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Fulbright Program: U.S. Applicant Podcast

Transcript For: Guidance Session, the Application Process- Questions and Answers

Guidance Session, the Application Process- Questions and Answers, New York, June 10, 2009.

Question:          I just wanted to double check that a scan of an affiliation letter with the signature and letterhead is legitimate that we ourselves print out.

Walter:             If it is a scanned letter that is on letterhead and has a hard signature and you can print out a copy of it, that’s ok. It would be ideal to have the original.

Theresa:           That’s for the affiliation letter, not for the recommendation letters. The recommendation letters have to be the original signed documents and they can’t be faxed.

Walter:             No, absolutely nothing can be faxed.

Theresa:           Or emailed.

Walter:             Or emailed. And letters of recommendation, read the instructions, your recommenders are supposed to submit them both electronically and in hard copy. They print out a hard copy, they sign it, they give it to you in a sealed envelope with their signature across the flap. And it remains in the sealed envelope and you either deliver it with all of your other hard copy documents to either your Fulbright Program Advisor, or you submit it if you’re at large to IIE in New York. By the way I said that, before I forget, on the 19^th to go into the system and hit the submit button. A lot of people are going to be doing it then and the system tends to get a little big bogged down. Another question about the application process, step up to the mike please.

Question:          Can a recommendation be from a post-doc student under whom you’ve been working with research?

Theresa:           Post-doc?

Question:          Post-doc, like a post-doctoral student? She just recently got her doctorate.

Walter:             So she already has her PhD?

Question:          Correct.

Theresa:           I suppose.

Walter:             Yeah.

Question:          Alright, thanks.

Walter:             Keep in mind that – step up to the mike if you have a question please – keep in mind that with letters of recommendation it’s important that the individual have a credential against which the members of the national screening committee can gauge what they’re saying, number 1, but number 2 they need to know you. They need to know you and they need to talk about you as an individual. So just simply getting a letter from this world renowned expert that says this is a great project doesn’t tell the screening committee a whole heck of a lot. They probably already figured out that it’s a great project. What they’re looking for in that letter of recommendation is not only is this a great project, but this is a great individual and the individual is going to be able to carry that out.

Theresa:           While we’re on the subject of people who know you, letters from senators, congressmen, representatives carry no weight unless you have worked with that individual and they know you as a person and can talk about your abilities to carry out your project. Just a “here’s my constituent” kind of letter carries no weight and you’ve wasted a reference.

Question:          Also about recommendations, could you say what the protocol is for if you’re getting a recommendation from someone who doesn’t speak English. Who’s responsible for translating the application and then the recommendation?

Walter:             The person who’s writing the recommendation, I would ask them if they could possibly get someone to translate it and then include the translation in the recommendation. You cannot translate it. If you are applying through your college or university, your Fulbright Program Advisor can open up that letter of recommendation—

Theresa:           And should open it.

Walter:             And then they can get it translated. What about the instructions to the person who would be the reference?

Theresa:           That’s your responsibility too.

Question:          So I could translate that myself?

Walter:             Sure you could. Oh yeah.

Question:          Oh, ok.

Walter:             Sure, but the letter of recommendation actually, it could come in another language but we’re going to need to see an English translation attached. Not everyone who is going to handle that application throughout the course of the competition cycle might necessarily be able to read that language.

Question:          Hi, I also have a question related to applying through our alma mater, because I applied, I went through the Fulbright process through my alma mater which happens to be all the way in Texas. So I would like to know what is the specific advantage to applying through an alma mater where we’re not currently enrolled as opposed to applying at large?

Theresa:           Just what we said before, that you have the support of the campus and the faculty on the campus as well as the added advantage of the campus committee interview.

Question:          But as far as review process goes there’s no advantage to applying through an institution?

Theresa:           No.

Walter:             There are no quotas in the program like, selecting people who are enrolled versus at large.

Question:          OK, it’s all just the same pool.

Walter:             That’s correct.

Question:          OK. Thanks.

