The Gilman International Scholarship Program offers grants for U.S. citizen undergraduate students of limited financial means to pursue academic studies abroad or credit bearing career-oriented internships abroad.

The program aims to encourage students to choose non-traditional study and intern abroad destinations, especially those outside of Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. 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 2,300 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 a Critical Need Language Award from the Gilman Scholarship Program of $8,000.

Critical Need Languages include:

Arabic (all dialects)
Chinese (all dialects)
Bahasa Indonesian
Japanese
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
Swahili

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 or internship eligible for credit by the student's accredited institution of higher education in the U.S.
The applicant is studying or interning abroad for at least 4 weeks in one country. Programs going to more than one country are eligible if the student will be studying one country for at least 4 consecutive weeks.
The applicant is studying or interning abroad in any country except Cuba or a country on the U.S.State Department's current Travel Warning list.

The Application

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

Online application which includes uploading official transcripts
Online certifications from study abroad advisor and financial aid advisor

Essays: 1) Statement of Purpose and 2) Follow-on Service Project Proposal (1.5 page single-space [7,000 character] limit each)

All recipients are required to carry out a follow-on service project that promotes international education and the Gilman Scholarship at the students' home institution or community. The follow-on service 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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