Frequently Asked Questions

All applications must be submitted through the Society of Fellows application portal.

Previous applicants who meet the eligibility criteria may submit a new application each year through the portal.

Yes.

For the department(s) entry please designate the academic department(s) you would expect to be affiliated with at the University of Michigan. This is usually the department of your Ph.D. and/or the department(s) in which you are qualified to teach.

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No. Cover letters are not included as part of the application materials.

No. Once applications are submitted, changes can no longer be made.

Once the online application has been successfully submitted, the applicant will receive an email confirming receipt.

Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions regarding the status of your application or did not receive a confirmation email after submitting the online application.

Late applications will not be accepted.

Question: After submitting my application, I received the following warning message, “Thank you for submitting your Michigan Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Fellowship Application. As a reminder, the deadline to submit your letters of recommendation is one week following the application deadline, or Monday, September 22, 2025, at 11:59 PM EDT. Applications with missing letters of recommendation as of 12:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, September 23, 2025, will be marked as incomplete and will be considered ineligible. You will receive an auto-generated email once these items have been received.”

Answer: The deadline to submit letters of recommendation is one week following the application deadline. Your application IS considered complete if all other materials have been submitted by the application deadline. If the letters of recommendation are not received by the September 22 deadline, your application will be considered ineligible. You will receive an automated email message once your letters of recommendation have been submitted to the system.

No. The dates (between June 1, 2023 and August 30, 2026) are firm.

Yes.

The Society of Fellows welcomes international scholars to apply to the fellowship. The Society of Fellows will normally pursue J-1 status for its international postdocs who require sponsorship. Sponsorship of other immigration statuses (including H-1B status) is rare and will require a policy exception.

International applicants who have just earned their degrees in the United States will be expected to take advantage of J-1 Academic Training (AT) or any F-1 Optional Practical Training (OPT) time (including STEM OPT), if available.

The Society of Fellows will work with the International Center to pursue the relevant immigration status and employment authorization sponsorship, as needed, if F-1 OPT or J-1 AT are not available to an individual applicant.

Yes.

Yes. All application materials must be submitted in English.

Yes.

Yes. All visual elements must include image descriptions or alt text.

No. There is only a page limit – 40, double-spaced pages for unpublished work; 20, single-spaced pages for published work.

Most postdocs in the humanities and social sciences (who are in book-based fields) work mainly on transforming their dissertation into a book while also doing smaller-scale writing and editing projects. Some set their dissertations aside and commence researching an entirely new topic. Both can be excellent approaches. It is therefore generally helpful to read a description of your current questions and how they fit within, or innovate upon, your field(s) and to know your own sense of what needs to come next in your research trajectory.

Question: The general piece of advice that I received from my advisors is to send something from my dissertation so that the reviewers can see the quality of the work which is soon going to be turned into a book. However, I also received the suggestion to send something closer to my second project, especially for positions that only require a writing sample.

Response: Ideally, your proposal would be drawn from the project you hope to pursue as a fellow and would be accessible to readers outside your discipline.

No. The page limit does not apply to references. Your research proposal/artistic plan will be accepted if it exceeds the 3-page limit strictly due to reference pages.

The deadline to submit letters of recommendation is 11:59 PM (EDT) on Monday, September 22, 2025 (one week following the application deadline).

Yes. Please make sure that your dossier contains no more than two letters of recommendation.

No. Letters of recommendation submitted after the deadline (one week after the application deadline) will not be accepted.

Yes. Letters of recommendation may be sent as a PDF file to [email protected].

After logging into the application portal, scroll down to the title “2 Letters of Recommendation”. Click on the blue “request letters of recommendation” button. Under the title “Method 1” you will see an option to enter recommender information. You are welcome to update the recommender information at any time.

If you still have trouble updating the recommender information in the application portal, please follow the instructions under the title “Method 2” on the application portal, which includes important information to share with a recommender if you contact them directly.

