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I am applying for a scholarship (women in graduate studies). It asks whether I have received any academic honors and prizes. I received a couple of master's awards from my supervisor's grant and a graduate scholarship. Do those count as an academic honor or not?

And in another part, it asks whether I have got funding in the past or present. I am getting some money for doing research. Is it a bad thing to include? They won't give me further funding? Having said that, the amount of money that I am getting for doing research is nominal, that is why I am applying for more funding.

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    Their form or website should contain the information that will explain what you should or should not include in your submission, which you should be capable of researching and deciphering - we don't have that information...
    – Solar Mike
    Nov 30, 2018 at 20:06
  • They did not mention anything about my questions. That is why I asked here.
    – nikki
    Nov 30, 2018 at 20:08
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    @SolarMike You are very optimistic about these sorts of things if you think they're all crystal clear about what they want
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Nov 30, 2018 at 21:50
  • If it's a competitive award you should probably include it - best poster or presentation at a conference, for example, probably should be included. If it's more like salary, like from a grant - probably not. Many funding sources look positively on someone getting money from elsewhere (for a couple reasons), so it's usually a good idea to disclose any awards given specifically to you. As always, these are general rules - they're not absolutely true for everything.
    – user101106
    Nov 30, 2018 at 22:37

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I dont see why your graduate scholarship and masters award are not the honor or funding. I have used them in my CV for PhD applications, and plan to to include for my post-docs as well.

About funding: if you have received funding from any source, do mention it. It will not hurt your chances. In fact, it will demonstrate that you are a dependable researcher. Do mention about the project detail (if you can) and that you have successfully completed the project. When they ask about funding, it does not mean that they are not willing to give it to you. They are looking for someone who know the worth of the money he/she will get.

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I received a couple of master's awards from my supervisor's grant and a graduate scholarship. Do those count as an academic honor or not?

If I understand correctly what you mean, I would argue that no. You should only list awards that are competitive (only a few students get them), are merit based (so not just given on a first-come-first-serve basis), and not automatically granted based on another achievement.

I'd imagine that you had already listed your master's degree on your CV, and mentioned your supervisor. Getting a graduate scholarship is not an 'honor' beyond the honor of being accepted to the graduate program (unless most students aren't supported); similarly, if you have a thesis advisor supporting you, you did not really compete for the award.

The same rule holds for conference travel grants. In my discipline, these are awarded at random, unless you are a best paper award recipient. If your paper was accepted to a conference then there's no point listing that you got some partial funding to go there. Again, you get that award because your paper got in + randomness, or because your paper was the best, in which case the travel grant is automatic (not an award in itself).

An award would be winning some prize (best paper, best poster, best presentation etc.); getting some competitive grant/scholarship (like a Google or Facebook fellowship); or an academic achievement (dean's list, valedictorian etc.). If you got accepted into a highly competitive program during your studies that might also qualify (say, you won an industrial internship at some company for outstanding academic performance).

My personal impression is that many students tend to inflate this part of their application. They list things that aren't honors (e.g. completing an online course certification), or very minor ones (e.g. 3rd place in a local high-school competition). This makes no sense to me. It makes it harder to distinguish the noise from the signal on student's current quality, and actually makes me generally more adversarial towards these applicants.

Good luck with your application

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