries where these teaching assistantships are available, and applications for English Teaching Assistantships, which you will hear us refer to as ETAs, are only available to selected countries. So make sure that the country to which you wish to apply for that particular type of grant, that it is available there. There is a list of all the countries available on the website and in the brochure.

Theresa: And I would encourage you all, for all aspects of the Fulbright program to keep an eye on the website, to refer back to it frequently. I anticipate that we will have additional countries which will be offering teaching assistantship programs. So refer to the website as often as you can, especially if you’re interested in that option.

Walter: Yes, the Fulbright US Student Program is a very dynamic program. Lots of things happen during the course of the competition cycle. Unfortunately we cannot reprint the brochure every time one of these updates occurs. So what we will do it post it on our website homepage in the program updates section. So if you just make note of that every now and then, that would be great. And I would also advise you that you should always defer to the information on the website as the most current and the most up to date. The brochure is very handy, but it seems that we no sooner publish the brochure and it becomes out of date because we have a change in the program.

As I mentioned, you design your own project, study or research project, or you tell us why you are interested in applying for one of the teaching assistantships and how you can be an effective teaching assistant abroad. If someone is applying for a study or research project, we want to know the what, where, why, when and how of the project. You will find very specific information on our website in regard to essay content in the How to Apply section. There are a number of tip sheets that will talk to you about what should be covered in the essays in the application and I would encourage you to refer to those. But one of the things that you need to keep in mind as you come into this Fulbright process is that Fulbright is more than an educational exchange program. Yes, we are looking for very bright people with very bright projects. Yes, we are looking for very energetic, articulate speakers of English who are going to make effective teaching assistants, but we are also looking for individuals who have a sense of community engagement. There is a cultural component here. We don’t want you going abroad and just sitting in a library. We want you going abroad and we want you out and about. We want to select effective citizen ambassadors for the United States. So that involves involving yourself, engaging yourself with the host country community. It could be extracurricular or it could be curricular. But you need to come into this process understanding that Fulbright is not just looking for great projects. It’s also looking for people that are going to go abroad and are going to involve themselves with the people with whom they are working and living on a daily basis. I mention this because language is very important in the Fulbright program. And if you are going to a country where English is not the national language, and that’s the way it is in most of the world, you are going to have to have ability in the language to be an effective communicator. You are going to have to have ability in the language commensurate with what you are proposing to do. So I would encourage all of you to remember how important language is in the Fulbright program and how important it is for you to be an effective communicator for the program when you go abroad.

Alright, let’s talk about the application process very specifically. And then what I think we should do is general application questions and then we’ll do country specific questions. As I mentioned, the application is online. It’s in the Apply Now section of our website. I’m going to encourage you not to go in and start working on that application right away. I’m going to encourage you to go through the Thinking of Applying and the How to Apply sections on our website and all of the subsets within them before you start working on the application. You are going to find a lot of information there on the application and the process. I already mentioned the tip sheets for the essays. There are some very specific instructions that we wish you would follow when you complete your application. So take a look at those before you start working on them. We do not like abbreviations. If you live on a street you live on a street, you don’t live on a St. OK? We are very fond of upper and lowercase when it is used appropriately. So if you would please follow those style and formatting recommendations. As I said earlier, the information that you put into that application is going to be uploaded into our database.

The online application system will allow you to work on it throughout a competition cycle until you submit it electronically. So you do not have to complete it all in one sitting. But if you are just sitting there and staring at the screen it is going to time you out after approximately 20 minutes. As long as you’re working in the application you’re ok.

One of my recommendations is that you go to the How to Apply section and go to Preparing an Application. You can print out a pdf version of what your final hard copy is going to look like. And you can use that as a visual aid as you’re working through the actual online application. When you first get into the online application, you are going to be asked a series of preliminary questions: Are you applying for an English Teaching Assistantship? Will your application require submission of a foreign language evaluation? A number of very specific questions. Those preliminary questions tell the system what forms you will need in your application. For instance, one of the questions is in regard to are you applying for practical training in one of the creative and performing arts? If you answer yes, the system will then generate the form necessary for you to include with your application and your work samples. Answering these preliminary questions is important because it tells the system what forms you need to complete. After you do that it will then establish an account for you and you can go in and out. The only caution I would give you is make sure before you exit you save your data because if you don’t you’ll lose it.

