Indian Society At Tufts

The Award: The recently held ISAT Alumni Meet saw the conception of the idea of an ISAT scholarship for deserving Indian graduate students at Tufts. The idea was inspired by generous contributions from ISAT alumni and Tufts faculty. As students who form ISAT, we thought it was an ideal way to help Indian graduate students at Tufts realize their potential.

Eligibility: The scholarship would be both merit and need based. Only students who possess an Indian passport and who have completed not less than 3 years of undergraduate education in India after high school are eligible for the award. The awards which will vary between $1000-$3000 per candidate (depending on the funds available) will be awarded to not more than 2 students each year.
The scholarships will be awarded in the spring of each year, starting from Spring 2004. Students must have completed at least one semester at Tufts to be eligible for the award and should have taken at least 2 courses in that semester.

Criteria for selection of Candidates: The following criteria have been set up to judge candidates.
i. Percentage deficit of fees that the student needs to pay - 0.5 weightage.
ii. GPA at Tufts - 0.4 weightage. Students must have a GPA above 3.00 to qualify. (GPA-3.00)*0.4
iii. A letter of recommendation from the academic advisor/ Professor with whom the student wants to work with- 0.05 weightage.
iv. Resume - 0.05 weightage.

Application: Students who are interested in applying for the scholarship can do so by using the "ISAT Scholarship Application Form" available online at http://ase.tufts.edu/isat/ .
The form has to be turned in to the member who represents ISAT in the awards committee. All applications must be turned in by January 7th of each year.

Awards Committee: It has been proposed that an awards committee shall be responsible for picking the most deserving candidates based on the above criteria. The proposed committee will consist of four permanent members -2 alumni members and 2-Tufts faculty. One ISAT member shall also be part of the committee. Alumni who donate more than $1000 will be honorary members of the committee. The awards committee will have a chance to seek the opinion of faculty members from the various departments that the selected applicants belong to.

Help from the Graduate School: The graduate school is helping us by providing a database of all Tufts Indian alumni.

Goal: We currently have $1250 toward the award but our target is around $6000.