Academic Advisors are often a potential fellowship applicant’s main resource in thinking about how their academic and/or extracurricular interests might be pursued. This page is designed to provide advisors with some brief but useful information about the different fellowship opportunities available to Carleton students and graduates. We invite you to simply refer a student or recent graduate to us at any time – we’ll make contact from there and assist with further information and guidance.
For general information about what is available to them and how to think about fellowships as part of their trajectory at Carleton, your advisees may wish to visit the pages for first-year students, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. We also maintain pages listing opportunities open to non-US citizens and fellowships for recent alumni.
Fellowship Opportunities Overview
Carleton-funded fellowships (for our students only) are available to support student research or experiential learning projects, internationally or in the US. Deadlines for these fellowships (other than the Senior Comps Fellowship) fall during Winter Term. Only one (the Professor Roy F. Grow Fellowship, for use in Asia) is available to first-year students; the majority are open to both sophomores and juniors. Students use these fellowships during Summer and Winter Breaks, for a wide variety of activities. Although internships, as a rule, are funded through the Career Center, there are even a few fellowships that can be used to pursue them. All Carleton-funded fellowships except for the Larson International are open to students of all citizenships.
Carleton also participates in two Mellon Foundation-funded fellowships for students from backgrounds that are underrepresented in the academy, to encourage their interest in graduate study in the humanities or humanistic social sciences. US Citizens and DACA recipients are eligible; students should consider these opportunities as early as possible during sophomore year in order to have the best chance of being selected for one of them.
National and international fellowships, for which students and recent graduates compete beyond Carleton, are many and varied. We strive to provide a complete list of opportunities on our site, where we’ve included opportunities open to students in all classes. Most of these fellowships are for students with strong academic records, but the review process for many of them also includes holistic evaluation of candidates and takes non-academic factors into account.
Potential Matches
In matching your advisees to potential opportunities, you may find the following brief information about some of the best-known fellowships (organized by year of eligibility) helpful… though this is not an exhaustive list!
If you have an advisee who is interested in learning/continuing with a foreign language in an immersive environment…
The Critical Language Scholarship and the Boren Scholarship are two options that offer full funding to study a select group of languages in contexts where they are spoken. Multiple class years are eligible, but the CLS and the Boren are open only to US citizens.
If you have a first-year or sophomore advisee who is interested in intercultural learning and engagement…
the Fulbright UK Summer Institutes offer a summer of fully-funded study at select UK universities (topics and locations of the institute vary from year-to-year). This program is open only to US citizens and does have a minimum GPA.
If you have an advisee with a strong record of community engagement and an interest in public service (broadly conceived)…
The Truman Scholarship for juniors may be a good fit. A highly prestigious award, the Truman provides $30,000 support for graduate study and access to a very powerful network of program alumni. The Truman Scholarship is open only to US citizens.
The Fulbright US Student Program (for seniors and recent graduates) supports research, study or English teaching abroad in the years following graduation. This program is open only to US citizens.
If you have an advisee with a passion or interest that they pursue actively regardless of whether it has a relationship to their academic work or career plans…
They may be a good fit for the Watson Fellowship. The Watson is open to graduating seniors only. The Watson Fellowship is open to students of all citizenships.
If you have an advisee interested in areas such as economic development, public health, or basic education and literacy…
They may be a good fit for the Rotary Global Grant Fellowship that supports graduate study outside the US. The Rotary Global Grant Fellowship is open to students of all citizenships.
The most prestigious of the opportunities open to seniors and recent alumni, for funding graduate study, are likely known to you already…
the Marshall, Mitchell, and Rhodes Scholarships; the Churchill Scholarship for STEM students; the Gates Cambridge and Knight-Hennessy (Stanford) programs; and the Soros Fellowship for New Americans. These are ultra-competitive and strong candidates are not made overnight. If you have a promising advisee, it’s never too early to refer them to the Office of Student Fellowships to discuss building a profile over the course of their time at Carleton!