Graduate Studies Doctoral Awards (Previously Top-Off Awards)

Deadline

Application are now open 2023 and will close when funds are exhausted. 

Overview

The Division of Graduate Studies has funds available to support the efforts of faculty and staff in UO graduate programs to recruit doctoral students. The goal of these funds is to help our graduate departments and programs reach their recruiting goals by increasing the resources available to reach prospective and admitted students.

Award Details

Graduate Studies Doctoral Awards are reserved for prospective doctoral students who have been offered admission but have not yet made a decision regarding their offer. These funds should be used to increase one-time funding packages for individual prospective students. 

Fund requests will be considered and awarded on a rolling basis until funds are exhausted. Multiple applications from individual departments will be considered, but there will be an attempt to maximize the impact of the awards by distributing them across as many programs as possible. 

Programs can request awards between $2,000-$4,000 for individual students in order to strengthen their funding offer. Programs can request up to $4,000 total per admission cycle, with the exception of science based programs eligible to receive Lokey Award funding. These programs in the sciences can request up to $2,000 total. 

If funding is still available later in the application cycle, the Division will put out a second call for funding requests.  

Award money will be distributed directly into the student’s account at the beginning of their term of admission, should they accept the offer of admission.

Eligibility and Criteria

Awardees must be prospective doctoral students who have been offered admission.

Application

UO employees with "Admissions - Program Staff" access can submit a request via the applicant's Slate application record. Requests will be reviewed within three business days and you will be able to log back into Slate and view the decision on the applicant's Slate record. 

For more information, please contact the Division's director of admissions.