Interview by Elisa Shaholli, Peer Research Ambassador

National Scholarships & Fellowships
Part 2: Applying

A Conversation with Dr. Vin Moscardelli, Director of UConn’s Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships (ONSF).

Click here to view part 1 of this 2-part series.

How can someone best strengthen an application for national scholarships & fellowships?

Start thinking early because many of these applications require not one, not two, but at least three and sometimes more, letters of recommendation. Finding meaningful letters doesn’t happen organically. You have to make that happen. You have to build these relationships, cultivate them, and sustain them. I encourage you to start thinking early about what your network will be because you want advocates.

For most of these scholarships, they have a scholarly component to them so you do need to take care of things in the classroom and be intellectually curious and you need to be aware of what’s going on in the world and engage as an original thinker in some kind of way. I think this is an important part for a lot of these but how much of an important part varies enormously across scholarships. For some, you need to be a good student but if you’re in the upper half of your class you’ll be fine. For others you need to be a truly great student – near the very top of your graduating class.  There’s a range of opportunities out there looking for different things and they weigh different components differently depending on their mission.  Again, it’s all about fit. Continue reading →

Interview by Elisa Shaholli, Peer Research Ambassador

National Scholarships & Fellowships
Part 1: Are They for Me?

A Conversation with Dr. Vin Moscardelli, Director of UConn’s Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships (ONSF)

Can you tell us about the Office of National Scholarships & Fellowships?

We are the office that works with students competing for nationally competitive awards. Some of these are awards people may have heard of like the Rhodes, Fulbright, Truman, or Marshall. If you’re a scientist you may have heard of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship or the Churchill. Most of these are for graduate study. People are applying to go abroad or to pursue graduate degrees.

We spend a lot of time working with students on application essays. We read essays, provide feedback, and work with students to try to get a sense of what the future holds for them and what the best path forward might be. The conversation tends to focus on the best path for you and the best opportunity for you. The fit is a really important part of this. It’s meant to be a learning process. What we do is try to help students think clearly about what they want to do and why. Continue reading →