Qualifying applicants are eligible for application fee waivers, either from the University of Washington Graduate School or from the Information School. Applicants must request a fee waiver PRIOR to submitting their application for admission. Applicants must determine their eligibility for a fee waiver from the Graduate School BEFORE applying for an Information School fee waiver. The number of available waivers is limited each year.

Applicants planning to attend on student visas are not eligible for application fee waivers, due to the financial requirements for receiving a student visa.

Graduate School fee waivers

The University of Washington Graduate School offers fee waivers on the basis of financial need, as well as for McNair Scholars and PPIA Fellows who have submitted documentation. Requests must be submitted no later than seven days prior to the degree program application deadline. Please visit this website for additional information.

Request process 

1. BEFORE requesting a fee waiver from the Information School, please review the eligibility criteria for a fee waiver from the UW Graduate School. If you meet the criteria for a Graduate School fee waiver, please follow that process, and do NOT apply for an Information School fee waiver. Once you have determined you do NOT meet the eligibility criteria for a fee waiver from the UW Graduate School, you may proceed with requesting a fee waiver from the Information School.
2. Start your application to the program, selecting the program you are applying to and the year and quarter.
3. Email iask@uw.edu, along with the documentation of your registration/participation in one of the qualifying programs listed below. All documentation must be received by no later than seven days prior to the degree program application deadline. 
4. Your application to the degree program should not be submitted until a decision has been made on your waiver.
5. All documents will be reviewed and verified for satisfactory evidence. If the documentation is accepted, the program will submit payment on your behalf. If not accepted, you will be contacted to resubmit or to pay the application fee. For further information, please get in touch with iask@uw.edu.

The Information School has a limited amount of funding for these requests and will review them on a first-come-first-serve basis, per program. Each degree program will be considered separately. 

Applicant eligibility

Applicants are eligible for a fee waiver with documented registration/participation in one of the following programs: 

• American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T)
• American Library Association affinity and state membership
• Association of Tribal Libraries & Museums
• AOM – Academy of Management
• African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS)
• American Political Science Association Minority Student Recruitment Program (APSA-MSRP)
• Annual Ivy Plus University of Puerto Rico Event
• Association Computing Machinery Women Council (ACM-W)
• Atlanta University Center Consortium (AUCC)
• Black Doctoral Network (BDN)
• Blacks in Cybersecurity (BIC)
• California Forum for Diversity in Graduate Education
• Careers Opportunity Research/NIMH (COR/NIMH)
• Carleton College Summer Mathematics Program for Women Undergraduates
• CCMR NSF PREM
• CCMR Summer REU Program at Cornell
• Center for Bright Beams Summer Program (CBB)
• CLASSE Summer Research for Community College Students (SRCCS)
• CLASSE Summer REU Program at Cornell
• CNF/ NNIN REU Program at Cornell
• Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP)
• Columbia University Bridge to the PhD Program
• COMPASS
• Computing Research Association – Widening Participation
• Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source Summer REU Program
• Cornell Summer Math Institute (CSMI)
• Cornell Summer School on Designing Technology for Social Impact
• Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Pre-doctoral Research School
• Dr. John H. Hopps Jr. Defense Research Scholars Program
• Ecological Society of America Diversity Forum
• EDGE Program: Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education
• ENGINE (engineering name exchange)
• Fisk-Vanderbilt Bridge Program
• FLIP (Diversifying Future Leadership in the Professoriate) Alliance
• Florida A&M Graduate Feeder Conference
• Food Science Summer Scholars Program at Cornell
• Grace Hopper Celebration
• I School Inclusion Institute (i3) Scholar
• IEEE – Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
• International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals (ICMCP)
• LASPAU
• LSAMP
• MasterCard Foundation Scholarship
• Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute (MTBI)
• Mathematics Summer REU Program at Cornell
• MBG Summer REU Program at Cornell
• Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellowship
• Mentoring, Educating, Networking, and Thematic Opportunities for Research in Engineering & Sciences (MENTORES)
• Microbial Friends and Foes REU
• Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS)
• National Astronomy Consortium (NAC)
• National Society for Blacks in Computing (NSBC)
• NeuroNex Technology Hub REU at Cornell
• New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, Summer Research Scholars Program
• NIH-NIGMS
• Out for Undergrad (O4U)
• Out in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (oSTEM)
• Plant Genome Research Summer Internship at Cornell
• Platform for the Accelerated Realization, Analysis, and Discovery of Interface Material (PARADIM)
• Posse Foundation
• Project 1000
• RBSI (Ralph Bunche Summer Institute) scholars
• SACNAS – Society for Advancing Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science 
• Shoals Marine Lab in Maine
• Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE)
• Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
• SoNIC Summer Workshop
• Summer Institute for Literary and Cultural Studies (SILCS)
• Summer Mathematics Institute at Cornell
• Summer Program for Women in Mathematics (SPWM)
• Summer Undergraduate Research in Science and Engineering (SUnRiSE)
• Tapia Conference
• Team for Research in Ubiquitous Secure Technology (TRUST)
• The CUNY Pipeline Program
• The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS Annual Conference)
• The Leadership Alliance
• The Ohio State University Physics MS to PhD Bridge Program
• Translational Applications of Nanoscale Multiferroic Systems (TAMNS)
• University of Michigan Building Bridges to the Doctorate Program
• UW student organizations such as the Brotherhood and Sisterhood Initiatives
• West Virginia University Summer Law Institute
• Williams Math Summer Research Program
• Williams Summer Humanities and Social Sciences Program (SHSS)
• Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS)
• Women in Data Science (WiDS)
• Women and Mathematics Program (WAM)
• Women in Security and Privacy (WISP)
• Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu (WSC)

Veterans: You are eligible if you are/were an active or reserve member of the United States military or naval forces, or a national guard member called to active duty, who served in active federal service, under either the Title 10 or Title 32 of the U.S. code, in a war or conflict fought on foreign soil or in international waters or in another location in support of those serving on foreign soil or in international waters, OR have received an honorable discharge.