Awards Selection Process

AREF takes great pride in the adjudicating process that AREF relies on while selecting awardees for the scholarships that AREF offers each year. The Adjudicating Committee (AC) is at an arm-length group that reviews ALL applications and applies the same rules to all applicants in all categories.  There are no exceptions to this rule.  AREF management team does not get involved in this selection process.  The AC is comprised of an exceptional group of academics, scientists, and world-renowned individuals.

Each year, AREF receives many applications for each scholarship that AREF offers for the particular year. Once the final deadline for accepting applications has ended, all applications are initially vetted to ensure that they meet the minimum eligibility in which the applicants has applied for. The criteria for each scholarship can be found under the scholarship sections on this website.

Once applications have been vetted and are found to meet the minimum eligibility criteria, all applications are then forwarded to AREF’s panel of the AC.

Each member of the AC then reviews all eligible applications and ranks them according to how well they feel the applicant met the scholarship objectives. All members of the AC then meet in person and discuss every application to compare different AC member ranking. At the end of the meeting, the AC provides AREF with its final list of scholarship award nominees.

It is important to note that at NO POINT does AREF guarantee that EVERY student that meets the criteria will be awarded a scholarship as this is a very competitive process and only the top students are awarded. AREF then contacts all award nominees to inform them of their nominations and receives their approval to accept the award.

AREF announces the scholarship award winners’ names at AREF’s annual awards gala.

All decisions of the AC are final. There is no appeal process