For Colleges

PDRF Allocation

Fellowship spaces are distributed out to each doctorate-awarding college based on the overall ratio of doctoral students at USU. The deans for each college should allocate their fellowships out to departments or programs by October 1. To inform the Office of Research of the allocation of your allotted Presidential Doctoral Research Fellowships, please fill out this contact information form for the program/department that will be recruiting for each fellowship.

At Large Fellowships

The Office of Research reserves a small number of “at large” fellowships to target the development of new PhD programs and to address extraordinary opportunities to recruit outstanding doctoral students that arise. There may not be any “at large” positions in any given year. These are not distributed to a department or program; faculty, departments and colleges are encouraged to apply for a fellowship space for a unique program or position that would benefit from the added recruitment value of the PDRF program and contribute to our cohort of fellows. Applications for a Presidential Doctoral Research Fellowship are due on October 15. If the positions remain unfilled, a call for applications will go out in the early spring to award the space to an outstanding existing candidate. See the ‘At-Large Application’ tab of this page to learn more.

Nominate Your Student

The PDRF program offers a competitive range of benefits for top scholars, and has a track record of bringing the best and brightest PhD candidates to USU. Once a department or program has identified the individual that they would like to offer a Presidential Doctoral Research Fellowship to, the student must be reviewed by the Office of Research to determine that the minimum eligibility requirements are met.These requirements are:

  • Meets all SGS and department standards for PhD candidacy.
  • A cumulative undergraduate GPA of 3.5 or higher.
  • The student should not have attended USU for any duration or at any level prior to the PhD program they are applying for.

If these requirements are not met, the student may still be considered for a position with a short letter of support from the department head of the program and an explanatory letter of support from the proposed faculty advisor. The proposed student should have completed an application to the graduate program offering them a fellowship before being nominated to the Office of Research.

Nominate a student for the PDRF position allocated to your department by March 15. Students will only be considered if there is a fellowship allocated to that program or department and the nomination is approved by the department head; if this is not the case, you should see the ‘At-Large Application’ tab for instructions on requesting a fellowship space.

Award Process

Once you have nominated a candidate for the PDRF award, the Office of Research will review the candidate for eligibility. If all criteria are met, the Office of Research will contact the nominator to accept the candidate and to provide information for the offer letter. The department will then communicate the offer for the fellowship in their overall offer letter to the candidate for a position in the program. All decisions regarding the Presidential Doctoral Research Fellowship are due back to the Office of Research no later than April 16. Students that accept the offers will be contacted with additional program information, and spaces that are not filled may be reallocated as determined by the Office of Research in consultation with the dean of that college.