AAUW International Fellowships

Who can apply

Woman who is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, pursuing full-time graduate study in a STEM field in the United States
At least one academic degree equivalent to a U.S. bachelor's degree, with a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale for the highest degree earned
Admitted or enrolled in a first master's or academic/professional doctorate at the time of application; may apply for only one degree type in a single specific field
Previous AAUW fellowship or grant recipients are not eligible to apply again
Medicine counts as a STEM field for this fellowship; eligibility is based on your degree programme's classification, not your specific research topic
Two letters of recommendation are required, from recommenders using a professional email address; the application is not complete until both are submitted
Generative AI tools may be used to help prepare application narratives, but only as an assistive resource; narratives should reflect the applicant's own authentic voice and original work

Who this is actually for

This fellowship narrowed its scope at some point to STEM fields only, so a strong non-STEM application will not be considered here regardless of merit; check the field-of-study rules carefully before investing time in an application outside science, technology, engineering or mathematics. Medicine counts as STEM here, and AAUW checks a programme against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s STEM Designated Degree Program List if you are unsure. The GPA bar is specific and enforced: a minimum cumulative 3.5 on a 4.0 scale for the highest degree you hold, not an average across all degrees. For the wider field of women-focused STEM funding, see the roundup of scholarships for women in STEM.

The stipend scales with degree level, $20,000 for a master’s or professional degree and $25,000 for a doctorate, split into two equal payments at the start and midpoint of the fellowship term. You need to already be admitted or enrolled in your first master’s or doctoral programme at the time you apply, and you can only apply for one degree type in one specific field, so this is not a fellowship to use while still choosing between programmes.

Previous AAUW fellowship or grant recipients cannot apply again, which is worth knowing if you have received AAUW funding before in any form. A small number of awards exist for study outside the United States, but only under limited conditions such as a U.S. travel ban affecting the applicant or Graduate Women International membership, so most applicants should plan around full-time study in the U.S.

A holistic selection process, not a GPA ranking

The programme has been running since 1917, and its current selection process is explicitly holistic rather than a simple GPA ranking. Reviewers weigh demonstrated academic or scholarly excellence against the originality and potential contribution of your proposed research or applied-practice project, and against how feasible that plan actually is. They also weigh institutional context: preference may go to applicants studying at R2 universities or institutions with more limited research resources, and reviewers are told to consider what opportunities and resources were actually available to each applicant rather than judge everyone against the same baseline. Being a first-generation college graduate, coming from or currently leading a single-parent household, or carrying caregiving responsibility for a child or dependent adult are also named as factors reviewers weigh, not disqualifying details to hide.

The application mechanics: references, programme choice, and AI

Two letters of recommendation are required from people who know your academic or professional work directly, submitted through a personalized link the application system sends once you register them, so do it early and follow up yourself since AAUW holds you responsible for reminding your recommenders of the deadline. You may list up to five programmes or institutions in a single application, but if you are awarded a fellowship you must enrol in one of the ones you listed; switching to a different programme or institution after the fact disqualifies you from the award. On the writing itself, AAUW’s policy is more permissive than some funders: generative AI tools may be used to help prepare your application narrative, provided the result still reflects your own authentic voice and original work rather than substituting for it. That is a real difference worth knowing if you are applying to several scholarships at once, since some funders, including the Lester B. Pearson International Student Scholarships, prohibit generative AI outright.

What you actually take home after tax

Budget for tax withholding, since the headline stipend is not what lands in your account. In most cases AAUW withholds tax directly from the stipend at a rate of either 14% or 30%, depending on your tax status and any relevant treaty between the United States and your country. AAUW provides general guidance but is explicit that it does not give tax advice and recommends recipients consult a tax professional to work out their own situation, including with their own country’s tax authority if they remain liable there too. The general mechanics of how scholarship income gets taxed, in the US and elsewhere, are covered in the guide to scholarship taxation.