The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

I just found this in the participant handbook:

SSPPs who applied for and received a SMART award in the years 2008 through 2011 may additionally request an increase in the stipend rate for additional qualifications earned by passing qualifying examinations or equivalent requirements for acceptance as a permanent Ph.D. candidate.

Apparently, there used to be an extra amount for those Ph.D awardees who became "offcial" PhD candidates. That is the source of the confusion.

Thanks. That does clear it up. I started grad school as PhD student and have passed the qual and finished my master's, so I suppose I will be at the 38k. Still much better than RA money... Thanks again for your response.

I graduated in the fall as a PhD on SMART and can help clear this up. SMART doesn't spell this out very well unfortunately. The most you can get as a stipend is as is stated on the site ($38K). In addition you get the misc stipend ($1K) and insurance voucher ($1.2K or whatever it is this year), same as everyone else.

What you are referring to is when someone who is a masters student passes a qual or proposal and then matriculates into a PhD program in the same school. Some programs at certain schools will require these milestones before they can technically be billed as a PhD student or candidate (even if they are on track to do so beforehand), and in other cases some students enter as masters students, get SMART, and decide to go further. In these cases, the stipend increase they are referring to is from a masters stipend to the top level PhD stipend.

If you can and have entered a program as a PhD student from the start and have demonstrated good progress you can qualify for the top stipend from the get-go, even without having to reach any major programmatic milestones.

Hello everyone. I just wanted to ask those from previous cohorts about the stipend for a PhD student. I understand that the high level stated on the website is $38k. However, in a couple places I have seen mention of an increase for PhD students who have passed some point in their education - which I assume to be either passing the quals or the comprehensive exam/dissertation proposal. I understand that the details can change from year to year, but can anyone from recent cohorts say whether this is still the case, and if so, what the educational milestone is?