NPSC ONLINE APPLICATION OPEN HERE. APPLICATIONS CLOSE DEC. 6, 2019
Number of Awards:
Varies yearly
Type:
Fellowship
Duration:
Initial support may be for two or three years, or for a full six years, depending on the employer-sponsor. If the initial support is for the shorter period, it may be extended up to six years at the discretion of the employer.
Amount:
The charge to the employer for each student supported is $27,000 annually, of which $20,000 is the fellow's expense allowance and $7,000 is NPSC's fee to support its operations. The charge is subject to change at the discretion of the NPSC Board of Directors.
Fields of Study:
Though the fields supported can vary annually depending on employer needs, in general NPSC covers the following: Astronomy, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geology, Materials Science, Mathematical Sciences, Physics, and their subdisciplines, and related engineering fields: Chemical, Computer, Electrical, Environmental, Mechanical.
Location or Type of Institution:
Any participating NPSC Member University or College
Eligibility:
NPSC welcomes applications from any qualified U.S. citizen who has the ability to pursue graduate work at an NPSC member institution. Applicants at any stage of their graduate program may apply, as long as they will be available to accept two summers of paid internship. Those who already possess a doctoral degree are ineligible.
Employers may nominate NPSC fellows directly, obviating the selection process. These fellows may enroll for either a Master's or a PhD degree.
Selection
NPSC's employers select fellows based the following factors, not in order:
• Whether the applicant's field of study matches the employer's needs
• Undergraduate and graduate course work and grades
• Research experience at a university or in industry
• Letters of recommendation from professors and employers. These can be decisive. The most effective letters are from persons who have supervised or observed the applicant's participation in research.
• The GRE General tests are required; the Subject test is suggested and may be required by your university.
Using these criteria, employers review the pool of applicants and advise NPSC of which students the employer wishes to support. NPSC then makes the award.
Additional Requirements
Applicants must be accepted at a participating NPSC-member university or college and progress through a full-time study program leading to a graduate degree in the physical sciences or related engineering fields.
Fellows must complete one or two summer internships, as the sponsoring employer requires.
To continue in good standing, fellows must submit a transcript annually as well as any forms and information that NPSC requests.
Fellows must perform satisfactorily in their summer internship and during the academic year.
A fellow who switches his or her field of study to one not of interest to the sponsoring employer will likely have support terminated.
National Security Agency (NSA): Requires Fellow to pass a background investigation.
Apply at the link on the home page.
Contact NPSC Tech Support at npsc@npsc.org if you have questions.
NPSC requires a minimum of three letters of recommendation from professors and employers familiar with your work in your discipline. If at all possible, at least one letter should be from someone who has observed or supervised your participation in research. Provide your NPSC recommendation forms to your recommenders as early as possible. We suggest you provide them with a narrative of what you accomplished in class or employment with accompanying grades, research results, etc.
Go to the GRE Web site or call (609) 771-7670. Request that your GRE scores be sent to NPSC at code R4417. Try your best to meet the NPSC November 30 deadline. Have your scores sent as soon as possible.
In addition to the required official GRE scores from ETS, we suggest that you email a copy of your score card to NPSC at npsc@npsc.org. This will help to ensure that NPSC has your GRE scores when the review process begins.
You can prepare to complete the NPSC application by having at hand the following information and materials:
NPSC provides the applicant database to employer members and to university members. (A university may contact you even though you have not applied to that university. If you would rather not have your name made available to universities, let NPSC know and we will remove it from that database.)
Each NPSC employer identifies the students it wishes to select and support for a fellowship. The executive director of NPSC calls those students and sends an award letter giving a specified period within which the student must confirm acceptance of the offer or decline. NPSC provides a letter to graduate departments that the student can use to inform the university that he or she has been offered an NPSC fellowship. It is up to the university whether to admit and accept the student as an NPSC Fellow, knowing the university will be responsible for tuition and fees.
If a student receives and accepts an NPSC Fellowship, it is reserved for that student until the student receives acceptance from one of the NPSC participating universities as an NPSC Fellow. A student who receives another national fellowship offer should call NPSC to discuss and compare the two programs. The student may be able to accept both by deferring one. Next, the student should discuss the offers with the advisor and graduate department.
NPSC announces the end of the recruitment season as soon as it has filled available fellowship slots. This may not occur until mid-April or later.
Note: selection of fellows is made not by NPSC, but by an employer who uses criteria in addition to academic excellence; for example, the particular research specialty and the availability of funding. Thus students who are not selected for an NPSC fellowship need not feel that their academic work or research potential have necessarily been judged to be inferior to those who are selected.