The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

Clicking the accept button as you described only tells SMART you are intending to pursue the program. After that you still do a site visit for a few days (not sure how this will work with COVID), and have a chance to back out if you want to at that time. In any case, you wouldn't be committed to the service commitment anyway until they pay your tuition and stipends in the fall. Dropping the program at any point before that wouldn't result in ant commitments or debt on your end. Hope this helps.

From what I recall, the initial "acceptance" of the SMART Award is not the contractually binding decision. SMART wants you to visit your SF this summer, and then you report back to them after, and then [i]at that point[/i] you sign the Service Agreement which commits you to the program and the respective service agreement.

This is at least how I remember it from a few years back, but maybe something changed beyond my knowledge, or perhaps my memory is not perfect. I bet other replies will back this up, though. And if you want even more assurance, you can always call the SMART Program office and speak to someone to clarify any confusion.

I was awarded with a SMART scholarship and want to know about the timing of accepting the scholarship offer and doing the virtual site visit. In the handbook, I read that I can accept the offer and change my mind up until August 1, the beginning of Phase 1.

If I press accept on the "My SMART Award" tab in the Awardee Portal right now, am I committed to the service commitment, or is there another opportunity to officially commit after the on-site visit?

Thank you!