The Gilman International Scholarship Program offers grants for U.S. citizen undergraduate students of limited financial means to pursue academic studies abroad.

The program aims to encourage students to choose non-traditional study abroad destinations, especially those outside of Western Europe and Australia. The Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship aims to support students who have been traditionally under-represented in study abroad, including but not limited to, students with high financial need, community college students, students in under-represented fields such as the sciences and engineering, students with diverse ethnic backgrounds, and students with disabilities.

The Award

Over 1,700 scholarships of up to $5,000 will be awarded annually. Award amounts will vary depending on the length of study and student need with the average award being $4,000. Undergraduate students who are receiving federal Pell Grant funding at 2-year or 4-year colleges or universities are eligible to apply.

Students who apply for and receive the Gilman Scholarship to study abroad are now eligible to receive an additional $3,000 Critical Need Language Supplement from the Gilman Program for a total possible award of up to $8,000.

Critical Need Languages include:

Arabic (all dialects)
Chinese (all dialects)
Turkic (Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgz, Turkish, Turkmen, Uzbek)
Persian (Farsi, Dari, Kurdish, Pashto, Tajiki)
Indic (Hindi, Urdu, Nepali, Sinhala, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Sindhi)
Korean
Russian

Eligibility

The Gilman Scholarship applicants must meet the criteria listed below.

The applicant must be receiving a Federal Pell Grant or provide proof that he/she will be receiving a Pell Grant at the time of application or during the term of their study abroad.
The applicant is applying to or has been accepted into a study abroad program eligible for credit by the student's accredited institution of higher education in the U.S.
The applicant is studying abroad for at least 28 days in one country. Programs going to more than one country are eligible if the student will be studying one country for at least 28 consecutive days.
The applicant is studying abroad in any country except Cuba or a country on the State Department's current Travel Warning list.
The Gilman Scholarship program is piloting a special summer award cycle for students participating in summer 2010 study abroad programs. To be eligible applicants must meet all of the criteria listed above and must be majoring in a Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math (STEM) field.

The Application

Applications must be submitted online by the campus deadline. There are four components to the Gilman Scholarship Application:

Online student section
Online study abroad advisor certification
Online financial aid advisor certification
Three official transcripts

All recipients are required to carry out a follow-on project that promotes the Gilman Scholarship at the students' home institution or community. The follow-on project proposal, statement of purpose essay, and academic progress are criteria are closely considered during the selection process.

Resources

Hear advice from previous Stanford Gilman candidate and other scholarship recipients: Multi-media video clips

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