Acceptance of Financial Assistance and Recipient Obligations
Congratulations on being offered a Georgetown University Graduate School merit based financial aid award. The primary purpose of these offers of financial support is to assist graduate students in the pursuit of their academic careers and the timely completion of their Graduate School degrees. Ph.D. students who matriculated in or after Fall semester 2002 generally are provided up to five-years of continuous support subject to normal progress toward that degree. Ph.D. students who matriculated prior to Fall semester 2002, and students pursuing other degrees, regardless of their date of matriculation, are provided awards on a semester-to-semester or year-to-year basis. These awards may be renewed, subject to departmental recommendation and continued satisfactory progress toward the Graduate School degree, up to the maximum time limits for support set by each department and by the Graduate School. Reviews of all merit based financial aid awards are conducted annually.
This award carries with it several obligations, which are described below. Please read this entire memorandum carefully. After doing so, if you are willing to assume these obligations, complete the enclosed "Formal Acceptance of Financial Assistance and Recipient Obligations" form, printed on the back of the blue copy of your award letter, and return it to the Graduate School by the deadline date indicated in your award letter; you may wish to keep a photocopy of the acceptance form for your records. If the acceptance form is not received by the Graduate School on or before the deadline date, the offer of award will be rescinded. If you accept the award, but fail to comply with the obligations described below, the award will be canceled.
Information on any changes in the procedures or requirements associated with merit based Graduate School financial aid awards will be distributed to all graduate departments and programs and will be posted on the Graduate School’s website (http://grad.georgetown.edu/). It is your responsibility to remain aware of any changes in these policies and procedures. If you have any questions, please contact Ms. Joyce Gray in the Graduate School's office, 302 ICC. Her phone number is (202) 687-7753.
Graduate School Assistantship stipends are provided in return for service in teaching, in research, or in other matters of an academic nature; awardees will be appointed as a Teaching Assistant, Teaching Associate, Research Assistant, or Academic Administrative Assistant respectively. The duties associated with Teaching Assistant, Teaching Associate, and Research Assistant appointments will occupy no more than 15 hours per week.
The duties associated with an Academic Administrative Assistant appointment are generally less than 15 hours per week. Consequently, Academic Administrative Assistant stipends are generally smaller, based on a per hour rate of compensation. The support may also be less than that provided to Teaching Assistants, Teaching Associates, or Research Assistants. The details of Academic Administrative Assistant awards vary from program to program, but are specified in each awardees’ award letter.
Stipend payments are provided on the last working day of each month during the academic year. Unless otherwise noted in your award letter, you will receive a total of eight (8) stipend payments during the year, from September through April. Under current tax law, these payments are considered compensation for services, and are therefore reported each year by the University to both the recipient and to the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as taxable income on Form W-2. All Graduate School Assistantship recipients are paid through the University’s payroll system and must therefore have a valid U.S. Social Security number. Individuals who do not have a U.S. Social Security number must apply for one through any Social Security Administration office; international students must apply after they have entered the United States.
Final approval of a Graduate School Assistantship award is contingent upon completion of all necessary tax forms, including forms I-9 ("Employment Eligibility Verification") and W-4 ("Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate"). Information on completing these forms will be available at the beginning of the semester in which your appointment starts. International students must complete additional forms; please see the section, “Important Tax and Immigration Information for International Students,” below.
Most Graduate Assistantship awards will also provide a scholarship component. See the following section on "Graduate School Scholarships" for general policies regarding these awards.
As recipient of a Graduate School Assistantship, you must be enrolled as a full-time student and you must make satisfactory progress toward a Graduate School degree, as determined by your academic department and the Graduate School. Failure to maintain satisfactory degree progress, failure to provide assigned services, or violations of academic integrity will result in termination of the stipend portion of the Graduate School Assistantship award and retroactive revocation of the entire scholarship component of the award for the current semester.
Any unused portion of a stipend or scholarship award will revert back to the Graduate School to support other students.
Graduate School Scholarship awards cover only tuition charges for courses to be applied toward your degree program. They do not cover academic fees or other fees (e.g., the Yates Field House fee or the Health Insurance fee), and do not cover tuition for courses that will not be applied toward your degree program.
Scholarship recipients are not required to perform services as a condition of the scholarship award. If the scholarship portion of your award does carry a service obligation, you must contact the Graduate School to arrange for that portion of the award to be disbursed as a stipend, with appropriate tax withholding. International students who receive Graduate School Scholarship awards may have additional tax obligations; please see the section, “Important Tax and Immigration Information for International Students,” below.