Theresa:           But there are some countries, just so you know, I don’t know what country you’re applying to—

Question:          Germany.

Theresa:           Germany’s ok. What I was going to say was that there are some countries that will not accept people who apply at large.

Walter:             You’ll find that information in the individual country program summary.

Theresa:           Not in everyone, that’s the problem.

Walter:             Which one?

Theresa:           Belgium…

Walter:             Go head.

Question:          I had a question about eligibility. I see that one of the reasons to become ineligible is if you’ve ever had a Fulbright Hayes grant before. However, and this is a personal specific question, I’ve received a grant that has Fulbright-Hayes money attached to it, as part of the grant. Does that preclude my participation or not?

Theresa:           Tell me what you’ve had and I’ll tell you.

Question:          OK, it’s the National Language Fellowship, or the Flagship Fellowship.

Theresa:           That’s not Fulbright.

Question:          My question is about transcripts. If you took a college level course in high school through a local university but didn’t actually attend that university, do you need transcripts from there or would that not be necessary?

Theresa:           I don’t think anything you did in high school is relevant.

Question:          OK. Thank you.

Question:          Hi, you mentioned something about limitations on dual citizenship. I was looking in the book and I didn’t see anything specific to my country, but the country that I am interested in applying for a grant for is not my other citizenship.

Theresa:           Then you don’t have to worry about it at all. It’s only dual citizenship if you are applying to the same country, and only for certain specific countries.

Question:          She wants to know where you find that information.

Theresa:           In the brochure.

Walter:             Within the individual country summary.

Theresa:           If it’s a problem, it will be there. If it’s not a problem, don’t worry about it, it’s not going to be there.

Question:          Awesome.

Theresa:           If it doesn’t say specifically in the country summary, “people with this citizenship…” then don’t worry about it.

Question:          Hi, I’m interested in applying to a county where I have lived before but I was wondering about-

Theresa:           How long?

Question:          How long and if I’m at a disadvantage, etc?

Theresa:           How long did you live there and-

Question:          Germany. Three years.

Theresa:           How old were you?

Question:          21 – 24.

Theresa:           As an adult.

Question:          Yeah, as an adult.

Theresa:           OK, and you are applying to Germany again?

Question:          Well, there’s some moveability.

Theresa:           There’s some what?

Question:          Movability.

Theresa:           I mean, you would be at a slight disadvantage especially since it was as an adult but…

Question:          But not so much in Austria for example?

Theresa:           No. Living in Germany has no effect on an application to Austria.

Question:          Great. Thank you.

Question:          I would be applying as an at large applicant to the creative arts program. How important is it that your undergraduate study be related to the arts application? [pause] It doesn’t have to be?

Walter:             No, not really.

Question:          But you have to have some formal training?

Theresa:           No. In the arts? Four years professional training or experience substitutes even for an undergraduate degree.

Question:          OK, OK.

Walter:             Washington, DC?

Theresa:           Questions?

Walter:             Washington, DC?

Question:          I have a question about the language evaluation. If the language is somewhat obscure and there are no formal institutions where we live that teaches it, can our evaluator be a native speaker who is teaching that language? To me or to whoever.

Theresa:           yes. Yes.

Walter:             Sure.

Question:          OK, thank you.

Theresa:           But not Spanish, German, Italian, French…

Walter:             And a family member can’t do it either.

Question:          No, no. It’s a native speaker, the tutor.

Walter:             Perfect.

Question:          I just have a question about the multi-country fellowship opportunity. You mentioned that if you apply to three countries and one rejects you, you can still go to the other two. What if it’s only 2 countries and one of them rejects you? Can you still go to the one that accepts you?

Theresa:           No. [pause] Don’t do it if you can possibly avoid it. It has to be a very compelling reason why you have to be in those other countries.

Question:          I have a question about… My background is in the arts and the proposal that I’m writing is more about a technical thing and I’m wondering if I’m at a disadvantage applying to a—sort of the opposite of what the girl in New York had said—if I’m at a disadvantage applying for a sort of engineering based grant even though my background is in the creative arts. Would it be better—

Theresa:           If you’re applying in an academic arena, you better have the academic qualifications to support that.

