1. An interested student will visit the Graduate Student Council (GSC) website and read information about the travel grant program including eligibility and application instructions.
2. At least 6 weeks before the first date of travel, the student will download an application, complete all requested information, and email it to the GSC Grants Committee.
3. Within 7 days of receiving the email submission, the GSC Grants Committee will review the application and reply to the applicant. If the applicant is eligible and funding is available, the GSC Grants Committee will send a congratulatory email to the applicant with instructions to complete a Student Acquisition Request (SAR) form online.
4. Within 7 days of receiving the congratulatory email, the applicant will submit the requested SAR form online for at least $250 worth of expected travel expenses. The SAR form will automatically be emailed to the GSC President and Treasurer.
5. Within 7 days of SAR submission, the GSC President and Treasurer will review the SAR form online and approve it if instructions were followed properly. The SAR form will automatically be emailed to the Student Government (SG) Finance Office.
6. Within 7 days of GSC President/Treasurer approval, the SG Finance Office will review the SAR form online and process it if instructions were followed properly. The status of the SAR during this approval process will automatically be emailed to the applicant.
7. After receiving a final approval email from the SG Finance Office, the applicant will begin making purchases. Within 30 of the last date of travel, the applicant will bring at least $250 worth of original receipts to the SG Finance Office.
8. Within 14 days of submitting receipts, the SG Finance Office will notify the applicant to pick up his/her $250 reimbursement check.
9. Within 90 days of notification, the applicant must deposit or cash the check.

Note: If you run into problems with steps 1-5, contact the GSC Grants Committee Chair (Crystal Stephens, gscgrants@gmail.com). If you run into problems with steps 6-10, contact the SG Finance Office (Sharon Eldred, seldred@sg.ufl.edu). It is your responsibility to notify the appropriate people if you experience issues with the application process.

Keep in mind that the GSC Grants Committee (which consists of volunteer graduate students) reviews roughly 500 travel grant and research grant applications per year. Furthermore, the GSC President/Treasurer and several members of the SG Finance Office handle each application personally. Therefore, it is imperative that you follow all instructions from now until when you pick up your reimbursement check. If you fail to follow instructions exactly, your award may be cancelled. Remember, there are over 12,000 graduate students and only about 500 grants. It has become our policy to make no exceptions to these rules. Finally, please show respect and courtesy to members of the GSC Grants Committee and SG Finance Office who are volunteering their time to make these grants available for students. No one is entitled to this funding. Thank you for your understanding.

To apply, please download our travel grant application and complete all requested information. When you have completed your application, save it as the following name: “Travel Grant - Department Name - First Date of Travel - Applicant Last Name, First Name.doc.” For example, see sample application. Attach your application into an email and send it to gscgrants@gmail.com with the same name of the application in the subject of the email. You must submit your application at least 30 days before the first date of travel (although we highly recommend you submit your application several weeks before this). If you do not receive a response within 7 days of submission, notify the Grants Committee Chair (Crystal Stephens, gscgrants@gmail.com).

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