The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

I applied for the program last year and got turned down at the beginning. That being said I am convinced this was either because my major isn't what SMART is looking for, or the fact that I was a freshman and my high school grades are not the best.

I am majoring in Information Technology with a concentration in Information Assurance and Security. I know that this is a high in demand major with the DoD which is the main reason I picked it. What I don't know is if this major is as important to the Smart program with there focus being on research and development.

This was a big question on these forums last year. Now that there is a large number of people on these forums which has been accepted It would be extremely helpful and reassuring to me if someone could shed some light on the subject for me.

Now that my high school grades are no longer in the picture I have a 4.0 for the first year.

There are definitely positions for you, you just have to be luck enough that someone relevant sees your application, and you must have very good recommendation letters. Your first step is to determine what facilities focus on IT and put those down as your top choices.

I know the NSA has been taking a few people, but I'm not sure they're listed as facility options.

Good Luck!

Thank You, I didn't see the NSA on the list. Do you recommend that I chose them in the other selection or just pick a different facility.

also, I don't know what they are looking for with letters of recommendation I am just choosing two computer science faculty from last year. Is there any backgrounds that SMART is looking for in the people who give me a letter of recommendation?

In terms of recs.

I applied twice to the program:
Freshman year I had my faculty adviser and a high school teacher.
I was rejected

Junior Year I had a full time professor (assistant dept. head) write me a letter
and my research adviser from research that I did that summer.
I was accepted.

At orientation I was able to read my recs.
It turns out that the asst. dept. head wrote an ok letter.
and my research adviser wrote me a good letter.

Having research/job/field experience is a great selling point.

Ok thank you for the help. i don't have a huge amount of research experience so ill just use two college professors.

I'm a freshman and my high school gpa is good, but not great. How big of a role does that play. I'm an applied physics major.