Guidelines and Nomination Process

Flagship Fellowships are enhancement awards added to base full-time fellowship/assistantship packages provided by programs to Flagship Fellows. These base packages must provide full-time support to the candidate and must extend for the duration of the Flagship Fellowship. Additionally, the base package must be comparable to those normally offered by the program and must meet or exceed guidelines for minimum stipends set annually by the Graduate School. (Minimum stipend levels can be found at go.umd.edu/minimum_stipends.) Programs must commit to providing the base package at the time of nomination for a Flagship Fellowship, and must notify the Graduate School of any subsequent changes in the proposed support package.

Upon acceptance of an award, the program has the discretion to select a 4- or 5-year payout plan for the student.  The annual stipend will be posted to the student account in two (2) equal installments (Fall/Spring).  Please note, international students will require the completion of the Nonresident Alien form.

The Flagship Fellowship does not come with tuition assistance.

Candidates must be Ph.D. applicants for Fall 2027.  U.S citizens and international students are eligible for nomination.

All candidates will have exceptional qualifications and with clear promise for outstanding performance in doctoral study, and will contribute to the university's ideals as outlined in the UMD Strategic Plan’s Guiding Principles.

Programs must recommend their nominee(s) for admission prior to making the nomination. 

Candidates who will have an assistantship as their base support must have U.S. citizenship, valid visa status, or valid work authorization.

Flagship Fellowships are awarded to programs for specific students and are not transferable to other students. Should the awarded candidate decline the Fellowship, or should a student holding a Flagship Fellowship graduate or leave the program with enhancement funding outstanding, the Graduate School will return unused funds to the Flagship Fellowship pool.

Nomination packages must include the following:

1. a Nominee Information Cover Sheet

2. a letter of nomination from the program’s Chair, DGS, or the major professor with whom the student would work.  The nomination letter should address the student’s exceptional qualifications and promise, including what distinguishes the student from other top applicants to the program and what contributions the student is likely to make to the program and the field.  Additionally, letter writers should convey information about how the student will contribute scholarship in the discipline.

   Letter writers should not make any reference to standardized testing scores.

3. a description of the base fellowship/assistantship support being offered by the program to the student (these base packages must extend at least for the duration of the Flagship Fellowship and must meet or exceed guidelines for minimum stipends for fellowships and/or assistantships set annually by the Graduate School; it is expected that these base packages will be at least comparable to those normally offered by the program).

   Candidates who will have an assistantship as their base support must have U.S. citizenship, valid visa status, or valid work authorization.

4. School of Public Health programs that accept applications through SOPHAS will be required to submit the student’s SOPHAS application.

Programs must gather the above items as three (or four) individual PDF files and submit to the Graduate School Awards Portal at terpengage.umd.edu/gsawards/s/ by the nomination deadline.   At the time of nomination, TerpEngage will prompt nominators to select the correct application (the correct APP-ID).

An applicant may be nominated for the Flagship and the President’s Fellowship but may receive only one of these awards.  If awarded both, the student would be able to accept only one of them.

A committee with broad disciplinary representation, appointed by the Graduate School, will serve as the selection committee. Selection decisions will be based on excellence, understood as a convergence of the nominee’s academic success, statement of purpose, prior research or other original scholarship, letters of recommendation, and the program’s letter of nomination.

The Flagship Fellowship selection committee will not consider GRE scores or other standardized test scores during their evaluations.

Award decisions are expected in mid-February.  It is expected that the cohort of awardees will reflect the University’s commitment to diversity, including disciplinary diversity.

Flagship Fellows  will also submit a brief annual progress report using this Google Reporting Form.

The program and the Graduate School will confer regarding any Fellow who experiences significant academic difficulty during the year and will establish benchmarks for monitoring the student’s progress. Continuation of the President’s Fellowship will be contingent upon the student’s resumption of timely and satisfactory progress.

Because the Flagship Fellowships are intended for exceptional students, continuation of the Fellowship is predicated on the student maintaining full-time status and making timely and satisfactory progress to degree.

Please direct any questions to Robyn Kotzker in the Office of Funding Opportunities
at rkotzker@umd.edu or 301-405-0281.