USG Critical Language Scholarships for Intensive Summer Institutes

[FSO]

For those interested in US government grants for studying Chinese in China:

The United States Department of State and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) are pleased to announce the availability of scholarships for intensive overseas study in the critical need foreign languages of Arabic, Bangla/Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish, and Urdu for Summer 2007.

http://www.caorc.org/language/

Incidentially, programs like this partially address some of the concerns posted in this thread about USG language training and employment.

[derekws]

Thank you for this information, FSO. I think I'll be applying!

[opper567]

what do you think the chances of actually recieving these scholarships are?

[kaifaqu crue]

Has anyone who applied for this scholarship heard back regarding his or her acceptance to the program?

The website says that the notification date should have been posted on the CLS website in mid-April, but it doesn't seem to have been posted yet.

I know they've said the notification date will be in mid- to late- April, but since the program starts so soon, it would be great to at least know when I'll know where I'll be living in June.

[xianu]

I had a student who applied for Chinese and he didn't get in, but I think he said there were 400 applicants for 60 spots in the program, so it was extremely competitive.

[venture160]

I have 4 friends who applied and none of them got in, and they were all very qualified. It seems they need to expand the program for next year as the demand is very high! I heard that there were over 600 applicants for 60 spots.

[kaifaqu crue]

I didn't make it in either. Here's the e-mail I got.

On behalf of the U.S. Department of State and the Council of American Overseas

Research Centers we would like to thank you for applying for a U.S. Department

of State Critical Language Scholarship for Intensive Summer Institutes. We

received more than 600 qualified applications for the 40 scholarships available

for the Chinese Language Institutes and more than 6000 applications for the full

CLS Program. Unfortunately, after careful review by our Review Panel, you were

not selected for a scholarship. We applaud your desire to study languages abroad

and encourage you to further pursue your studies. We regret that due to the

large volume of applications, we are unable to provide feedback to applicants.

Please check the CAORC website, www.CLScholarship.org, in Fall/Winter 2007 for

future opportunities for language training abroad.

Sincerely,

Thomas A. Farrell

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Academic Programs

Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs

U.S. Department of State

and

Mary Ellen Lane

Executive Director

Council of American Overseas Research Centers

I had no idea it was going to be that competitive when I applied. More difficult than getting into Yale or Harvard. I'm curious what the selection criteria was.

[venture160]

I'm curious what the selection criteria was.

Have a burning desire to become a Foreign Service Officer, perfect grades, ivy league... blah blah.. I have a friend who got into the Arabic program, he was an alternate but got in anyways because allot of people balked at signing the kidnap contract:roll:

[AziL213]

Hi everyone,

Sorry to bring up such an old thread, but I have been looking at the Critical Language Scholarships and have some of the same questions that were originally asked in this thread but were never really answered. Now that it's two years later, so I'm thinking that there's a greater chance that some of our members have attended the program or know of someone who has.

I'm assuming there are even more applicants now than there were two years ago, and looking at the website it seems there were about 75 spots for Chinese in 2009. Additionally, I am wondering what level their advanced Chinese program is. Anyone have any recent info on the CLS program?

Thanks,

Amy

[simonlaing]

There are some Flagship program students in Nanjing.

They have pretty decent chinese and take classes with other Nanjing University students and Nanda profs.

Though i am told that the classes are majorly exam weighted and westerners may get some leniency so you can study hard or not.

A lot of the universities seemed midwest, south or south west which suprised me. Places like Ole Miss, Arizona state, Ohio state (though Ohio state has tons of CHinese students.)

These seem to be different from the scholarship . though they said with the scholarship only required one year payback period. Better than the navy which is a minimum of 4 years for full ride scholarships to college.

West point people also come to nanjing to make ties with PRC army here. Both sides the people are majorly buff.

Good luck,

Simon:)

[AziL213]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your reply, but I think you might be referring to a different program than the one I am asking about. I'm not exactly sure which program you're talking about, but it seems like it might be the Boren Scholarship, which has a Flagship Language Program in Nanjing, and a service commitment? I'm specifically asking about the Critical Language Scholarships for Intensive Summer Institutes (what a mouthful!), sponsored by the U.S. Department of State: https://clscholarship.org/home.php

[Gibbs]

I just finished my application and will inform the thread of my acceptance/rejection come March. Other interested parties can find information for the Summer 2010 program here:

The United States Department of State is pleased to announce the scholarship competition for the 2010 Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program for overseas intensive summer language institutes in thirteen critical need foreign languages. The on-line application for CLS Program awards is now available at www.CLScholarship.org, and the deadline to apply will be December 18, 2009.

[AziL213]

So I just got notified by CLS the other day and I was rejected!! I'm pretty sad about it, but a friend of mine who is really qualified also got rejected so I guess it was just super competitive. Anyone get in?

[Gibbs]

I too was rejected. Oh well. Life in Qingdao aint so bad ~~