A: Scholarship applications will reopen in January 2025.

A: From graduating high school seniors to those pursuing a PhD, USGIF has scholarship opportunities for students in many stages of their education. While USGIF is a geospatial intelligence foundation, we invite students from a range of academic interests to apply. Past winners come from myriad disciplines.  

U.S. Citizenship is not required for the general scholarship fund, nor is it required for many of our sponsored scholarships. Awards that require U.S. citizenship will be listed as such.

A: USGIF will consider students with a 2.5 GPA and higher for scholarships. We do not require a minimum number of enrollment hours to qualify. Students from a variety of educational institutions including community colleges, technical colleges, traditional four-year universities, and other post-secondary institutions are eligible

A:  Applicants should be prepared to submit letters of recommendation, their most recent school transcripts, and to answer several short answer (250-word) questions. Undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. candidates must also submit an essay. We recommend beginning your application early to allow enough time to submit all the required pieces. Applicants can start, save, and return to their application at any time.

A: Students interested in one of USGIF’s many sponsored scholarships are not required to submit additional documents. However, if you would like to be considered, you may be asked to provide demographic information, answer specific prompts for those sponsored awards, or address the scholarship’s focus in the essay you write. Please read the application carefully and familiarize yourself with the requirements of sponsored scholarships.

A: Yes, students can begin their application and pause and save at any time.  

A: USGIF employs a volunteer panel of experts to serve as our selection committee. Each member will review applications and score them on a peer-to-peer basis. For example, undergraduate students will only be scored relative to other undergraduate students, etc.  

A ranking system is in place to ensure an equitable approach to evaluation. Each application will have a distribution of points available. Please read the “evaluation guidelines” section of the application carefully. 

A: USGIF will notify winners by the end of June 2025, before the Fall Semester begins.

A: USGIF will work with your school to first apply the scholarship to your tuition costs. Scholarship awards are generally divided between the fall and spring semesters. If there are funds left over after tuition has been covered each semester, students will be directly refunded any remaining award money. If a student receives a refund, they may use the award to cover housing, books, technology needs, or other expenses related to being a student.  

A: Send an email to scholarships@usgif.org. USGIF also hosts several informational sessions for applicants during the open application timeframe.