After saving the recommender information in the application portal, you will be prompted with an opportunity to send the email request to the recommender via email. You may also contact your recommender directly. More information on what to share with your recommender is listed on the “Letters of Recommendation” page of the application portal, under “Method 2”.

This information is included under “Method 2” of the “Letters of Recommendation” page of the application portal.

Letters of recommendation will be accepted via the application portal through 11:59 PM (EDT) on Monday, September 22, 2025.

If the recommender is having difficulty with the application portal, letters of recommendation will also be accepted via our email, [email protected], by the same deadline. Please note that these letters must be uploaded manually. Letters received via the application portal or email by the deadline will be accepted.

To confirm if your letters of recommendation have been submitted, via email, by the deadline, please contact your recommender(s) directly.

Applicants will receive an auto-generated email notification when a letter has been successfully uploaded to the portal and attached to the applicant’s application.

Letters of recommendation sent via email must be submitted manually. As such, there may be a delay in receiving this notification until the letter has been processed and uploaded into the system. To confirm if your letters of recommendation have been submitted, via email, by the deadline, please contact your recommender(s) directly.

Letters of recommendation submitted via the application portal, whether by the recommender or manually by the MSF administration, will generate an auto-email to the applicant notifying them of the submission.

Letters of recommendation emailed to the [email protected] email account must be loaded manually. If the letter was received via email by the deadline, it will be accepted. Please allow the administration 5 business days to enter this information manually before it is reflected in the system.

To confirm if your letters of recommendation have been submitted, via email, by the deadline, please contact your recommender(s) directly.

No. All letters of recommendation must be submitted electronically, either through the application portal or via email to [email protected] as a PDF file.

No. The first two letters of recommendation submitted on your behalf will be attached to your application.

Letters of recommendation cannot be changed/updated after they have been submitted.

No. Letters of recommendation cannot be changed/updated after they have been submitted.

Yes. Fellows are expected to be “in residence” or living in the Ann Arbor area during the academic year (September through May) for all three years of their fellowship tenure.

No. Fellows are expected to be “in residence” or living in the Ann Arbor area, whether they are teaching or not.

Off-campus research leave during academic terms will be permitted only in rare cases, only for brief periods, and only upon written application to the Chair of the Society well in advance of the proposed leave.

The U-M Standard Practice Guide Policy 201.19 Section II.D.8 details the leaves available to Fellows. For questions on leave eligibility and availability, Fellows should work with their academic unit chair and unit HR.

No. Any leaves taken during the fellowship will be counted as part of the fellowship.

The teaching requirement for fellows varies across departments. Typically, fellows have the opportunity to design and teach their own courses; however, depending on departmental needs (i.e. faculty leaves, sabbaticals, etc.), fellows may be asked to teach a specific course by their department. This is usually addressed during the offer phase of the process.

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The full list of departments currently accepting applications can be found in the application portal.

No.

No. Interviews are not conducted as part of the fellowship competition.

No. For equity’s sake, meetings with the Chair of the Society, current Society members, or the Chair of your primary and/or secondary department will not be arranged with applicants.

No. For equity’s sake, on-campus visits will not be scheduled for applicants.

All applicants will be notified in writing via email. Please make sure the email address entered on your application is accurate. Please update your application profile if there are any changes to your email address or surface mail address.

All applicants can expect to receive a notification in writing via email by January 1 as to whether their application is still being considered for the fellowship.

All applicants will be notified in writing of the Society’s final decision by March 31.

All applicants will be notified in writing of the Society’s final decision by March 31.

All dossier materials and the selection committee’s evaluations remain confidential. The committee is not able to provide feedback on individual applications.

After logging into the application portal, near the top of the screen you should see “Welcome” followed by your name next to a “logout” button. Just below this, you will see three options; “Change your name”, “Change your password”, and “Change your email address”. Please click on the desired action you wish to take to update.

If you accidentally mark your degree date wrong after submitting your application, please contact [email protected].

Once application materials have been submitted, no changes can be made. This includes any updates to your CV.