School of Graduate Studies/GradFund

School of Graduate Students  

Promotion of Academic Excellence Program 

Request for the Provision of Tuition and/or Fellows Health Insurance from the Office of the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies 

The School of Graduate Studies in its commitment to supporting graduate student success provides access to fellows' health insurance and provision of tuition remission to doctoral students who secure fellowship support.  

Fellows's Health Insurance Enrollment and Tuition Remission for Externally Funded Fellows 

To incentivize and support graduate student success, the School of Graduate Studies will provide doctoral students who secure nationally or internationally competitive fellowships with the minimum number of tuition credits required each semester they are on the fellowship.  

Each year, Rutgers University sponsors a Student Health Insurance Plan with UnitedHealthcare Student Resources (UHCSR) to provide health insurance to doctoral students who are on internal or external fellowship support.  

The School of Graduate Studies manages student enrollment in collaboration with the graduate programs. SGS doctoral programs based in the NB/P Chancellor area may request enrollment of their fellows through this portal.  

The effective enrollment date is September 1, annually.  

Requests for the tuition benefit and/or health insurance enrollment should be submitted to the portal by graduate program staff and should include copies of the fellowship award documents. If additional information is needed, the request will be sent through the portal. The decision on whether tuition will be provided will also be communicated to the program through the portal.  

Tuition Remission to Support Doctoral Degree Completion 

To support and incentivize graduate student success, graduate programs may request up to 3 credits of tuition support for unfunded doctoral students who are in the final year of their program of study. We recognize that there may be times when a student has expended their funding package, and the cost of tuition is a barrier to timely completion of their PhD. SGS will receive and review requests from graduate program staff for the one semester provision of up to 3 credits of tuition to help a student finish their degree.  

Requests for the tuition benefit should be submitted to the portal by graduate program staff and should include a written request from the graduate program director that explains the need for the tuition and the plan and timetable for the student to complete their degree. A clear and compelling case should be made for why the tuition is needed including an explanation for why the tuition cannot be covered by the graduate program or the school in which the program resides. A small percentage of these requests can be granted each year. 

Requests may be submitted through the SGS Submittable Portal and will be reviewed weekly: https://rutgersnewbrunswick.submittable.com/submit/7aa7988c-31b0-419b-a3d2-7f05bfa43f30/request-for-the-provision-of-tuition-and-or-fellows-health-insurance-from-the-off 

Questions regarding the program should be directed to Senior Associate Dean Teresa Delcorso-Ellmann at sgs.sadean@grad.rutgers.edu. 

Call for Applications: GradFund Peer Mentor - Hourly - June-December 2026

Deadline to apply: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until May 21, 2026.  The application portal closes on May 21, 2026. GradFund is currently accepting applications for a Peer Mentor. The Appointment will start as early as June 15, 2026 and will end on December 15, 2026.      

GradFund assists graduate students with navigating the process of applying for externally funded fellowships and grants. This position will be of special interest to graduate students who would like to develop their mentoring and advising skills for a tenure- track career and those who want to explore a career path in higher education administration or other career paths beyond the tenure track. Fellowship Advisors have the following five key areas of responsibility under the supervision of the Assistant Dean for Graduate Student External Support:      

1. Conduct confidential fellowship and grant pre-application and application review meetings.
2. Present GradFund programs and workshops.
3. Perform outreach to graduate programs and students.
4. Maintain and update records in the GradFund Award database
5. Assist with special projects

This is an hourly appointment for on-campus work. The hourly rate is $25/hour for up to 20 hours of work/week. The Appointment will start as early as June 15, 2026 no later than July 1, 2026 and will end on December 15, 2026.  

 Eligibility The applicant must be a doctoral student in the School of Graduate Studies (school 16) who has experience applying for external grants or fellowships as a graduate student and who will be a graduate student for the entire appointment period (June 2026 to December 2026.)

          An application should be submitted through the GradFund/SGS Submittable application portal. Application Components 

1. A letter of interest, explaining your qualifications to fill the GradFund Peer position, including past mentoring experiences you may have. In a brief narrative, summarize your computer skills and respond to the following questions:

• What is your experience applying for external funding?
• How would you use these experiences as a Peer Mentor?
• What are your teaching and mentoring experiences and how do you see utilizing these experiences and skills in this position?
• What is your dissertation research? (Limit response to one paragraph, written for the non-specialist)
• What experience do you have doing interdisciplinary work?
• How does this or any other related experience give evidence of your ability to work and provide mentorship across disciplines? 
• What are your career goals and how will being a GradFund Peer Mentor help you to develop skills to advance these goals?

2. A copy of your current CV   

3. A copy of a recent external grant or fellowship application, written as a graduate student   

4. A copy of your unofficial graduate transcripts   

Questions about the GradFund Peer Mentor position should be addressed to Senior Associate Dean Teresa Delcorso-Ellmann at teresa.delcorso@rutgers.edu

APPLICATION CHECKLIST

Please include all of the following with your application:

● This application form with all fields completed

● Short writing sample between 1250-2000 words, typed and double-spaced.
This should be a paper that will help the selection committee assess your academic and philosophical ability. Typically, but not necessarily, this will be a paper that was written for a college course. Philosophy papers are preferable, but a paper on a topic from any discipline will work if no suitable philosophy paper is available. The most effective paper to submit will be the one which best exhibits your philosophical or academic ability.

● Personal Essay and explanation of why your background and experiences will help foster greater diversity in philosophy

● 2 letters of recommendation

● Unofficial transcript

Applicants should include a transcript of all their college coursework. Your overall GPA and current enrollment status should be clearly indicated somewhere - if it is not, please also include some verification of your current enrollment status. If you have been to more than one institution, please include transcripts from all institutions. These do not need to be official transcripts sent from your institution's registrar. They can be scans of transcripts that you already have or screenshots of any online transcript that you can access.