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Seattle, Washington 98195-3770
Phone: 206.543.5900
Fax: 206.685.3234
The Graduate School’s primary goal for the Top Scholar Awards (TSA) is to help programs attract outstanding students to University of Washington programs by partnering with units to build competitive financial packages for their top student prospects. This program does not support continuing students already enrolled at the UW.
With the exception of travel funding, which is intended to bring prospective students to campus, offer letters must specify that the individual is being offered a Graduate School Top Scholar Award. If a TSA offer is initially rejected, it may be offered to another top applicant so long as he or she is one of the program’s top applicants AND the TSA offer will potentially influence that applicant’s decision to attend the UW. If an offer is accepted by a top applicant and later rejected, a request may be submitted to The Graduate School to transfer the award to another top applicant who has already accepted an offer. Requests to defer a Top Scholar Award to a subsequent academic year may be approved under exceptional circumstances.
The current TSA funding cycle is for the 2011-2013 biennium.
The current request for proposals is located at http://www.grad.washington.edu/students/fa/gsfei/tsaproposal.shtml and outlines the specific proposal requirements. TSA proposals are submitted through MyGrad Program, within the GSFEI module.
PLEASE NOTE: Top Scholar RA awards may either require service to be provided by the recipient or have no service requirement, as decided by the
appointing department. (See Service Expectancy and ASE Determination
document for definition of service, and full appointment descriptions in both service and non-service categories).
Units may choose to assign service to TSA RA recipients,
but doing so requires they be appointed as academic student employees in the appropriate service job code (TA, RA, SA) under
the UW/UAW Local 4121 Contract rather than into the non-service codes identified below.
Top Scholar fellowship appointments must not have service assigned to the recipients.
Research Appointments: TSA RA appointments include salary, insurance benefits under the Graduate Appointee Insurance Plan, and tuition waivers. Departments may either require specific department service under this category or award these quarters as non-service appointments that allow the student to pursue his/her own research interests.
Quarterly Fellowships (Non-Service Job Code 0863): TSA quarterly fellowships provide a stipend, insurance benefits, and paid tuition. No service may be required as a condition of this award.
Tuition Waivers: Tuition waivers must be matched with departmental fellowship appointments during the quarter(s)in which they are used. Stand-alone waivers are not considered strong recruitment incentives and are therefore not allowed in the Top Scholar program.
Block Grants: Block grants are available to fund two different types of TSA awards: "top-off" fellowships and travel awards. Departments are free to allocate block grant funds between these two types of awards in whatever ways will best aid in their recruitment of new students.
Block grant funds used as travel awards are intended to support campus visits by applicants to meet with faculty and students, tour facilities, and participate in department recruitment activities. Units may choose how they allocate travel awards among applicants. At this time, travel awards may only be used for transportation expenses (airfare, mileage, shuttle, etc.), not for other travel expenses (e.g., hotels, food, etc.).
Block grant funds used as "top-off" fellowships are intended supplement another funding offer (TA/RA/SA, trainee, or fellowship) of at least one year to further enhance a recruitment funding package. Top-off fellowships must be given for a minimum of $1,000 to a maximum of $5,000. No service may be required as a condition of this award.
Research Assistant Quarters: Units should appoint TSA RAs through OPUS on Graduate School budget number 10-1600.
Job code 0832 (Top Scholar Research Appointee) should be used for an RA that does not require department service.
Departments requiring service of their TSA RA recipients should appoint in the relevant job code that they would normally use for an RA.
Top-Off Fellowships: Units using block grants to award top-off fellowships should appoint on their respective GSF (75-17XX) budgets using job code 0861 (Stipend Grad Fellow – B). GSF-RSA budgets are established for most departments. If a GSF-RSA* budget has not been established for your unit or if you don't know what it is, please contact the Fellowships and Awards office at gradappt@u.washington.edu or 543-7152. Please see the financial note related to payments from these budgets below.
Quarterly Fellowships: Units should appoint through OPUS on their respective GSF (75-17XX) budgets using job code 0863 (Stipend Grad Fellow - A). GSF-RSA budgets are established for most departments. If a GSF-RSA* budget has not been established for your unit or if you don't know what it is, please contact the Fellowships and Awards office at gradappt@u.washington.edu or 543-7152. Please see the financial note related to payments from these budgets below.
Tuition Waivers: Tuition waivers are paid from a central university budget. Graduate School staff will enter the waivers into the central database after the names of recipients are entered into MyGradProgram by unit personnel and accompanying appointments are confirmed.
Travel: Units using block grant TSA awards to support applicant travel should pay from GSF (75-17XX) budgets. These budgets are established for most departments. If a GSF-RSA* budget has not been established for your unit, please contact the Office of Fellowships and Awards at gradappt@u.washington.edu or 206.543.7152. Please see the financial note related to payments from these budgets below.
* Please note: GSF budgets are sub-accounts of a Graduate School parent budget. Funds are not transferred into these sub-accounts from the parents. Units are authorized to spend based on total awards in the categories supported from these budgets (block grants supporting top-off fellowships and travel). Award summaries will be provided at least twice per year for balancing purposes. As the GSF budgets roll up to the parent at the end of the biennium, final accounting responsibility will rest with the Graduate School not the units.