Is it a good or bad idea to list declined fellowships (for a PhD program) on one's curriculum vitae?

Question

E.g. as shown in the example here.

• 2011—Centennial Fellowship, Princeton University Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (accepted)
• 2011—Top Student Award, University of Washington (declined)
• 2011—Program in Climate Change Fellowship, University of Washington (declined)
• 2011—Faculty Fellowship, Columbia University (declined)
• 2011—Charney Prize, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (declined)
• 2011—Regents Fellowship, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (declined)
• 2011—Chair’s Award, Stanford University Department of Earth and Environmental System Science (declined)

Answer 1

Aeismail makes an important point about location: what's standard in Germany differs from what's standard in the US.

In a US context, I would strongly recommend against listing things like declined graduate fellowships. It will look strange, and even beyond that it can work to your disadvantage: everybody will already assume you declined several attractive offers, so giving an explicit list will do nothing but focus attention on what isn't on the list. (If the list of declined offers is short, readers will be disappointed, and if it's long, they'll spend more time speculating about what's missing than being impressed.)

The only time I'd recommend highlighting this sort of information is if for some reason you had to turn down a vastly more prestigious offer than the one you accepted. For example, maybe you were offered a tenure-track job at a top department, but ended up working as an adjunct in the middle of nowhere so you could take care of a relative. You should then make sure everybody knows this the next time you are able to apply for jobs. However, you should be very careful when doing this, because if the prestige difference isn't absolutely universally acknowledged, then you run the risk of offending people who feel you are unfairly denigrating a perfectly fine career path.

Answer 2

Bad idea. If you turn down an award (or an acceptance to a univeristy, etc), you don't get to reap the benefits of that award.

No one cares about the universities you could have gone to or the fellowship programs you could have worked for, they care about what you have actually done and that is all you should include on your CV/resume. Period.

To me, the resume linked to above reads "I had no one else edit or evaluate my resume before I posted it online."

Answer 3

Like so many other matters, your location plays a role in what is considered accepted or not.

In the US, I would limit listing "declined" awards to national, competitive fellowships which had to be declined because of the fact that you're not allowed to accept multiple fellowships. However, the awarding of multiple such fellowships shows that you are a "hot commodity," and therefore does confer some benefit to you. (As an example of other countries' practices, here in Germany, it is expected that you would list offers of faculty positions that you have declined, for exactly the same reason.)

However, I would agree with Amy and Ben that in the present case, those awards should not have been listed on a CV. On the other hand, "DOD Fellow" and "Offered NSF fellowship" would be a different scenario.

Answer 4

I don't think there's one answer to this question. Different people react to different things on CVs in different ways. The level of listing above is silly; if the candidate in the example had asked me for my advice I would have told them not to (they're basically listing jobs they were offered; interpreted generously, it looks like CV padding), but occasionally it can make sense to list a prestigious fellowship you declined due to circumstances.