The School of Marine & Environmental Affairs (SMEA) is able to offer a limited number of recruitment awards to meritorious applicants in the form of Top Scholar Awards, College of the Environment Research Assistantships (RAs), fellowships, and recruitment awards upon admission. With the exception of the FLAS fellowship (see details below), all SMEA applicants will be considered for the following recruitment awards by submitting a complete admissions application by the December 15th deadline. Notification of awards offers are sent to applicants by April 15th of each admission cycle. These awards are based on the following criteria:

1) Evidence of outstanding personal experiences or qualities (from CV)
2) Clear motivation, interest and preparedness for our degree program
3) GPA >3.5, unless there are exceptional circumstances
4) Strong reference letters

Top Scholar Awards

The Graduate School’s Top Scholar Awards help attract outstanding students to the University of Washington by partnering with units to build competitive financial packages for their top student prospects. This award provides a tuition waiver (for both in-state and out of state tuition), a monthly stipend equal to an RA or TA, and health insurance for the first three quarters in a graduate program. SMEA selects the top two – three applicants each year to offer this award to, based on available departmental funding.

College of the Environment Scholarships

The College of the Environment Scholarship provides “top-off” funding awards in the amount of $5,000 which applicants receive in addition to their first year funding offers. These are awarded to the top seven applicants in the college each year. Applicants are nominated by SMEA (and other College of the Environment departments) based on strength of the application, quality of undergraduate institution, and GPA.

Graduate Student Equity & Excellence (GSEE)

The UW also offers the Graduate Excellence Award which provides three quarters of RA funding from GSEE, matched by the department (another 3 quarters). This award requires a nomination by SMEA based on underrepresented minority eligibility, strength of application, quality of undergraduate institution, and GPA. SMEA is not guaranteed to receive this award, but do apply annually and award it to an incoming student whenever we have one available.

Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships

FLAS Fellowships support undergraduate, graduate and professional students in acquiring modern foreign languages and area or international studies competencies. This fellowship requires an additional application to be eligible but UW applicants are eligible and encouraged to apply if foreign language study will be incorporated into their planned thesis research. FLAS Fellowships are available to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Contingent on funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the eight National Resource Centers of the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies will offer FLAS Fellowships in the following languages:

Bangla, Burmese, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Inuktut, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Persian, Tagalog, Thai, Urdu, Vietnamese. Graduate students only: French (intermediate or advanced only).

Graduate Students Only: French (intermediate or advanced only)

FLAS Fellows receive:

• Academic Year Graduate: $18,000 tuition, $20,000 living stipend
• Summer Graduate/Undergraduate: $5,000 tuition,$3500 living stipend

Applicants should carefully read all FLAS guidelines, including Center-specific guidelines, before applying. Graduate students are eligible for all levels of language study.

The deadline to apply is typically at the end of January.  If you have any questions, contact flas@uw.edu.

*In addition to the above there are more funding opportunities for newly admitted students listed under the “CURRENT STUDENTS –> FUNDNG” tab.