Graduate School Fund for Excellence and Innovation

Top Scholar Awards

Award Definition and Policy Statement

The Graduate School’s primary goal for the Top Scholar Awards (TSA) is to help programs attract outstanding students to University of Washington programs by partnering with units to build competitive financial packages for their top student prospects. This program does not support continuing students already enrolled at the UW.

A top student prospect under the TSA program is defined as an applicant who is on the unit’s “Top 10” offer list. The definition of a Top 10 list is flexible. Units with multiple program tracks may have more than one Top 10 list. For large programs with a large number of applicants, a Top 10 percent list may be appropriate. Units have discretion within the spirit of the TSA policy to define what “Top 10” means in their respective organizations.

With the exception of travel funding, which is intended to bring prospective students to campus, offer letters must specify that the individual is being offered a Graduate School Top Scholar Award. If a TSA offer is initially rejected, it may be offered to another top applicant so long as he or she is on the program’s Top 10 list AND the TSA offer will potentially influence that applicant’s decision to attend the UW. If an offer is accepted by a Top 10 student and later rejected, a request may be submitted to The Graduate School to transfer the award to another Top 10 applicant who has already accepted an offer. Requests to defer a Top Scholar Award to a subsequent academic year may be approved under exceptional circumstances.

Submitting a Proposal

The current TSA funding cycle will operate only for the 2010-2011 academic year. We will return to a biennial funding cycle beginning in 2011.

The current request for proposals is located at http://www.grad.washington.edu/students/fa/gsfei/tsaproposal.shtml and outlines the specific proposal requirements. TSA proposals are submitted through MyGrad Program, within the GSFEI module.

Award Categories

Please note that Top Scholar RA awards do not require service to be provided by the recipient (See Service Expectancy and ASE Determination document for definition of service, and full appointment descriptions in both service and non-service categories). Units may choose to assign service to TSA RA recipients, but doing so requires they be appointed as academic student employees in the appropriate service job code (TA, RA, SA) under the UW/UAW Local 4121 Contract rather than into the non-service codes identified below. Top Scholar fellowship appointments must not have service assigned to the recipients.

Research Appointments: TSA RA appointments include salary, insurance benefits under the Graduate Appointee Insurance Plan, and tuition waivers. Departments may either require specific department service under this category or award these quarters as a non-service appointment that allows the student to pursue his/her own research interests.

Quarterly Fellowships (Non-Service Job Code 0863): TSA quarterly fellowships provide a stipend of at least $800 per month, insurance benefits and paid tuition. Departments may choose the level of quarterly stipend they wish to provide. No service may be required as a condition of this award.

Tuition Waivers: Tuition waivers must be matched with departmental fellowship appointments during the quarter(s) in which they are used. Stand-alone waivers are not considered strong recruitment incentives and are therefore not generally allowable without previous approval from the Graduate School.

Block Grants: Block grants are available to fund two different types of TSA awards: lump sum fellowships and travel awards. Departments are free to allocate block grant funds between these two types of awards in whatever ways will best aid in their recruitment of new students.

Block grant funds used as travel awards are intended to support campus visits by applicants to meet with faculty and students, tour facilities, and participate in department recruitment activities. Units may choose how they allocate travel awards among applicants. At this time, travel awards may only be used for transportation expenses (airfare, mileage, shuttle, etc.).

Block grant funds used as lump sum fellowships are intended to either “top off” another funding offer (TA/RA/SA, trainee or fellowship) or to serve as a stand-alone award. Lump sum fellowships must be given for a minimum of $1,000 to a maximum of $5,000. No service may be required as a condition of this award.

Accessing Awards

Research Assistant Quarters: Units should appoint TSA RAs through OPUS on Graduate School budget number 10-1600. Job code 0832 (Top Scholar Research Appointee) should be used for an RA that doesn’t require department service. Departments requiring service of their TSA RA recipients should appoint in the relevant job code that they would normally use for an RA.

Lump-Sum Fellowships: Units using block grants to award lump-sum fellowships should appoint on their respective GSF (75-17XX) budgets using job code 0861 (Stipend Grad Fellow – B). GSF-RSA budgets are established for most departments. If a GSF-RSA* budget has not been established for your unit, please contact Dianne Zimmer at dzimmer@u.washington.edu. Please see the financial note related to payments from these budgets below.

Quarterly Fellowships: Units should contact Dianne Zimmer (dzimmer@u.washington.edu) for a budget number and appoint through OPUS. Use job code 0863 (Stipend Grad Fellow - A).

Tuition Waivers: Tuition waivers are paid from a central university budget. Graduate School staff will enter the waivers into the central database after the names of recipients are entered into MyGradProgram by unit personnel and accompanying appointments are confirmed.

Travel: Units using block grant TSA awards to support applicant travel should pay from GSF (75-17XX) budgets. These budgets are established for most departments. If a GSF-RSA* budget has not been established for your unit, please contact Dianne Zimmer at dzimmer@u.washington.edu. Please see the financial note related to payments from these budgets below.

* Please note: GSF budgets are sub-accounts of a Graduate School parent budget. Funds are not transferred into these sub-accounts from the parents. Units are authorized to spend based on total awards in the categories supported from these budgets (block grants supporting lump-sum fellowships and travel). Award summaries will be provided at least twice per year for balancing purposes. As the GSF budgets roll up to the parent at the end of the biennium, final accounting responsibility will rest with the Graduate School not the units.