Application Faqs

Eligible applicants for Hertz Fellowships must be students of the applied physical, biological and engineering sciences who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States of America, and who are willing to morally commit to make their skills available to the United States in time of national emergency (see our Moral Commitment section http://www.hertzfoundation.org/dx/fellowships/commitment.aspx).

Eligible applicants for Hertz Fellowships must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States of America.

Yes, you are still eligible to apply as a first year grad student. Please refer to the application for specifics on the tenable school choice.

If your current graduate school is not presently a Hertz tenable school, there is a point in the application where you will be asked to indicate what this school offers that is not offered by any of the tenable schools. See the question on tenable schools for details on how your school may subsequently become tenable.

If your Masters is in a different field you can apply as a first year graduate student in this field. If it is in the same field, then it will apply. You can confirm this with your graduate school's department —if they consider you a first year grad student, list yourself that way if you choose to apply this year. For the purposes of the Hertz application, graduate level work performed before the award of a BS or BA degree is not counted toward years of graduate work.

We generally do not award fellowships to students who are already beyond their first year of graduate study except in cases of "exceptional leverage." (Leverage meaning what difference the award of the Hertz Fellowship is likely to make in the kind, quality, and/or personal creativity of the student's graduate research.)

If your current or preferred graduate school is not presently a Hertz tenable school, there is a point in the application where you will be asked to indicate what this school offers that is not offered by any of the tenable schools.

If you are awarded a Hertz Fellowship, you may then petition the Foundation to have your desired school added to the list of tenable schools. The criteria considered by the Foundation in evaluating such a petition include whether:

At the time the award is offered, you will have the opportunity to make a final decision on the school you'd like to attend. It is also possible to transfer your Hertz Fellowship to a different tenable school during the course of your graduate work if this becomes desirable. At that time, you may also petition for your desired school to become tenable if it is not already on the Tenable School list. (See the answer to the above question for the procedure involved.) 

The best way to attach multiple documents is to make them into one pdf document and upload it that way. If you are not able to do that, or if the documents becomes too large to upload, you can either mail it in to the address above, or email to askhertz@hertzfoundation.org.

No. You can enter as much information as you like for the essays. You will not be able to see the entire essay in preview, but it will be uploaded to Hertz.

The personal essay is your choice on the topic suggested—it is intentionally open-ended.

We expect that each of your recommenders will use our format to submit their information, answering our specific questions. We can accept any other letters as supplemental information only. Please register your four references using the system we have provided.

Only 4 recommenders can be submitted electronically. If you have additional recommenders that would like to submit a paper application, please contact us at the Foundation and we can send a PDF form to the recommender.

We will continue to accept recommendations after the deadline. If we have not received all of your recommendations by the time the files are reviewed, your application will still be considered, although it is in your best interest to have all of them in. If your recommender is not able to submit, you could remove one and select a different one through Embark.

Yes, every Fellowship applicant is required to take at least the aptitude portion of the Graduate Record Examination and to have the results sent to the Foundation. Our Foundation ID is #4366. We accept subject test scores, but do not require them.

We will continue to accept GREs after the deadline. Initial interview decisions will be made in mid-November. If we have not received your GRE’s by then, your file will be reviewed without those scores.

Yes, please enter the score information you receive at the time of testing and send the actual score(s) to the Foundation when you receive them:

Fannie and John Hertz Foundation
2300 First Street, Suite 250
Livermore, CA 94550

Current MD/PhD students may submit their MCAT scores in place of GRE scores if they never took the GRE.

Unless you have taken additional tests, we have your previous scores and you do not need to resend them.

If you are unable to get an official copy from ETS, please mail a copy of your personal documents to the Foundation's office:

Fannie and John Hertz Foundation
2300 First Street, Suite 250
Livermore, CA 94550

The new application is available on the web site at the end of August. You can create an account log-in name and password to view the old application, but any additional information you input will not be ported over when the new application becomes available. It would be better to wait and fill in the information on the new application.

You should contact Embark. You can contact them through the help link on the top right corner of your application.

Interviewees will be selected by mid-November. You should hear from the Foundation regarding your status before the end of the year.

Fannie and John Hertz Foundation
2300 First Street, Suite 250
Livermore, CA 94550

Transcripts will be accepted after the application deadline. Enter your GPA and it will be verified when your transcripts are received. You do want to get them in as soon as possible, as your application will not be considered complete until they are received, although it will still be reviewed.

You do not need to send transcripts unless you have grades posted. Your undergraduate transcripts are all that's required in your case.

Each program defines their upper division courses somewhat differently, so please detail those courses you feel are upper-division. With regard to cross-discipline classes, use your best judgment.

Yes, it is certainly possible. If you are awarded both the Fulbright and the Hertz, the Hertz Foundation will work with you on deferring support.

Yes, you should apply now and if you are awarded a Hertz Fellowship, we will work with you on deferring and/or coordinating support.

You do not need to turn it down. In most cases, we are able to coordinate with institutions such as NSF, NIH, NDSEG and others.  We can also work with you to defer your fellowship if you are awarded scholarships such as a Rhodes, Churchill or Marshall Scholarships.