I heard of this scholarship recently and I'm interested. Is there anyone here who has applied and received the scholarship?
I applied for the NHSC scholarship, and received it for my last 2 years of medical school. I actually applied for it twice, as my application was rejected the first time.
Is it very competitive? I know they ask for letters of recommendation, can we use the same ones we used for our med school apps?
What percentage of applicants receive the scholarship?
The scholarship is quite competitive. The percentage of applicants who get the scholarship obviously varies from year to year, but you can guesstimate that it is around 10%. If you look at page 10 of
the NHSC application guide (
http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/downloads/spapplicationguide.pdf), you'll see the number of people who applied for the scholarship (between 1300-3200 in the past few years) - keeping in mind that the NHSC only awards about 180-200 scholarships a year.
You can probably use the same LORs that you used for your med school application, depending on how long ago that was. You should probably consider getting some LORs just for the NHSC, because what they're looking for may be different than what your med school was looking for.
How much is the monthly stipend?
For 2014-2015, according to the NHSC website, the stipend was $1302/month.
Your first stipend payment also comes bundled with the "other related costs" payment, which is a one-time payment to cover other expenses that you will incur during that year. It includes things like books, equipment rentals, instruments, uniforms, etc. If your school requires you to have health insurance, then the ORC payment covers that as well. The NHSC estimates how much your ORC payment will be based on information from your school's financial aid office.
Will they pay full-tuition no matter what? Let's say I join MSUCOM as a OOS student, will they pay $80,000+ for my tuition every year?
Yes, they will.
Also, can you pick the health shortage center where you have to work? I'd rather not work in a prison and that's one of the choices. Yikes!
You can pick the site that you work at IF it fits in a set of (very strict) parameters. They have to participate in the NHSC. They must be in an underserved area that fits a specific need score. The federal government designates each area in the country with a HPSA (Health Professional Shortage Area) score. The higher the score, the greater the need. As an NHSC scholar, you will have a minimum HPSA score; you can't match at a site that has a lower score than that. The minimum HPSA score changes every year. The year I graduated from residency, it was 16. The year before that, it was 18.
This should go without saying, but because you don't mention it in your post and I have met some really really dense people who have applied for this scholarship....you MUST COMPLETE YOUR RESIDENCY IN ONE OF THE APPROVED SPECIALTIES. You don't have a ton of choices - it has to be FM, IM, peds, psych, OB, or a combo of the above. You cannot do a specialty after you finish your residency, either, until you have completed your service obligation first (with a few notable exceptions, like child psych or geriatrics). So if you have your heart set on being a cardiologist or being a GYN oncologist, or being a forensic psychiatrist...you'll have to wait to apply for fellowship until AFTER you have finished your 2-4 years of service payback. If you change your mind during your 3rd year of medical school and realize that, crap, you were meant to be an EM physician or a radiologist....tough **it, the NHSC doesn't care. They will make sure that you pay them back, one way or the other. Also, please keep in mind that if you do not perform your service obligation, you will owe the NHSC 3 times what they paid for you PLUS all interest that would have accrued.
Hope this helps.
