A trusted mentor can help a student craft a strong, competitive fellowship project by providing guidance with the student's unique interests and goals in mind.

Students applying for research opportunities and graduate school programs would greatly benefit from the guidance of a mentor with expertise in their field of study. By sharing their experience and insight, mentors are able to help students craft competitive applications and plan for their futures.

When advising students pursuing research and graduate school opportunities, consider both the practical and long-term aspects of the experience. Practical considerations include methodology, skills, and the general structure of the proposed project. Long-term considerations relate to the student's academic and professional goals.

The Office of National Fellowships supports students applying to external funding opportunities. Funding is available for a wide range of activities. Each fellowship application has its own requirements and timeline.  

Certain external competitions require a University nomination and are therefore overseen by the Fellowships and Funding Office. These include prominent programs such as Rhodes, Marshall, and Goldwater. 

We're here to support the work you do. We offer information sessions, workshops, individual advising appointments, and other resources for students interested in applying for fellowships.

1. Provide specific information about the applicant based on first-hand knowledge, such as:
   • Concrete examples of stand-out work.
   • Merits of the proposed project in relation to the opportunity and the field as a whole.
   • Positive impact the fellowship would have on the student's short- or long-term goals and overall educational and professional trajectory.
   • Contextual support for the student's ability. Quantitative remarks and percentages may be useful, such as, "Top 5% of students in my 20 years of teaching."
2. Draw on the remarks of colleagues for supporting evidence or the acknowledgement of specific strengths. Letters from professors may also draw on comments from teaching assistants who may have worked more closely with the applicant.
3. Ask the student requesting the letter of recommendation to send you a current resume and relevant application materials. Have a conversation with the student about what to highlight. Understanding of the student's motivation and what they hope to achieve will be helpful as you craft your recommendation.
4. Be aware of bias in letter writing. Read helpful advice on avoiding racial and gender bias in letter of reference writing.
5. Be honest with yourself. Consider whether you can dedicate the time and energy to writing a detailed letter. If not, say no (see below.)

Think about how your letter of recommendation might help shape an interview with the fellowship committee.

On the whole, the following are not helpful: 

1. Letters that consist largely of unsupported praise and fail to provide specific examples of points mentioned or generic letters sent without regard to the specific fellowship, course of study, or project proposed.
2. Letters that may be read as implying criticism (beware of backhanded compliments) or whose criticisms might be taken to indicate stronger reservations than stated. Letters should be honest - and honest criticism, if generously presented, can enhance the force of a letter - but committees take critical comments very seriously.

There may be times when declining to write a letter is the best thing to do, such as:

1. If the student asks too close to the deadline or approaches you in a highly unprofessional manner. We advise students to ask for letters no less than three weeks in advance of a deadline.
2. If you feel that you cannot be emphatically positive in support of a student.
3. If you do not have a clear recollection of the student.
4. If you do not have the time to write a good letter or if you think that you are not the best person to write a letter. 

You can help the student to consider alternative letter writers, but agreeing to write for a student whom you cannot strongly support does not help.

1. If you are called upon to write letters for two or more applicants for the same fellowship, beware of using too much of the same language in each, especially if they will be read by the same committee.
2. Although we encourage students to provide their recommenders with helpful, detailed information, it is not ethical to request that students provide drafts of their own letters. Faculty should also beware of leaning too heavily on material provided by students, since students give much the same information to each recommender and following this too closely can lead to letters that sound too similar.
3. If you have written a letter in collaboration with another faculty member, be mindful about how you and your colleague use subsequent versions of that letter. We want to avoid situations in which a student is represented by different letters with largely identical language from two different faculty members.

Fellowships support opportunities that have the potential to be formative experiences for students. Past awardees have reported that their summer, term-time, and postgraduate activities helped them to:

• Refine their academic interests
• Clarify their career goals
• Develop their ability to think critically and overcome challenges.

Your service on a campus fellowship committee ensures that the students best prepared to make the most of fellowship opportunities are given the chance to do so and that all students gain the valuable educational experience of going through the application and interviewing process.

Fellowship committees may be asked to:

• Select fellowship awardees from an applicant pool
• Select Cornell nominees for a national competition (Fulbright, Goldwater, Marshall, Rhodes, etc.) from an applicant pool or shortlist

The fellowship competition process depends on the nature of the fellowship and the size of the applicant pool. Each fellowship committee operates differently to accommodate the variance in application numbers, deadlines, goals, and other factors.

The Office of National Fellowships will provide committee members with guidelines for evaluating applications and information about each fellowship's process, including what is expected of the committee members.

Endorsement Committees often interview applicants. These interviews:

• Help the Committee in the selection process
• Encourage applicants to refine their ideas, consider questions they have not yet explored, and practice valuable interview skills.

Different fellowships may adopt different interviewing styles. Committee members will be briefed on the specifics at the beginning of the committee meeting. For the Cornell process, committee members are encouraged to focus on behavioral interview questions.

While we recognize that committee interviews are not the same as job interviews, committee members are asked to apply the same principles to fellowship interviewing as they would a job interview.

We recommend that you avoid asking applicants about any personal characteristics that are protected by law, such as race, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, national origin, or age, unless the applicant elects to bring up the topic.

Not all applicants will be nominated or win a fellowship. At a university like Cornell, it can be challenging to choose just one or two top students from the many well-qualified and enthusiastic applicants. Keep in mind that the Committee's ultimate task is an overwhelmingly positive one. Furthermore, the process of applying and interviewing for fellowship opportunities is helpful practice for a student with many more years of applications and interviews ahead.