To apply, students must complete the Whittier College Fellowship Application.
A completed application consists of:
Before you submit your application, select the name of the fellowship to which you are applying from the list on the right and carefully read through all application requirements.
Senior Lecturers, tenure-track, and tenured faculty are eligible to serve as faculty mentors for fellowship projects. Faculty mentors for the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellowship must hold a doctoral degree or must share mentoring responsibilities with a Ph.D. faculty member.
If the fellowship to which you are applying requires you to select a faculty mentor, you should ask your intended mentor as soon as possible if they would be willing to take on this role. You should also plan to meet with them before you submit your application. Please give your mentor plenty of notice, as they will also be submitting a letter of recommendation on your behalf. It is unacceptable to submit an application naming a faculty member as your mentor without communicating with them. If you submit an application listing a professor who has not expressly agreed to be your mentor, your application will be disqualified.
In an effort to minimize the risk associated with international travel, Whittier College fellowships will not be awarded for fellowship activities in any location designated high-risk by the U.S. Department of State’s Travel Advisory System. Whittier College fellowships will not support travel to any Level 3 or Level 4 country or location -- or to areas within a county or location -- with a Level 3 or Level 4 designation.
Fellows are responsible for adhering to all State Department Travel Advisories at all levels. Note that a “Do Not Travel” advisory might be issued for specific cities in a country, or an advisory might highlight the dangers of undertaking particular activities in that country. Fellows are expected to monitor such advisories and to take appropriate precautions, avoiding any specified areas or activities.
For summer fellowships, international students must be registered as full-time students for the semester after the fellowship activity will take place to be eligible to apply for a fellowship. Thus, students applying for a fellowship to be completed over the summer must be registered as a full-time student for the following fall semester. Students who pursue a fellowship during an active academic semester (fall / spring) must be enrolled full time for that semester.
International students must obtain an authorization letter from the Office of International Programs verifying their full-time status and include it with their fellowship application materials.
All or part of the fellowship you receive may be considered a “non-qualified” fellowship by the IRS. The IRS considers non-qualified fellowship amounts to be taxable income and reportable by the student recipient on their personal tax return. If you are a U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent resident, no federal taxes will be automatically withheld from your payments. Whittier College is not required to report the amounts to the IRS if you are a U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent resident, so you will not receive a W-2 or 1099 form. It is the responsibility of the student recipient to report the taxable non-qualified fellowship payments to the IRS. If you are an international student who is considered to be a nonresident for tax purposes, Whittier College must report your fellowship to the IRS, per the relevant IRS guidance (e.g., Withholding Federal Income Tax on Scholarships, Fellowships, and Grants Paid to Aliens). For information on the taxability of non-qualified fellowships and how to report these payments on your personal tax return, please see IRS Publication 970, Tax Benefits for Education and IRS Publication 519, U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens.
Students are encouraged to apply for as many fellowships as they qualify for. In some cases, it is also possible for a student to participate in multiple fellowships concurrently. The parameters for this are as follows:
1. Students may apply with the SAME proposal to multiple fellowships, if the project meets the specified criteria so as to increase their odds of being selected for an opportunity, but they will only receive ONE fellowship per project proposal. Students cannot receive two fellowships to complete the same project.
2. Students may apply with DIFFERENT proposals to multiple fellowships and participate in each. For example, a student who is accepted to MMUF or Lopez Wood may also complete a project for Standiford or Alianza, so long as that project is different. If offered both opportunities, they would be able to participate in both, provided they understand that they would be responsible for the respective deliverables and progress reports.
3. Students must fill out a separate Fellowship Application for each opportunity to which they are applying. For each application, students will select the name of the fellowship they are applying to and upload that fellowship's unique application materials.