Question:          OK, as a sort of add on, the host institution is an arts degree, so would you say, or is an arts institute, so would you say that it’s better to apply through the creative field or through-

Theresa:           I can’t answer that without knowing specifically what you want to do.

Question:          My project is to build an environmentally sound foundry, fine arts foundry.

Theresa:           You better have a whole lot of engineering background in order to do that.

Question:          OK, good to know.

Theresa:           Not only architectural engineering, chemical engineering, all kinds of engineering.

Question:          No no no. Not a building, just sort of the equipment, the furnaces and the bowl making facilities themselves.

Theresa:           Hello. Architectural engineering. Chemical engineering. Mechanical engineering. All kinds of engineering in there.

Question:          My question is, if you’re applying for grad school and the Fulbright at the same time and you end up getting the Fulbright, but to give an example, if you ended up choosing to go to grad school and not taking the Fulbright, is it possible to defer it, or do you have to take the Fulbright the exact year it is given to you.

Theresa:           Yes you do.

Question:          And also if-

Theresa:           Hello. Walter said very early on you cannot defer a Fulbright.

Question:          OK.

Question:          Hi, for the language requirement, I was evaluated several years ago, is that still valid? Or does it need to be something that’s more current?

Walter:             More current.

Theresa:           It should be within the last year.

Question:          I have a question. If I applied to the Critical Language Enhancement Award with my application, if the language award is not accepted, will that affect the rest of my application? I’m assuming it will stand on its own.

Theresa:           No it wouldn’t. Generally speaking, if you get a Fulbright and you’ve applied for a Critical Language Enhancement Award, you’re going to get it.

Question:          My question is, I’m in the visual arts and you said that we need a complete transcript but we don’t have grades. Does that affect it in any way?

Walter:             Do you have a narrative transcript?

Question:          Uh, yeah, it shows all the classes I’ve taken.

Walter:             Send the narrative transcript in.

Question:          OK, thank you.

Question:          For the visual arts application, or submitting portfolio materials, if you’re interdisciplinary, is it one or the other, choose the discipline? Or can you mix some video and some visual? Some photos and some video?

Walter:             There are some very specific disciplines within the arts competition that you have to fit yourself into. We don’t have a multi-disciplinary committee. We don’t have a committee that looks at painters who want to sculpt and take photographs. So you’ve got to fit yourself within one of the arts disciplines. And then what you have to do is additionally follow the instructions for the submission of materials for that particular discipline.

Question:          OK, thanks.

Walter:             Sure.

Question:          I am currently enrolled in a teaching program, it’s a masters in teaching, but I would prefer to do my grant through my undergraduate program. Is that ok or do I need to go through the masters program I am currently enrolled in.

Theresa:           You mean apply through the institution you’re currently enrolled in?

Question:          I would prefer to apply through my undergraduate because the masters in education is through this program, this Teach for America program I’m doing.

Theresa:           Oh, ok, no. You can apply through your undergraduate institution.

Question:          Ok, thank you.

Question:          As far as transcripts go, if I’ve taken, or if we’ve taken sort of recreational courses after we’ve obtained a degree are you interested in the transcripts for those…

Theresa:           No.

Question:          … or not really?

Theresa:           No particularly, no.

Question:          OK. Thank you.

Walter:             Denver?

Question:          You guys mentioned you wanted transcripts with grades. How important are grades in the application process?

Theresa:           How important are grades?  Well, it depends on how bad the grades are. We don’t have any kind of an index requirement. Grades are one piece of the application and the screening committees will look at the application in totality. If you have an outstanding application and you’ve had a bad semester or two during college, depending on what you’re proposing to do, it might not be so bad. And also if bad grades happen to be in fields that have nothing to do with your project, again it might not carry so much weight. So, it’s difficult to answer that question in the abstract.

Question:          Is the age of the grades… like they’re older and bad and the newer grades are better?

