The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has just released its list of 2023 recipients of the Ernest F. Hollings and José E. Serrano Educational Partnership Program with Minority Serving Institutions (EPP/MSI) undergraduate scholarships. Undergraduate recipients of these prestigious scholarships receive a two-year academic scholarship (junior/senior year), paid summer internship opportunities, and funding to participate in two national scientific conferences. Sounds pretty cool, right? Recipients of these competitive awards have access to career-launching opportunities that also look fantastic on graduate school applications. These awards are granted to students towards the end of their second year of college and any full-time undergraduate who is studying in a NOAA-mission field such as oceanic, biological, environmental, and atmospheric sciences, mathematics, engineering, remote sensing technology, physical sciences, social sciences, and teacher education, is eligible to apply.
So, you might ask, what does this have to do with me, a current high school student? Hollins and EPP/MSI scholarships are not evenly distributed across all programs that offer NOAA-mission fields of study. Reviewing the list of scholarship recipients each year can give you a peek into which institutions are preparing students well for these sorts of rigorous research experiences. Just because an institution does not produce any Hollins and EPP/MSI scholars in a particular year does not mean that it doesn’t offer an excellent program worthy of your consideration. However, you will notice that some institutions consistently turn out more Hollins and/or EPP/MSI scholars than others. It’s reasonable to assume that these schools offer top-notch programming and have faculty or staff advisers that help students connect with these sorts of opportunities. If it’s your dream to work for NOAA or conduct research in one of these fields, it may be worth adding a top Hollins and/or EPP/MSI-producing school to your college list.
So, without further ado, I present to you the 2023…
Top Producers of Hollins Scholars
Top Producers of EPP/MSI Scholars
These schools produced 3 or more of the 130 Hollings 2023 scholarship recipients.
These schools each produced 2 of the 12 EPP/MSI 2023 scholarship recipients.
- University of Miami (8)
- University of California – Santa Cruz (6)
- Eckerd College (4)
- University of Oklahoma (4)
- Pennsylvania State University (4)
- University of South Carolina (4)
- University of Washington (4)
- University of Alabama (3)
- University of Florida (3)
- Duke University (3)
- Brown University (3)
- Texas A&M (3)
- University of Hawai’i at Monoa (2)
- Jackson State University (2)
For the full list of 2023 scholarship recipients, check out this press release from NOAA.