Theresa: Back to the issue of language. Even if the individual country summary in the brochure indicates that knowledge of the host country language is not necessary for your project, we’re requiring you to have a hospitality level of the language of the host country, and therefore it is important to you to fill out the foreign language background report. So, virtually everyone in this room will answer yes to the question, “do you need a foreign language?” And that will produce for you, attach to your application the foreign language background report which will tell us if you have any knowledge of the language or if not, how you anticipate getting at least a hospitality level of the language before you begin your award.

Walter: OK. After you’ve answered your preliminary questions, you’ve gotten your ID, you’ve gotten your password, and you begin working on the application. The first box that you’re actually going to come to in the application is the country or countries where you wish to study, and you’ll see that there are three options there. Those three options are not for you to select primary and alternate countries of application. Most of you will be applying to a specific country, with a specific project. But the option does exist within this program to propose a multi-country project. It’s one project, one application that requires your presence in up to three countries to complete. So that’s what those three country option boxes are there for. OK? If one is opting for a multi-country project, you need to pay special attention to the regional country summaries on the website. Countries selected for multi-country projects must be within the same world region as defined by Fulbright. And they must be countries within that same world region that will entertain a multi-country project. You cannot cross world region boundaries. And you cannot propose a multi-country project in Western Europe or in combination with any of the countries in Western Europe.

Theresa: Except if you’re applying for a grant under the European Union program, where actually multi-country projects are encouraged. So that’s the only option in Western Europe for a multi-country proposal.

Walter: But you must be applying for a grant to the European Union. So in the country in which you wish to study, you’re going to indicate European Union. In the project you would indicate the countries.

Second box is the field of study box. There are drop down lists. Where there is a drop down list you are obliged to select from our drop down list. The field of study drop down list seems to be the one that causes the most contention. Not every field in the world is there, but it is pretty inclusive. So if you’re specific field is not there, pick one that most closely relates to your project. Those fields are there for administrative purposes, they do not pigeon hole your application.

The next box is “are you applying from a US college or are you applying at large?” If you are not currently enrolled in a US college or university, and you don’t have to be, you would apply as an at-large candidate from your state of permanent residence in the United States. However if you have recently graduated, the option may exist to apply through your alma mater. Some Fulbright advisors will work with alumni. If that is the case, and you can take that route, go for it. But then keep in mind that you must meet the campus deadline, you must make yourself available for an interview, and it’s up to the advisor to decide whether or not they work with alumni. They are not obliged to do so, but very often they will. So you need to check with them. If you are applying for one of the teaching assistantships, the field of study that you are going to select is Teaching English as a Foreign Language. The code is 5120.

There are a number of special programs in another drop down box. If you are applying for one of these make sure you indicate it. It tells us which committee your application should be reviewed in. If you are applying for the Critical Language, one of the supplemental grants, the Critical Language Enhancement Award program, you need to identify your application accordingly. Please make sure you indicate that. If you are not familiar with it, go to the website. In the thinking of applying section you can find information on the Critical Language Enhancement Award program which allows for additional language training in selected languages prior to, during, and following your Fulbright tenure abroad. And additional funding is available for it. But it is only available in certain specific languages; not all languages are included.

Theresa: However, there are some countries which will provide additional language training prior to you taking up the award. And that information is also contained in the brochure and on the website. So if you are thinking that you need additional language training or that your language is not up to par, take a look at the country summary because it’s possible that there may be some language training available to you before the beginning of the grant.

Walter: And if you want to take advantage of it, it should be noted somewhere in the application. Don’t just assume that because it’s available you’re going to be considered for it. You’re going to have to let us know that you’d like to be considered for it, ok?