Theresa:           Well, yes, they do look at that too.

Question:          Does improvement count?

Theresa:           Yes, improvement does count.

Question:          The next question is, is there an age restriction?

Theresa:           No. Generally speaking, no. But there are a couple of awards in specific countries that do have age restrictions and those are host country restrictions so you’ll need to take a look at the individual country summary to find those out.

Question:          The next question is, if you’re applying for a study program that requires you be accepted to the program in order for you to have a Fulbright, do you have to wait until you get an acceptance from the host institution? Because the host institution in this case has rolling admissions, or can you apply for the Fulbright simultaneously?

Theresa:           You can apply simultaneously.

Question:          OK, the next question is, for research that is planned for study on sensitive topics or vulnerable populations, is there a protocol for human subjects, like human subjects committee?

Theresa:           You have to be in compliance with your home institution’s requirements.

Question:          OK. Thank you.

Question:          I’m not sure if this is exactly the application process, but it’s related to how funding can be used. So what I’m wondering is, you all mentioned that funding can’t be used for translators or interpreters or anything, but I’m wanting to use a, do a visual aspect. So it’s going to be an ethnographic project I hope and I want to have a visual sort of videoed aspect of it but I don’t have the technical skills to do this the way I would want to. Could funds be used to support, sort of, in country travel or some sort of small stipend for someone who could facilitate the technical parts?

Theresa:           No. Fulbright includes… You can use… We will pay you a monthly maintenance allowance. You can use it any way you want. There’s nothing to prevent you paying somebody else out of your stipend but that’s the amount of money that you’re going to get. And in some countries there’s a small research allowance, it’s no more than $1500 in any world region I think.

?:                      I think it’s usually $500

Theresa:           Well, no, it depends on the world region. And you can use that as well, but there’s no additional money for in country support.

Question:          OK, then you don’t have a problem with using the funds that are given to facilitate those other aspects.

Theresa:           No, as long as you don’t come back to us and tell us you’re starving because we’re not paying you enough.

Question:          I had a question regarding the application in public health and an extension of that. How is the public health application treated and would I be at a disadvantage with a bachelors in biology?

Theresa:           No, public health is probably one of the most popular fields of study in the Fulbright program and we have many students funded in public health every year at all degree levels.

Question:          Sorry, my question is that I understand that not all Fulbright research proposals are identical, but do you recommend looking through the Fulbright database to see whether your proposed project is similar to something someone studied before?

Theresa:           If you want to, but it really bears no relation to the selection.

Question:          OK, thank you.

Question:          My name’s Chris. I have a question on affiliations. Beyond just the letter where they describe the resources and mentorship they’re going to offer, are there any other responsibilities they might have, i.e. contacting Fulbright periodically throughout the program?

Theresa:           No.

Question:          I wanted to ask you would Fulbright permit you to redo an old application that was rejected. So will the new application I submit be compared to the old one or something like that?

Theresa:           It depends on the commission, and some would be willing to do that, others would not. So I can’t answer that definitively. What country is it?

Question:          Well I applied last year to Hungary and now I’m applying to Austria and I am wondering if I have to explain the change or something.

Theresa:           If you applied to Hungary and now you’re applying to Austria, it’s two separate commissions and they would have no connection at all.

Question:          OK, thank you.

Question:          Just to get back to the transcripts, you guys addressed this in the initial talk but I didn’t quite understand it. I went to a community college for two years and then I went to a 4 year school where I got my bachelors. On my transcript, all of the classes that I took from my community college just come up as “class taken” it’s like a neutral grade. You said you want one transcript, so how do I-

Walter:             No, what I said was we want one official academic record. We want to know every course you’ve taken and every grade you’ve received. So if that means you need to get a community college transcript and another transcript from your baccalaureate institution, then you’ve got to go about doing it.

Question:          So just put them together and…

Walter:             Just put them together. Well no actually what you will do is request them and you will leave them in the sealed envelopes and submit them that way. Thank you.

?:                      I believe that’s it.

Walter:             Thank you San Francisco.