Start Looking for Fellowships
Whatever your interest or research area, there’s a scholarship, grant, or fellowship you can apply to! It can be overwhelming to search for what’s right for you and your research. The Graduate Division can help in directing you to potential funding opportunities.
Fellowships Databases
Many funding opportunities are available to graduate students at Berkeley. We’ve compiled some databases to help you get started.
The Graduate Division maintains a limited list of fellowships, both for funding within Berkeley and beyond. Visit our fellowships page for more information.
- University of California, Berkeley Scholarship Connection (opens in a new tab)
- FinAid.org (opens in a new tab)
- National Coveted College Scholarships (opens in a new tab)
- GRAPES, UCLA’s Graduate and Postdoctoral Support Database (opens in a new tab)
- FastWeb.com’s Graduate Scholarships (opens in a new tab)
- Petersons’ Graduate Scholarship Search Engine (opens in a new tab)
- MSU’s Graduate Scholarships, Fellowships and Loans (opens in a new tab)
- StudentScholarshipSearch.com’s Graduate School Scholarships (opens in a new tab)
- Pivot Funding Opportunities Database (opens in a new tab)
- Profellow (opens in a new tab)
- 60+ College Scholarships for Minority Students (opens in a new tab)
- Hispanic Scholarship Fund (opens in a new tab)
- 100 Minority Scholarship Gateway List (opens in a new tab)
- American Indian Science and Engineering Society (opens in a new tab)
- American Association of University Women (opens in a new tab)
- Financial Aid & Scholarships for Minority Students (opens in a new tab)
- ETSU’s International Student Scholarships (opens in a new tab)
- MIT’s Fellowships for International Students (opens in a new tab)
- Fulbright Programs (opens in a new tab)
- Social Science Research Council’s Fellowships and Prizes (opens in a new tab)
- InternationalScholarships.com (opens in a new tab)
- Mobility International USA’s Funding (opens in a new tab)
- International Scholarships for Students from Developing Countries (opens in a new tab)
- International Financial Aid and Scholarship Search (opens in a new tab)
- Boren Fellowships for International Study (opens in a new tab)
A good overall reference book is The Annual Register of Grant Support (opens in a new tab).
Professional associations for a variety of disciplines, such as the American Psychology Association (opens in a new tab) and American Meteorological Society (opens in a new tab), for example, list on their websites grants and fellowships.
Postdoc Funding Database with opportunities across a range of STEM disciplines, funded by NSF, NASA, NIH, and university and research labs across the country. Also includes tips on applying, interviewing, and negotiating a postdoctoral position. Pathways to Science Portal (opens in a new tab).
What you should know before you start applying
What to look for?
- The full ride: multi-year packages that cover educational and living expense for two to six years. These can be:
- Institutional: specific to a university, usually part of an admissions offer; or
- Portable: able to be taken to the university of your choice
- Small grants for specific purposes, such as travel, language study, conference attendance, summer research, or professional development.
- One-year fellowships for specific phases of graduate study, such as for research, an internship or mentorship, or dissertation writing.
Tips for being successful:
- Be on time! Applying by the stated deadline is essential. Individuals who don’t meet deadlines reduce their chances of obtaining funding by 100 percent.
- Plan ahead! The average turnaround time from application to acceptance runs six to nine months.
- Don’t stop applying! Be persistent. Your chance of receiving a fellowship or grant will increase the more you continue to apply. The process of applying will also improve your grant-writing skills.