Fellowship Competitions Administration Timeline

General information

The fellowship descriptions in the Student Grants Database are static and may be used year after year, with tweaks as needed. As Grant Administrator, you are responsible for making any changes to your fellowship description, as needed. The applications in the Student Grants Database do not run from year to year - they need to be archived and a new application must be created for each application cycle. This process is handled on your behalf by the Office of Fellowships. Please see the Student Grants Database Basics guide for clarification of the difference between your fellowship description and your fellowship application, and the function of each.

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Preparing Applications for a New Competition Cycle

Once a year, over the summer, all applications are cloned for all Grant Administrators. This process is managed by the Office of Fellowships on the following timescale:

July

Applications are cloned in the Student Grants Database. Please do not make changes to your applications for the next competition cycle until you have been notified that the cloning process has been completed. Application opening and closing dates will automatically be set to the same dates as the previous year's cycle. You will ber responsible for updating these for the current year.

August

Check your newly cloned applications for the coming competition cycle and make any necessary changes to the dates.

Timeline

The timeline for fellowships which follow the spring semester timeline and which participate in the campus-wide overlap meeting in April is as follows:

August through Fall

Make any necessary changes to your applications, based on your experiences and the feedback you received in the last cycle.

Tip: If everything worked well in the last cycle, you will not need to change anything but be sure to check that the opening and closing dates are accurate for the coming cycle. If you would like support in altering your applications, please email studentgrants@yale.edu and we will arrange a time for you to meet with us and make changes to your application(s).

December - January

Applications open. Applications should open several weeks (ideally at least 4 weeks) before the application deadline, so that students have time to compile their applications and ask faculty members for letters of recommendation and/or language evaluations.

Note: If you have your applications open over the winter break, students who experience difficulties over this period will not have access to immediate support as the university will be in recess.

February - March

Application deadlines. Application deadlines should allow the Grant Administrator sufficient time between the deadline and the overlap meeting (see below) to:

• review/screen the applications
• send the applications to the committees to be read
• receive the committee scores and hold a committee meeting (if applicable)
• determine the successful awardees and award amounts

End of March/early April

Enter initial awards into the Student Grants Database.

Noon, Monday, April 7th, 2025

Deadline for entering initial awards, ready for the 2025 overlap.  The overlap report will be run in the morning on Tuesday, April 22nd. Any initial awards which are not in the database before the report is run will be excluded (which completely defeats the purpose of the overlap meeting - so please be sure to enter your initial awards on time!).

Wednesday, April 9th, 2025, 10am-12pm - Overlap Meeting 2025

Location: ZOOM

The overlap meeting is the only opportunity all Grant Administrators have to come together and check that the students they have awarded have not also been awarded elsewhere. See below for examples of overlap issues and tips on preparing for the Overlap Meeting.

April 28th 2025

Deadline for all final awards to be entered into the Student Grants Database so that:

• SEA and ISA can go ahead and award students
• Institutional reports can be pulled and presented to the IRS and the President's Office

Please note: entering final awards past this point will delay the release of funding for those students on financial aid using their SEA or ISA so please enter them on time.

Overlap Scenarios

Student requests $4000 for project X. The awarding committee agrees that $4000 is a sensible and feasible amount for carrying out project X......

Scenario 1

Student is awarded $2000 from Fellowship A and $2000 from fellowship B. This is not an overlap issue, as the student has not been funded beyond the budget they requested in their application for project X.

Scenario 2

Student is awarded $4000 from Fellowship A and $2000 from Fellowship B. This is an overlap issue and will need to be resolved at the Overlap Meeting, as the student has been funded beyond the budget requested for project X. The Grant Administrators from Fellowship A and Fellowship B will need to establish whether they would like to:

• cost share their awards, up to a total of $4000 (the student's requested budget)
• agree for one fellowship to take over the full $4000 award, giving the other fellowship the opportunity to fund somebody from their waitlist.

Scenario 3

Student is awarded $2000 for project X and $4000 for another project, which is due to happen at the same time as project X. This is an overlap issue - the Grant Administrators will need to contact the student to establish which project will be going ahead.

Scenario 4

Student is awarded $3000 for project X and $2000 for doing another project straight afterwards. This is not an overlap issue but students should be made aware of the minimum duration requirements for each fellowship and be sure to stick to those requirements. Students are generally advised against stacking up experiences one after the other over the summer as it is preferable for students to undertake one activity and complete it thoughtfully and intentionally, rather than do several experiences on a superficial level.

Overlap Meeting Preparation

You should come to the overlap meeting with:

• a list of the students you have funded, and the amounts
• an idea of which students you would be prepared to give up (if they are funded elsewhere)
• a list of the students you would like to keep for your competition (in case you need to arrange a cost-share or agree to take over the full amount of their budget)
• your waitlist, in case, as a result of contributions from other fellowships towards funding your awardees, you are left with sufficient funding available to support some of the students on your waitlist. If you award students after the Overlap Meeting has taken place, please be sure to carry out an individual overlap check to ensure that you are not over-funding an student who did not appear as an issue in the Overlap Meeting
• notes concerning students who have proposed budgets that your committee(s) considered to be excessive for their project, and a suggestion for an alternative, more reasonable, award amount

An Overlap Report will be provided by the Overlap Meeting organizers, which will contain the following:

• a list of all overlap issues, and the relevant project details, based on the initial award information that has been entered into the Student Grants Database
• the contact details of the students who have overlap issues
• the contact details of the Grant Administrators for any applications affected by overlap issues

Note: The Overlap Report will not contain, and the Overlap Meeting will not touch upon, awards and awardees that do not present an overlap issue.

Please enter initial awards by the deadline referenced above.