FLAS FAQs

Read useful information about the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship.

General FLAS Questions

FLAS awards are open to undergraduate and graduate students who are US citizens, permanent residents or nationals, and who are enrolled or are accepted for enrollment in a program that combines foreign language training with international or area studies or with the international aspects of professional or other fields.

No.

No.

Recipients, alternates, and non-recipients will receive notification of their status in late March to mid-April.

Yes, but please keep in mind that FLAS fellows are supposed to be engaged in full-time foreign language and area or international studies course work or dissertation research during the academic year or in intensive language study during the summer award period.

No.

No. The US Department of Education requires that language courses be taken for a letter grade.

Fellows can use the FLAS fellowship at other US institutions only during the summer.

Yes, if you are at the intermediate or advanced level of language proficiency, or at the beginning level when an appropriate language program is not available in the US.

The FLAS coordinator is responsible for seeking approval from the US Department of Education after you have accepted the fellowship.

Academic Year FLAS Questions

Academic year FLAS fellowships are awarded to students engaged in:

  1. A formal overseas or domestic program of full-time language and area study coursework OR
  2. Full-time dissertation research abroad. The use of the foreign language in dissertation research must be extensive enough to consider the language improvement facilitated by the research equal to the improvement that would be obtained from a full academic year's worth of formal classroom training.

FLAS fellows must take at least one language and one area study course each semester.

Summer FLAS Questions

Summer FLAS fellowships are intended to help students gain the equivalent of a year's worth of college-level study.  They support students enrolled in:

  1. Formal domestic programs of intensive language study at the beginning, intermediate or advanced level; OR
  2. Formal overseas programs of intensive language study at the intermediate or advanced level; OR
  3. Formal overseas programs of intensive study at the beginning level of a language for which appropriate instruction is not available in the US.

All courses must be a minimum of six weeks in length. Beginning and intermediate level programs must have a minimum of 140 contact or credit hours; advanced level courses must have a minimum of 120 contact or credit hours.