Study Abroad Opportunities: Scholarships and Grants

One of the major misconceptions Students have about studying abroad is that they can't afford to. Finding youth study abroad scholarships and grants you'll qualify for will take some work on your part. The earlier you begin looking for funds, the better your chances. OIED has a number of scholarships available for our faculty-led, exchange, student teaching, and other programs.

OIED Scholarship

The application cycles occur three times a year, and scholarships range from $250 to $2,000. The OIED application consists of two essays and a recommendation letter. The essays are provided for you on our website and don't change. What we're really looking for is the impact your study abroad program will have on you. What factors did you consider, and how will it impact your personal, professional, and academic goals? In contrast, we'd also like to know how you're going to impact the place that you're going or the people you're traveling with. How will you continue global learning when you return home? How will you impact campus or the local community? Each application also includes a letter of recommendation.

Recommendation Letters

Letters of recommendation should be from professors, supervisors, academic, and community leaders. They should not be from friends or family. Once you enter a recommendation in the system the email will be sent to your recommender. Please note that all recommendation letters are expected to be completed by the deadline.

All full-time, degree-seeking students at Appalachian who are applying for any study abroad program offering academic credit are eligible. You can only receive one OIED scholarship per academic year. Applying for one OIED scholarship application will apply you for all of these. There's no need to specify which you're applying for.

You'll also see the important information regarding study abroad and financial aid. The searchable scholarship database will provide you with a starting point to finding other on-campus and off-campus funding. Each scholarship has different criteria and requirements. Please read through those carefully to see if you qualify.

Cautions

Use caution when applying for outside scholarships. You should never have to pay to receive a scholarship. At the top of the page You'll see a keyword search bar. Here you can enter terms to narrow down your options. For example, if you are a diverse student, you can use the keyword diversity, and that will narrow down to any scholarship that explicitly uses diversity as an indicator.

Returning to the searchable scholarship database, you'll see you can also use your destination as a search criteria. If we search for Japan, the database will pull any scholarship that explicitly lists Japan as a destination of choice. Please note that there are a lot of scholarships that don't list destinations so that search should not be your only search. Many scholarships require a minimum length of time you must be in a country to qualify. Selecting the program length minimum will sort our database for you, and you'll see that there are many where you don't have a minimum length of time, all the way up until two weeks, four weeks, and eventually a full calendar year qualification. Sometimes majors and minors and departments on campus have scholarships for study abroad, as well as sororities and fraternities, The Honors College, and clubs. You should also work with the Writing Center on your scholarship essays and ideas.