Presidential Enhanced Assistantships are awarded to exceptional entering graduate students who enroll full time in a doctoral degree program at Florida International University. The Presidential Assistantships enhance the standard assistantships provided by the unit by $5,000 to $15,000. The level of enhancement awarded at the time of entry in the program will be continued for four years provided students make excellent progress in their degree programs. Students holding these assistantships will be assigned tasks equivalent to a 0.5 FTE appointment. Tuition for Presidential Enhanced Assistantship recipients is paid by the school or college.

Requirements:

Entering graduate students receiving Presidential Enhanced Assistantships must have either:

2) GRE scores at least 300 points or GMAT composite scores at least 140 points above a three-year running average of scores of entering doctoral students awarded Graduate Assistantships.

Because this program is designed to attract extremely well qualified students to FIU, students already enrolled are ineligible.

Expectations:

Mean time to receipt of degree will decrease by at least one semester for Presidential Enhanced Assistantship holders compared to the departmental three year average for students supported on a normal assistantship.

Presidential Enhanced Assistantship holders will have submitted at least one first-authored manuscript to a national peer-reviewed journal prior to graduation.

Nomination Procedure:

Nominations are made by the unit (department or school) admitting the student. A unit may submit no more than six nominations. The units must rank nominations.

Conditions:

Presidential Enhanced Assistantship recipients will be subject to an annual review of academic and scholarly progress. The unit must forward the annual review to the University Graduate School for review prior to renewal of the enhanced assistantship. The enhanced assistantship recipient must enroll full time (9 credits in fall, 9 credits in spring, and 6 credits in summer) in the graduate program.

Deadline:

The deadline for receipt nominations in the University Graduate School is March 6, 2008.