We are holding a meeting to help students fill out your application for the IASP fellowship.

The meeting is 2pm on Jan 30 in room 150 of the computer science building to help you get through it. Please start working on the application on your own before the meeting.

What's the fellowship? Stated simply, if you want to work for a government security agency (i.e, the department of defense, including the CIA and NSA) the government will pay for your junior and/or senior year of school and give you $10K in stipend; you are required to work for such an agency for 1 year for each 1 year they give you the fellowship. There are lots of requirements: US citizen, junior or senior or graduate student starting next year, willing to go through security clearance if accepted, etc. More info below.

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The NSA has a fellowship that is available to only students at CAEIAE schools, such as UMass Amherst. This page offers information on the fellowship as a guide. Specific (and definitive) details are avialable on the NSA web page.

The fellowship offers you a "full ride" meaning, tuition, fees, books, and a $10,000 stipend. Graduate students and junior- and senior-year undergraduates are able to apply. Applicants must be U.S. citizens at the time they apply. Students at the five colleges can also apply, provided they are planning on taking the security concentration using only UMass classes (excluding the project requirement). For each year of support you receive from the fellowship, you must work for the DOD/NSA for one year. Some people view this as a guaranteed job upon graduation. There is also an expectation that you would work at the NSA during the summer, and that of course you would have go through a security clearance.

To apply, you must provide me with a paper copy of your CV, one copy of official transcripts, and exactly two letters of recommendation. One letter must be a professor currently a faculty member in the five colleges. One letter can be from another faculty (but does not have to be currently employed) or a former employer. The references must address specific questions listed on the NSA application. Finally, you must provide a competency statement of up to 3 pages addressing specific questions. The exact details are long and complicated. Please read them here as they must be followed for your application to be valid.

Note that the fellowship does not preclude you from attending graduate school; it is my understanding that deferments on the service are easily granted for that reason. In fact, once in graduate school, you can continue the fellowship. Students awarded the fellowship are evaluated each year to ensure they are making academic progress before they are renewed.

Please send all materials to the address below (no email please). They must arrive by Feb 14, 2006:

Prof. Brian Levine
attn: IASP
Dept. of Computer Science
140 Governors Drive
Amherst, MA 01003

You can hand-deliver your application to the CS main office (1st floor), note they close at about 4:30pm. Recommendation letters can be sent directly to me by writers, of if included with the application, they must be in sealed evelopes signed by the writer. I am willing to accept letters from CS Dept faculty as email, but not from faculty in other departments or schools.

Note that the NSA makes the decisions on who is awarded the scholarships. I am simply the point of contact for UMass.