EPFL introduces new Bachelor's excellence fellowships
Bachelor's excellence fellowships awards outstanding academic achievement and involvement in extracurricular activities. 2018 EPFL/ Murielle Gerber- CC-BY-SA 4.0
EPFL is rolling out its very first excellence fellowships for first-year Bachelor’s students. The scholarships, which aim to encourage people from diverse backgrounds to apply to the School, reward excellence in all its forms – not just academic performance. Applications close on 30 April.
EPFL has introduced new Bachelor’s excellence fellowships to enable talented students to study at the School without sacrificing their involvement in charitable work, sports, the arts or other extracurricular activities. The scholarships are open to Swiss citizens and eligible Swiss residents. They mirror EPFL’s existing Master’s excellence fellowships.
The scholarships are offered through the School’s Student Support Program, which provides financial support for student-focused initiatives such as MAKE projects and the Summer in the Lab internship program. Together, these programs aim to help students obtain a higher-level education that combines a solid grounding in science and engineering with cross-disciplinary experience and transferable skills. “We want to promote all forms of excellence and encourage students from all walks of life to apply to EPFL,” says Kathryn Hess, EPFL’s Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Outreach and the architect of the new Bachelor’s excellence fellowships program.
Rewarding well-rounded students
The scholarships grant CHF 10,000 over three years and include guaranteed housing for applicants who select this option.This year, EPFL will offer 35 fellowships. Recipients will lose their funding only if they have to repeat a year.
Anyone joining an EPFL Bachelor’s program is eligible to apply as long as they achieved a GPA of at least 5.3 out of 6 in high school or the Special Mathematics Course (CMS). Excellence is required at the academic level, but this is by far not the only selection criterion. As well as demonstrating outstanding academic achievement, applicants should also provide a summary of their maturité thesis or an equivalent project along with a cover letter, a résumé detailing their extracurricular activities, and two letters of recommendation.
We want to promote all forms of excellence and encourage students from all walks of life to apply to EPFL
Shortlisted candidates are asked to give a short presentation before a panel of EPFL faculty members. “We feel it’s important to meet applicants in person,” explains Hess. “We need to see how they express themselves, how driven they are, what their interests are and what plans they have for the future.”
Applications close on 30 April and more than 50 students have already applied. The program, which is open to candidates from across Switzerland, is part of EPFL’s drive to build an even more diverse student community.
The Bachelor's excellence fellowships are offered through the Student Support Program, thanks to generous donors who EPFL gratefully acknowledges for their support: the EPFL Student Foundation, the Domaine de Villette Foundation, the Léonard Gianadda Mécénat Foundation, the Luc & Irène Bauer Foundation and M. George Popescu, as well as all donors who wish to remain anonymous.