About NSO
We strive to make learning about and applying for national scholarships an enlightening experience.
National scholarships are highly competitive, prestigious awards that provide opportunities and support for many different experiences, including study abroad, graduate study (and sometimes undergraduate study also), federal employment, teaching, research, and public service.
You may have heard of some national scholarships – the Rhodes and Fulbright awards are among the best known – but also include a wide range of prestigious national scholarship programs for freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors and recent graduates.
National scholarships are looking for students (with or without financial need) who are developing strong interests and goals – academic and extracurricular – and who want to take advantage of every constructive opportunity that will help them reach their objectives. Just as each national scholarship offers a different kind of opportunity each is also looking for a different range of strengths and interests in its applicants. If you develop a strong academic record, are thoughtful about your choices and devote yourself to activities you care about, you may well find one or more scholarships opportunities of interest to you. The National Scholarships Office can help you search for awards that fit your goals well.
What do we do?
- The University of Maryland created the National Scholarships Office to provide undergraduates with the best possible information, guidance and support as they learn about and apply for national scholarships.
- We provide information through our website, through a weekly listserv announcement, through outreach to Maryland’s many Schools, College, Programs and Departments, and through individual advising sessions.
- We lead workshops for students applying for particular national scholarships, and we provide both general and personal advice on how to prepare the strongest possible scholarship application.
Need financial assistance now? The highly competitive awards supported by the National Scholarships Office tend to have long application cycles, with many months between application and award notifications. For this reason they may not be well-suited to those seeking financial assistance for regular studies at UMD in short time frames, such as from one semester to the next. For these shorter-term needs we strongly encourage students to use the Scholarship Universe resource provided by the UMD Office of Student Financial Aid.