As recipient of a Graduate School Scholarship, you must make satisfactory progress toward a Graduate School degree, as determined by your academic department and the Graduate School. Failure to maintain satisfactory degree progress or violations of academic integrity will result in termination of the Graduate School Scholarship award and retroactive revocation of the entire scholarship for the current semester.
Graduate School Scholarship awards are usually divided between semesters of the academic year. Unused portions of a scholarship provided for Fall semester can be applied toward Spring semester, with the explicit approval of your academic department and the Graduate School. Unused portions of a Spring semester scholarship cannot, however, be applied toward either past or future semesters, but will revert back to the Graduate School to support other students. This stipulation applies both to scholarship only awards and to the scholarship component of an assistantship or fellowship award.
By way of example, suppose you were awarded 12 credits of scholarship support for the Fall semester and no scholarship support for the Spring semester. If you register for only 9 credits in the Fall semester, you may request through your academic department that the remaining 3 credits of scholarship support be carried over to the Spring semester. If approved by both your department and the Graduate School, the 3 credits of scholarship will be credited to your account for Spring semester. But if you are awarded 12 credits of scholarship for the Spring semester and register for only 9 credits, the 3 credits of unused scholarship will revert back to the Graduate School; you will not be permitted to apply it to either the preceding Fall semester or the following Fall semester.
Graduate School Fellowship stipends are provided without a work obligation. Students may be appointed to a Graduate School Fellowship for a full academic year (September through April), or for a single semester; those holding a Graduate School Fellowship appointment in one semester of an academic year may be appointed to a Graduate School Assistantship in the other. (Recipients of the special four year Georgetown University Fellowship awards should see the following section for information regarding their appointments.)
Fellowship payments are provided on the last working day of each month during the academic year. Unless otherwise noted in your award letter, you will receive a total of eight (8) stipend payments during the year, from September through April. Unlike Assistantship stipends, which are paid through the University's payroll system, Fellowship stipends for recipients who are U.S. citizens will not be reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by the University. Therefore, U.S. recipients generally will be required to report the amount of the award to the IRS and may be required to make quarterly tax payments. Recipients who are not U.S. citizens may have taxes withheld and the amount of the award may be reported to the IRS. If deemed reportable, they will also be required to obtain either a U.S. Social Security Number or IRS Individual Taxpayer ID number, if they have not already done so. Please see the section, “Important Tax and Immigration Information for International Students,” below. Most Graduate Fellowships awards will also provide a scholarship component. See the preceding section on "Graduate School Scholarships" for general policies regarding these awards.
As recipient of a Graduate School Fellowship, you must be enrolled as a full-time student and you must make satisfactory progress toward a Graduate School degree, as determined by your academic department and the Graduate School. Failure to maintain satisfactory degree progress or violations of academic integrity will result in termination of the Graduate School Scholarship award and retroactive revocation of the entire scholarship for the current semester.
Any unused portion of a stipend or scholarship award will revert back to the Graduate School to support other students.
A limited number of newly admitted Ph.D. students will be awarded Georgetown University Fellowships. For University Fellowship recipients who matriculated prior to the Fall 2007 semester, each year's award will include an eight month stipend which is $3,000 greater than the standard Graduate School stipend, plus full scholarship support. For University Fellowship recipients matriculating in the Fall 2007 semester or afterward, the annual University Fellowship award will be a twelve month long standard Graduate School stipend, lasting through the Fall, Spring, and Summer terms, plus full scholarship support during the academic year.
University Fellows matriculating prior to the Fall 2007 semester will have no work obligation during two of their five years of support; during the other three years, they will have teaching and/or research obligations, as determined by their individual departments. The preferred sequence of work/no work semesters will vary among departments, in accord with their different pedagogical structures. University Fellowship recipients matriculating in the Fall 2007 semester or afterward will have work obligations during the fall and spring semester of each academic year; they will have no work obligation over the summer term. During those semesters in which they do have a work obligation, University Fellows will be appointed to the appropriate category of Graduate School Assistantship, and will receive their stipend in monthly payments through the University's payroll system, as described in the section, "Graduate School Assistantship Awards," above.
As recipient of a Georgetown University Fellowship, you must be enrolled as a full-time student and you must make satisfactory progress toward the Ph.D., as determined by your academic department and the Graduate School. Failure to maintain satisfactory degree progress or violations of academic integrity will result in termination of the Graduate School Scholarship award and retroactive revocation of the entire scholarship for the current semester.
