Instructions for Fulbright Recommenders

The Fulbright competition is a particularly complex one for our office: the Fulbright office requires both online and hard copy applications and it necessitates that our office at UVM act as the clearinghouse for what amounts to hundreds of documents from the many (over twenty this year) applicants we have for Fulbright grants. For this reason, we are trying to be very clear from the outset about the procedure for referees—it’s often the recommendations that give us trouble in the last days before the competition’s deadline of October 19. To that end, it’s very important that you follow the procedure below for submitting your recommendation letters:

1. By September 18, please email a copy of your recommendation to Lisa Schnell at Lisa.Schnell@uvm.edu. In the subject line of the email please write: “Fulbright letter for (candidate’s full name)” and attach the letter (or completed form in the case of the ETAs) as a pdf or as a Word document.

2. Although you will receive instructions from the Fulbright folks about uploading your letter to the candidate’s online Embark application, please do not do this until you hear from us in early October, after the internal UVM review of the Fulbright applications. In some cases, letters have errors or are simply not appropriate for the competition (see attached Guidelines) and we like to be able to convey this information to writers before the external deadline so that they have the opportunity to make corrections (once letters are uploaded to the Embark website, it is almost impossible to get them back for those corrections). Once the Scholarship Committee has had a chance to go over the applications, our office will get in touch with you and ask you to a) upload the letter/form to the Embark site and b) print out a hard copy of your letter/form and attach it to the form provided to you by the candidate. Please be sure to sign and date the form. We then ask you to seal the hard copy in an envelope and sign across the flap. The candidate will pick up the envelope and deliver it with the rest of her/his materials to our office by October 14th.

It is absolutely imperative that your letters come in by the dates mentioned above. The Fulbright Commission does not accept late materials, and, by definition, an incomplete application is a failed application.

NOTE: If you have already uploaded your letter, don’t worry—it will be fine, and I will have access to it. We prefer to have the letters sent to us electronically via email for the internal deadline (it’s easier for us to get materials to our committee), but we will have access to them if they are uploaded even now. If, for the ETA recommendation, it is easier for you simply to upload the form now, then please go ahead and do that.

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