UMB Scholar Stipend

As a UMB Scholar, you will receive a stipend for your participation. A stipend is not a loan and you do not have to repay this money when you graduate. A stipend is a form of payment or salary, such as for an internship or apprenticeship. Stipends are usually lower than what would be expected as a permanent salary for similar work. This is because the stipend is complemented by other benefits such as instruction, work experience and personal satisfaction. Universities usually refer to monies paid to graduate research assistants as a stipend, rather than as wages, to reflect complementary benefits. The amount of your stipend depends upon your time in the program:

• $8,000 for your first year as a UMB Scholar
• $8,000 for your second year as a UMB Scholar
• $10,000 for your third year as a UMB Scholar (includes Summer Support)
• Total Stipend Support = $26,000

Please Note: Federal regulations require that the amount of any tuition award be deducted from the total amount of money that a student can borrow as part of their financial aid package. Obviously stipend support from the UMB Scholars program is preferable to an educational loan (e.g. PLUS loan, Stafford loan, etc.) since you don't have to repay money provided to you as a stipend, but you do have to repay a loan and with interest.

One problem that can arise is that a student receives a college loan at the start of the semester, and then finds out that they have been awarded a UMB Scholarship. The Financial Aid office is required to immediately request that you repay the loan for that semester since you will now be getting the stipend support. Like other student stipends, money from the UMB program is paid to the student monthly, not in a lump sum. If you have already spent a large part of your loan, you may not have the resources to repay the loan amount in full. In such cases, UTSA's Financial Aid Office can make arrangements for you to pay back your loan over a certain time period.

UMB Scholar Laptop

Each UMB Scholar will receive a laptop computer for their personal use. The computer will come pre-installed with Windows XP, MS Office and MatLab, a high-performance, fourth-generation computer language (4GL) for quantitative date analysis.

Research Experience as a UMB Scholar

Most undergraduate students don't appreciate how important undergraduate research experience is -- until after they graduate. By then it's too late. Even if your goal is to go on to a medical school, dental school or vet school, students with undergraduate research experience are much more competitive than students without this experience. There are several reasons why research experience will help you get into medical school. First, like all faculty, faculty in medical schools -- the individuals who will be decided whether you will, or will not, be offered admission -- are researchers. As researchers, they know first hand that the skills you have developed during your research training are precisely the skills that you will need to be successful at medical school. Just because a student got all A's in their courses, that doesn't necessarily mean that the student can think. Medicine is basically problem solving. Why is my patient ill? Why is their 'crit low, their O2 sat low and they are presenting a host of conflicting symptoms? You can't learn to solve problems like these by reading textbooks. But you can learn these skills from your research experience under the close mentorship of an involved faculty mentor. Not everyone who gets good grades and scores well on the MCAT can solve problems. That's why if a medical school admissions committee has two similar applicants, but one has research experience and one doesn't, they will pick the one will research experience. They want to make sure that every student admitted to their incoming medical class will succeed (read more here...). If you want to go on to graduate school, undergraduate research is a "no brainer". Graduate school admissions committees consider undergraduate research the very best predictor of success in graduate school. Being a UMB Scholar will almost guarantee that you will be competitive in the graduate school of your choice (read more here...).