Competitive Graduate Award

The CGA application includes the following items:

• One completed recommendation form submitted by the identified recommender. The recommender must be someone who can speak to the applicant's ability to be successful in graduate studies and research. The recommendation form will be emailed to the recommender listed in the application that allows the recommender to respond to specific questions about the applicant's experiences and abilities.
• Essay question responses. Applicants must respond to four brief essay questions as prompted in the application, including their research/creative activity interests within their discipline, original ideas they have for potential research/creative activity projects within those areas, their previous research/creative activity experiences within their discipline, and details on their specific roles during those experiences.

The applicants must be one of the following:

• a fully admitted new graduate student who is accepted as a classified student in a masters graduate degree program at SIUE and whose first term of enrollment will be no earlier than the summer preceding the fall award period. For example, eligibility for the 2026-2027 academic year award is limited to new graduate students beginning their SIUE masters programs in either the summer 2026 or fall 2026 semesters. (Students who have completed a prior graduate program at SIUE are not eligible to apply.)
• an SIUE undergraduate approved for admission to and currently enrolled in an approved combined bachelor to masters program provided they will be fully admitted to the graduate program before the fall award period (Note that this requirement includes having completed the baccalaureate degree.)
• a previously enrolled graduate student who have been out of their program for at least 2 calendar years at the time of the CGA application

The applicant must have a minimum 3.5 overall undergraduate cumulative GPA (GPA from all undergraduate courses at all institutions attended) and, if relevant, a minimum 3.5 graduate cumulative GPA in order to apply.
The applicant must have a fully completed application to a masters program for the above qualified terms by January 15th at 4:30pm. All application requirements for the applicant's program must be received by this deadline, including test scores, recommendation forms, and transcripts. Applicants with a completed masters program application who are pending a final admission decision by the graduate program are eligible to apply for the CGA if all other eligibility criteria are met.
SIUE employees and State of Illinois Civil Service employees at other universities are not eligible for the award.