The Student-in-Residence (SIR) Fellowship Program is intended to support student teams that are building a company while completing their degree(s).
(In order to be eligible to apply for the SIR Fellowship, you must be an actively enrolled current Stanford student/post-doc in good standing; you must hold a significant equity stake in the company; additionally, you must apply with your full team of founders, but only the active student(s) will be considered for the SIR Fellowship.)
Students who receive the Student-in-Residence scholarship also earn
exclusive access to structured ways of connecting with StartX's network of
hundreds of highly experienced and industry-leading mentors to help you
think through important decisions, including successful StartX
entrepreneurs, VCs, Stanford faculty and alumni --
receive customized coaching, where and when you need it most, from top notch
coaches and domain experts.
We are an educational non-profit whose mission is to accelerate the development of the highest-potential founders out of Stanford through experiential education and collective intelligence. We require no fees and take no equity.
Experienced and Industry-leading Mentors
Student entrepreneurs have to work on many things they haven't worked on before. The best student entrepreneurs know they need to be as equipped as possible, because that's what it takes to succeed.
We know that getting mentorship, coaching and expert advice, will definitely make a difference; and our SIR recipients are privileged to by trained by some of the best Stanford affiliated (and non-Stanford) founders, mentors and advisors. Exclusively available to Student-in-Residence recipients, is structured programming to offer tactical help & resources, experiential education, funding and a vast network of mentors, investors, and domain experts.
Recipients of the Student-in-Residence scholarship are carefully selected, and each cycle we welcome founders who are amazingly diverse, passionate, and talented. We are confident that the training and mentorship provided to Student-in-Residence scholarship recipients will be put to good use.
Each eligible team will be awarded $4500 upon acceptance for the Scholarship and $4500 upon having graduated from Stanford and passing the acceptance interviews for the StartX Community (each time, the award will be divided equally between eligible founders).
Through our community, you can get access to 1200+ world class coaches and advisors, on demand access to experts, and customized educational programming based your team + industry + stage.
Plus, all companies receive $1.2 million+ of free resources, as well as drop-in office space, legal advice, etc.
Applications are now open!
The scholarship and its accompanying mentorship is completely free; We don’t take any equity from you! No strings attached.
(We are an educational non-profit funded through grants, donations, and corporate sponsorships, including $8M in grant funding from Stanford University, Stanford Health Care, and Kauffman Foundation.)
What criteria do your judges look for?
Student-in-Residence judges focus on evaluating the team rather than the idea.
They evaluate (in descending order of priority):
passion and commitment demonstrated by founders
team dynamics
ability to execute & core competency
willingness to understand your market
What is the difference between applying to StartX vs. the Student in Residence Scholarship?
StartX has two admissions options for students:
The Student-in-Residence (SIR) Scholarship : accelerator only for students
The StartX Community : for experienced entrepreneurs or high-potential first-time founders
Many student founders first participate in SIR, then apply to the StartX Community. The SIR Scholarship provides financial aid to student entrepreneurs, as well as temporary 6 month access to select StartX resources. The StartX community offers lifetime membership upon admission and unlimited access to StartX resources and events.
How many companies do you admit? What is your acceptance rate?
We don’t have a set quota / number of companies. Student-in-Residence judges will admit any team that exceeds our quality bar.
Note: Historically, the acceptance rate hovers around 8%.
How many application cycles do you run every year? How long is the mentorship program?
The mentorship program spans six to eight months and two sessions. Each year, we run three 10-week mentorship sessions: spring, summer and fall. (We are looking to expand to four sessions per year! Stay tuned!)
Am I too early for the Student-in-Residence scholarship?
Founders are evaluated purely on their potential. A great way to find out what you need to be admitted, is to have applied in a previous cycle. Teams not admitted are always offered customized advice & feedback, on what steps they can take to reach the next level.
The application process itself is a great learning opportunity, it forces you to think about uncomfortable but crucial parts of your business, and on top of that every applicant gets valuable feedback from the judges.
We are an educational non-profit and our goal is to help all entrepreneurs reach the level they need.
