Stanford
Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education

RAISE Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

New FAQs will be added, so please check back for updates. Your questions, whether you are a student or staff or faculty member, will help us refine our communication. Please submit questions to raisefellows@stanford.edu so the appropriate VPGE staff member can respond and we can update this page. (updated 09.11.23)

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Eligibility & Application

What is the RAISE Doctoral Fellowship Program?

RAISE is a new university-wide fellowship to support doctoral students who are motivated to make positive contributions to their community and the world. RAISE is analogous in many ways to the Haas Center for Public Service’s Cardinal Quarter for undergraduates and Stanford Impact Labs’ Scholars in Service program for faculty. Both those units are key partners in the development of RAISE. Read more about the launch of RAISE in this Stanford News article. 

How can I get more information about RAISE?

Please email raisefellows@stanford.edu if you have questions about RAISE.

Who is eligible to apply for RAISE?

Stanford doctoral students in any discipline who are in their 1st or 2nd year of their studies are eligible to apply for RAISE to support their studies from years 2-5 or 3-6 of their PhD programs. Students must be in good academic standing, and receive an endorsement from their faculty advisor (see Application Information).

Are master’s, JD, MD, or MBA students eligible to apply?

No, the RAISE Doctoral Fellowship is only available to doctoral students (PhD, JSD, and DMA). Please see other Fellowships & Funding opportunities on the VPGE website and check with the faculty and staff in your degree program.

Are international students eligible to apply?

Yes, international students are eligible to apply. VPGE will work with students and the Bechtel International Center to address any individual issues that might arise regarding immigration regulations.

Am I eligible to apply if I am in my first or second year of the PhD, but completed a master’s degree in my program before being admitted to the PhD?  

Since you were not eligible to apply for RAISE when you were a masters student, you are eligible to apply as a 1st or 2nd year PhD student. By analogy, if you had done a masters elsewhere, and then started a PhD at Stanford, you would also be eligible to apply for RAISE in your first and second year of your PhD.  

I am a third year student and my PhD program typically takes six years. Would I still be able to apply since I will have three years left in my program?  

The RAISE Doctoral Fellowship is open to doctoral students who are currently in their 1st and 2nd year, and is not dependent on the time students anticipate they have left to complete their degree. Having clear eligibility guidelines helps us ensure fairness across many programs.

We’ve identified other opportunities that might be of interest to students who are not eligible to apply for RAISE at the bottom of this page, and you might be interested in other VPGE fellowships that are open to students in their 3rd year and beyond, such as DARE and SIGF, found on our website.

Since I am a first year doctoral student, I don’t have or don’t know my faculty advisor very well yet. Does my letter of recommendation need to come from my faculty advisor? 

No, your letter of recommendation can come from your faculty advisor, another Stanford faculty member or Stanford staff, undergraduate mentor or professor, or professional mentor/manager. The individual you ask to submit a letter of recommendation will be asked to comment on the criteria that the RAISE Fellowship Selection Committee will use to evaluate applications, listed below and on the bottom of the RAISE Application Information page.

What does the faculty endorsement entail and how does it differ from my letter of recommendation? Which faculty can submit an endorsement for me?

The endorsement is designed to ensure that your primary faculty advisor is aware of and supports your plan to participate in RAISE. This faculty member will be asked to affirm that you are making adequate progress towards your degree requirements and endorse your engagement in the RAISE Doctoral Fellowship Program’s training and experiences. You will want to talk to your primary faculty advisor to secure their endorsement before applying to RAISE. Your primary faculty advisor will then be asked to complete a checkbox that indicates their support for your participation in RAISE. If you do not yet have a primary faculty advisor, you can ask your director of graduate studies, first year advisor, academic advisor or another faculty member who guides students through the first year to endorse your RAISE application. 

Note that you can have your endorsement and your letter of recommendation be submitted by the same person, but you are not required to do so.

How will RAISE Fellows be selected?

A committee of faculty and staff leaders select RAISE Fellows. The RAISE Fellowship Selection Committee will evaluate applications using these criteria:

  • Motivation and commitment: applicant exhibits compelling motivation and commitment to public service and social impact 
  • Learning mindset: applicant exhibits curiosity and humility, especially in relation to partnership engagement
  • Diversity: applicant’s experience, background, discipline, and projects will contribute to the diversity of the fellowship program and cohort
  • Value add: the fellowship program is likely to contribute towards the applicant’s personal and professional development and doctoral degree progress 

RAISE Fellowship Program

What are the expectations for RAISE Fellows?

RAISE Fellows will participate in cohort-based training and experiential learning opportunities to support their engagement in public service and social impact with off-campus partners. Fellows will participate in a Fall retreat; intensive courses with the option to earn credit that are similar to VPGE’s Stanford Graduate Summer Institute; faculty, graduate and professional mentorship; and seminars and workshops (that might be offered for credit). These cohort-building and training components may total 40-50 hours per year. 

