Application Instructions

Please visit SlideRoom and login or sign up for a free Slideroom account. Once you’ve completed your registration, you can begin the application. It is not necessary to complete it in one sitting; you may save your work and return later. To access an in-progress application, go back to the link above and login.

The information in this section is used primarily for administrative and tracking purposes. This section is also where you will upload important documents, including your CV, transcript, and English language proficiency scores (if needed). We will also ask for a link to your online profile, how you heard about our program, if you have applied for the fellowship in prior years (and, if so, when), and about your authorization to work in the United States.

Please note that all applicants requiring work authorization must be eligible to work in the U.S. under an academic visa. Stanford University will not sponsor an H1-B visa for this role/position. All Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellows will be formally appointed through the Graduate School of Admissions as non-matriculated graduate students.

CV

Please provide us with a current CV (no more than three pages in length) that explicitly highlights your leadership, problem solving, creativity, teamwork, and communication skills and how you have demonstrated them to create impact from your work. We’re interested in a wide range of your personal and professional activities/accomplishments, including community engagement, awards and recognition, intellectual property filings, academic publications, conference posters and presentations, projects with substantial business impact, and/or leadership roles that might not be self-evident from the title and description of the various roles you’ve held.

Transcript

You will be asked to upload a transcript from your most recent degree-granting educational program. We’ll use the transcript to verify the dates you were in the program and that you completed it in good standing. Your transcript does not need to be an official submission from your university. If your transcript is not in English, please submit a copy of the original document as well as a translated version.

English Proficiency

To be eligible for the Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellowship, you must demonstrate sufficient proficiency to read English with ease, understand rapid idiomatic English as used in lectures and group discussions, and express thoughts quickly and clearly in spoken and written English.

English proficiency test scores are not required if you meet one or more of the following criteria:

• You are a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
• Your first language is English.
• You earned a US bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree, or international equivalent from a university where all instruction was conducted in English.

If you do not meet at least one of the criteria listed above at the time of application, you will be asked to submit an official test score with your application.

We accept results from:

• Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-Based Test (TOEFL iBT)
• International English Language Testing System Academic Test (IELTS Academic)

Please review our online guidelines for more information about the English language proficiency requirement, what tests we accept, and qualifying scores.

In this section, you will provide us with details about your education and professional experiences, as well as specific examples of your leadership and creativity. To help us assess your communication skills and learn more about what makes you uniquely you (and a strong candidate for our program!), you will also be asked to complete two short essays and upload a link to a two-minute video.

Education and Professional Experience

Provide details on the degree-granting educational programs you have completed and the professional roles you have held. Please review the Assess Your Fit section on our website to understand our specific criteria for counting years of qualifying work experience.

Leadership Examples

Use this portion of the application to highlight four leadership examples of which you are most proud. We will evaluate these examples based on whether they are long-term versus short-term, large-scale or small-scale, and individual versus team based.

Creativity Examples

In this section, you will be prompted to share brief responses that demonstrate your creativity in different contexts. You’ll be asked to describe one creative moment from your personal life and one from your work experience, and a third to show us your creative thinking.

Whenever possible, use different examples for leadership and creativity. If you feel strongly that one role/experience satisfies both, be explicit in each category – what did you do that demonstrated leadership, and then what other/different activities did you perform that demonstrated creativity.

Essays

As noted, the essays will help us better understand your interests and fit with the fellowship. They also will be used to evaluate your written communication skills.

• Essay Prompt 1 (350 words maximum)
  Think ahead 5-10 years. What are you doing with your training in health technology innovation? And how did the innovation fellowship help you get there? Be specific. 
• Essay Prompt 2 (250 words maximum)
  Describe a real, specific problem or barrier you have faced that required grit and tenacity to overcome. What steps did you take to solve the problem or neutralize the situation?

Video

Like the essays, your video will help us understand your interests and fit with the fellowship, and it will be used to evaluate your creativity and verbal communication skills.

• Video Prompt (2 minutes or less)
  In a creative way, tell us who you are and why you want to join the fellowship.

When creating and submitting your video to Slideroom, here are a few important guidelines:

• Upload it to YouTube or Vimeo (we suggest choosing the “unlisted” option so that your recording is not publicly searchable). You will paste the link into Slideroom, and you will not be permitted to make changes to your video link once you have submitted it.
• Do not exceed two minutes in length (it will not be viewed beyond the two-minute mark).
• We are not looking for high-production editing skills or special effects. However, we encourage you to think outside the box when putting together your video.
• If possible, use a web camera or smartphone/video camera on a tripod to ensure a steady recording.
• Please test the link to confirm the video is accessible at that URL before submitting.
• Do not discuss any specific intellectual property that you have developed if it has not been protected.

Recommendations enable us to learn about you from people who have worked closely with you. We find the specific examples, anecdotes, and evidence they provide about your character and performance to be especially helpful. Your recommendations will be read by all reviewers in combination with your other application materials to help us understand the impression you make on others.

Please ask three individuals who you know well, whose opinion you trust, and who want to see you succeed, to complete your recommendations.

IMPORTANT TIP: You can submit these names and contact details BEFORE you complete and submit your application, so your references have plenty of time to respond.

We must have all three recommendations by the application deadline or your application will not be considered. Please encourage your references to complete and submit their recommendations at least 1-2 days before the final deadline.

How It Works in Slideroom

The requests for recommendations are automatically generated and sent by the application system when you enter and submit the contact information for your recommenders. Again, this can be done BEFORE you complete and submit your application. In order to give your references plenty of time to respond, don’t wait until the last week before the deadline to enter their contact information into Slideroom.

The application system will send each recommender a personalized link to submit their recommendation online. The automatic requests that Slideroom sends may go into their SPAM folder, so please let them know to watch for the message and check all of their email folders.

What Recommenders Will Be Asked

When recommenders access Slideroom, they will be asked to specifically assess your problem-solving and teamwork skills following the prompts and questions below. They will not need to write a letter; they will enter their responses directly into the short-answer fields on the form.

• Please rate the candidate's problem-solving ability. (A dropdown menu of ratings will be available.)
• In a short paragraph, please explain the reasoning behind your rating (maximum 150 words). We would appreciate it if you would share a specific example of how the candidate approached and solved a difficult, real problem.
• Please rate the candidate’s teamwork skills. (A dropdown menu of ratings will be available.)
• In a short paragraph, please explain the reasoning behind your rating (maximum 150 words). We would appreciate it if you would share a specific story that illustrates the candidate’s teamwork skills.
• Is there anything else you would like us to know about this candidate (maximum 150 words)? Please share any additional insights, observations, or anecdotes that you believe are relevant to their application.

Who to Choose

When selecting recommenders, please choose individuals from your academic, professional, or volunteer experience. It is not appropriate to ask a family member or close personal friend to provide a recommendation. Other guidelines include the following:

• We care more about the content of the responses than simply the title or status of the person who wrote it.
• The strongest recommendations usually come from individuals who have interacted with you closely, extensively, and recently.
• Exceptional recommendations are not a recap of your CV – instead, they answer the questions above and provide specific examples of problem solving and teamwork skills in your interactions with the recommender.
• You may not write, draft, edit, translate, or submit responses on a recommender’s behalf.
• Recommendations must be submitted in English.

For the purposes of this application, ethical uses of generative AI include using it to perform basic spelling and grammar reviews of your written materials in the same way you might ask a friend to proofread for you. It does NOT include using it to write, edit, or enhance your essays or other written answers in any way. At the end of the application, we will ask you to certify that you have not used AI or that you have only used it according to this stated policy.