Healthcare Scholarship: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Undergraduate Scholarship
If you are already in school, but paying for your annual tuition bill is difficult because of your family’s financial situation, you may qualify for the Undergraduate Scholarship Program. If you win this scholarship, you will receive some specific benefits along with an obligation to the National Institutes of Health after you graduate.
Scholarship Overview
The UGSP is a competitive scholarship intended for university students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. You must commit yourself to a career in either the behavioral or biomedical field or to a field in social science that requires health-related research.
Along with significant scholarship support, you’ll receive a paid research training position every summer at the NIH. Post-graduation, you’ll begin working and training at NIH.
The student training is a 10-week lab experience, which you will undergo after every year that you received scholarship support. In this training position, you’ll work with an NIH postdoctoral fellow and an NIH researcher who will both mentor you. Your participation in this program also requires you to attend seminars and participate in several programs.
Your post-graduate employment means you’ll be a full-time NIH employee in a research laboratory, continuing your training. Under the terms of this scholarship, you’ll be required to give one year of full-time employment for every year that you received your NIH scholarship.
Requirements of Scholarship
To be eligible for the UGSP, you must meet certain qualifications:
•Proof of “exceptional financial need” from your school’s financial aid office. The income levels are adjusted annually.
•Show proof that you are a citizen of the U.S. or that you are a permanent resident.
•Hold a GPA of 3.3 on a 4.0 scale.
•Or, you must fall within the top 5 percent of your class.
•You have to be enrolled in or accepted for enrollment as a full-time student.
•Your chosen university must be an accredited 4-year undergraduate institution in the U.S.
•You have graduated from high school.
•If you already have an undergraduate degree, you will not qualify for this scholarship.
•If you are enrolled in a master’s program, you will not qualify.
•If you know you can’t fulfill the stated payback requirements, you will not qualify.
Deadline of Scholarship
This scholarship comes with several deadlines:
•Open for applications on January 2, 2015.
•Deadline for applications is March 2, 2015.
•Deadline for Letters of Recommendation is March 30, 2015.
•Invitations for phone interviews will be distributed by mid-June of 2015.
•Phone interviews for admission to the program are scheduled for mid-July of 2015.
•Scholars will be selected for the UGSP in late July of 2015.
Amount of Scholarship
This scholarship provides financial support of up to $20,000 per academic year, which will cover educational expenses, tuition and “reasonable” living expenses. Each scholarship is awarded for one academic year and is renewable for up to four years.
