Eligible Students

All interested transfer students must submit a USD application which includes a community college transcript with GPA, letters of recommendation, and an essay.  All admissions decisions to the university will be made by the Office of Admissions at USD.  Once admitted, students who meet the scholarship requirements (see below) will be contacted about the scholarship.

• Be citizens of the United States, nationals of the United States (as defined in section 101(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act), aliens admitted as refugees under section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, or aliens lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence;
• Be enrolled full time in one of the three engineering majors: Electrical, Industrial and Systems, or Mechanical.  For our program, students must indicate their intention to major in one of these disciplines on their USD application.
• Demonstrate academic potential or ability; we will determine this using information provided by the student on their USD application and S-STEM Scholar Application including GPA, etc.
• Demonstrate financial need, defined for undergraduate students by the US Department of Education rules for need-based Federal financial aid.  This will be determined by the USD Office of Financial Aid based the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) which students must submit to be eligible for our scholarship.
• Be in a natural student cohort during the scholarship period and until degree completion. 

The PI and Co-PIs will review the community college transfer applicant pool and make all scholarship award decisions.  Students must meet the NSF S-STEM eligibility criteria first and then other factors will be considered such as academic achievement, work experience, life obstacles, gender, ethnicity, and family background. We will primarily target students who would enter USD as juniors after completing the program at the community college.  This enhances their chance for success as research shows students who transferred as juniors had higher graduation rates than those who were classified as sophomores or freshmen when they transferred. The team will ensure that the pool of recipients will meet the objective of 50% representation of underrepresented groups.

The scholarship will initially be given to each student for one academic year.  Renewal for the next two years will be contingent on the student remaining in good academic standing in an engineering major at USD (minimum GPA of 2.0)  Each year, the project team will review the academic progress of each S-STEM Scholar to determine if they will continue receiving the scholarship.  Failure to do so will result in the student being placed on scholarship probation.