Any unused portion of a stipend or scholarship award will revert back to the Graduate School to support other students.
All graduate students who are enrolled full-time are required to have health insurance. A charge for the Georgetown University sponsored plan will AUTOMATICALLY be charged to the student account of those graduate students who are enrolled for 8 or more credits; those who are enrolled in Thesis Research are eligible to apply for such coverage. Graduate students who are already insured under another plan and whose coverage will continue for the entire school year must WAIVE the University insurance in order to have the charge removed from their student account.
Doctoral students who are awarded an assistantship or fellowship that provides a full stipend will have the fee for the Georgetown University sponsored plan paid by the Graduate School. In order to be eligible, during the Fall and/or Spring semester the student must hold a full-stipend Graduate School Assistantship (one in which the student performs 15 hours or more of service per week) or hold a non-service fellowship.
The funds provided by the Graduate School may ONLY be used to pay the fee assessed for the Georgetown University sponsored student health insurance plan. These funds may not be used for any other purpose, including the purchase of other insurance coverage. If a student waives the Georgetown University sponsored plan, the Graduate School funds will be withdrawn from the student's account.
Under the Georgetown University sponsored health insurance plan, covered students have the option of purchasing dependent coverage. The funds provided by the Graduate School, however, will be limited to the cost for coverage of the eligible student alone. Under no conditions will the Graduate School support the cost of health insurance coverage for the student's dependents or family.
All Graduate School Assistantship, Scholarship, and Fellowship recipients should take special note of the policies regarding withdrawal from courses. As noted above, scholarship awards cover tuition charges only for courses to be applied to a degree program. Because courses from which you withdraw cannot be applied to your degree program, your scholarship award will not cover the tuition due for such courses.
No tuition is assessed for courses from which a student withdraws through the Add/Drop period, but prorated tuition is assessed for any course dropped after the end of the Add/Drop period. If you withdraw from any course after the Add/Drop period, you will be held responsible for the full amount of prorated tuition due for that course, according to the schedule printed in the Graduate School Catalogue in effect at the time of the withdrawal; scholarship support for the courses for which you remain registered will not be affected. The scholarship funds that had covered the dropped course(s) will revert back to the Graduate School to support other students.
International students who receive any type of Graduate School Assistantship, Scholarship, or Fellowship award will be required to complete a special set of tax forms before their award can be processed. Some forms need only to be completed once, while others may need to be updated annually. Recipients are asked to contact the Tax Department for their specific requirements. In addition, if they receive an assistantship stipend they will be required to have a valid United States Social Security Number (SSN). Any individual for whom the University is required to report taxable or non-taxable income to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will be required to have a valid United States identification number. This number can be either a valid SSN or an IRS Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). The ITIN is suitable only for those individuals who do not already have a SSN and do not have work authorization, therefore precluding them from obtaining a valid SSN. Further information and forms are available from Shannal Sullivan of the University’s Tax Department located at 2121 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 400. Her telephone number is (202) 687-1158.
International students should note that in some cases a portion of or the entire amount of any award may be subject to mandatory Federal, State, and Employment tax withholding. In addition, international students must hold a visa status that permits them to receive the award. Students holding a valid F-1 or J-1 status sponsored by Georgetown University are eligible for any of the awards offered by the Graduate School. For international students who will not be in a GU-sponsored F-1 or J-1 status, it is important that you contact the Office of International Programs to confirm that you will be eligible to receive the award you have been offered. Awards will not be given to students who are ineligible based on visa status. The office is located on the 2nd floor of Poulton Hall; the telephone number is (202) 687–5867.
In order to assure that you have received this information and that you understand your obligations as a recipient of a Graduate School Assistantship, Scholarship, or Fellowship, you must return to the Graduate School the signed "Formal Acceptance of Financial Assistance and Recipient Obligations" form, printed on the back of the blue copy of your award letter. Your award cannot be processed until we have received this signed acceptance form.
You may contact the Office of Student Financial Services for more information about financing your education. The staff can assist you with various options of financial aid including Federal Financial Aid, Employment Programs, and Supplemental Loans.
Georgetown University
Office of Student Financial Services
G 19 Healy Hall
Washington, D.C. 20057
(202) 687 4547
Further information can also be found at their website http://www8.georgetown.edu/admin/provost/osfs/grmenu.htm
For more information about Georgetown University’s monthly payment plan, you may contact the Office of Student Accounts at (202) 687-4092.
Copyright 2007, Georgetown University
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