Key to the program is RAISE Fellows’ participation in an immersive, off-campus experiential learning partnership for one quarter over the 3-year fellowship or a longer-term partnership more integrated into their research. The time commitment of this experiential learning component will vary depending on the partnership structure.

How will the experiential learning component of RAISE be structured?

We are intentionally keeping the experiential learning component of RAISE open and flexible as we learn more about students’ interests. Also, RAISE is a three-year fellowship, but the experiential learning component is required for only one of those years, providing more flexibility. We can imagine a few possible pathways of partnership engagement include:

  • Pathway 1: Immersive, quarter-long learning exchange with a partner organization 
  • Pathway 2: Sustained, multiple-quarter collaboration with partner
  • Pathway 3: Individually designed research-to-impact partnership and project 

Is RAISE funding related to students' experiential project?

To some extent, the disbursement of RAISE fellowship support depends more on a student’s doctoral student funding package than on how a student engages in the RAISE experiential learning component. RAISE funding might replace an RA or TAship as a funding source, be combined with a partial fellowship, or allow a student to ”bank” another fellowship for a later quarter. 

By default, RAISE fellowship funding is budgeted for summer quarters during the three years of RAISE fellowship tenure. Students may request to use their RAISE support during an alternate quarter during the same academic year by emailing vpgefellowships@stanford.edu. Students may also request to move one quarter of RAISE funding to a different academic year, as long as all RAISE funding is used within the three year period of the RAISE fellowship and at least one quarter of funding is reserved for the final year of the fellowship. For requests to move funding to a different academic year, students must apply with a rationale for their reserve request and have their proposal approved. Students may not bank more than one quarter of funding. 

Students can spend the $9,000 in project funds at any point during their fellowship. 

What types of organizations do RAISE Fellows partner with? Would RAISE also support partnerships with on-campus organizations and staff? 

RAISE Fellows are encouraged to partner with community organizations, grassroots organizations, nonprofits, government agencies, and other organizations that support community engagement and social impact. On-campus organizations, centers, and institutes – and the faculty and staff associated with them – could help make connections with off-campus partners, though are not likely to be a primary partner for the RAISE experiential learning component. We encourage you to explore your interests and a variety of partnerships in your application.

What if I don’t have a known partner or pathway to propose?

Applicants are not required to have pre-existing relationships with partner organizations, nor prior experience with engaged scholarship. In the application, applicants can offer ideas for how they might engage with partners and how the fellowship could support the applicant to identify partners and pathways.

What happens if I receive the RAISE fellowship but my community partnership / project does not go according to plan?  

RAISE is designed for early stage students, so we know research plans, as well as partnerships and collaborations, may change. Such changes would not be considered a failure. And because RAISE is a three-year fellowship, students will have time to explore and develop partnerships as their ideas and scholarship develop.

Are there specific topics or issues applicants should be interested in?

No, as a pilot, RAISE is very open about the topics and issues students are interested in and which partners they may want to collaborate with. We want to learn as we go along. The RAISE program has created smaller project groups so fellows interested in similar topics and/or research methodologies can brainstorm and work alongside each other. Visit RAISE fellows to learn more about current program interests and watch student spotlights. 

How does the RAISE Doctoral Fellowship contribute towards the university’s commitment to inclusion, equity, diversity and access? 

VPGE is committed to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access in alignment with the University’s IDEAL initiative. RAISE will benefit from the expertise of other VPGE flagship programs, such as the EDGE (Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education) and DARE (Diversifying Academia, Recruiting Excellence) Doctoral Fellowship Programs, to create a supportive and diverse learning community, with a shared ambition to have positive impact in their communities and the world.  

RAISE Fellowship Funding

Does RAISE cover stipend and tuition? 

RAISE provides stipend and graduate tuition (8-10 units or TGR, per student’s enrollment status) the equivalent of 1 quarter per year for 3 years, for a total of 3 quarters of fellowship support. This funding will replace other funding the student has in any given quarter, rather than add to it. 

Does RAISE provide any other financial support?

Each RAISE Fellow will be able to access $9,000 in additional funds over the course of their fellowship to help cover expenses for travel or project expenses related to the experiential learning and partnership component of the fellowship, including support to the partner institution, as relevant. Please note that all fellowships are taxable, including the project funds. 

If I have another fellowship or am supported as an RA or TA, am I still eligible?

For most other internal and external fellowships, you may be eligible to participate in RAISE. You may be able to “bank” that fellowship during the quarters you are on RAISE, for use later in your studies. RAISE funding may replace an RAship or TAship supported by your program or faculty advisor. VPGE will work with your program staff to determine how and when to apply the RAISE funding for your support. 

Other Opportunities

If I’m not able to participate in RAISE, are there other ways I can get involved in public service or social impact work? 

If you are not eligible to apply for RAISE or are not chosen, there are other opportunities for you to engage with community-engaged research and partnerships and create positive impact through your research and scholarship. Please review the eligibility criteria for these different programs to determine the structure, focus, and timing that might work best for you: