Wall Street Journal Asia Fellowship at NYU

The deadline for applications to The Wall Street Journal Asia Fellowship at New York University, for one or two promising journalists from Asia to enroll in the three-semester masters program in the Business & Economic Reporting program at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, has been extended from Jan. 22 to Feb. 8, 2010.

We’ve updated the page explaining the application process so hopefully it’s a bit clearer.

We’ve added a section outlining the procedure, and also clarifying whether applicants need to apply separately for the program.

We encourage those who are applying for the WSJ Fellowship to also apply directly for admission to NYU’s program in Business and Economic Reporting. The fellowship is very competitive, and inevitably a number of highly-qualified candidates will be disappointed. However, by applying simultaneously to NYU, those who are not offered the fellowship can compete for admission and potentially a scholarship award directly from NYU. The school’s scholarship awards are not as generous as the fellowship, but over the years they have enabled journalists from Asia and around the world to study in the BER program. Online application is here.

Deadline for fall 2009: BER provides rolling admission beginning with the first deadline of January 4. Applications filed through May 1 will be considered on a space-available basis. Please contact business.journalism@nyu.edu if you are considering filing your application after January 4.

One of our fellows, Serena Ng, has kindly submitted her thoughts on budgeting for the fellowship, a question asked by quite a few prospective applicants. After all, New York isn’t a cheap city.

Q: How much should I expect to spend while attending graduate school in New York?

A: Most previous fellows were able to get by on about $1,500 a month. Rent for a room in a shared apartment in the city typically ranges from $700 to 1,200 per month, depending on location, and utilities may cost extra. Renting an entire apartment costs significantly more unless you choose to stay in the outer boroughs, such as Brooklyn or Queens. Costs for food, travel expenses and other everyday items are likely to come up to at least $10-20 per day.

Thanks, Serena! (You can follow Serena on twitter.)

We’ve changed the procedure for sending in applications; they should now go direct to NYU. Details here.

If you’ve already submitted to the old address, contact us and we’ll make sure your application gets passed on.

I’m afraid applications have now closed for the fellowship, and finalists will be notified by March.

Those who don’t get selected, or didn’t get their application together in time, will have a chance to submit next year. This website will be up, and updated, in the interim, so please continue to keep an eye out. Those of you who feel you don’t match the criteria now have plenty of time to fill in the gaps. Remember: initiative, ingenuity and a readiness to fill in the gaps of experience and knowledge are all highly regarded qualities, not just for this fellowship, but for journalism in general.

A reminder to those who haven’t submitted their application forms: There’s still time, but remember that the deadline of January 20 is for applications to be received. So give yourself plenty of time mailing it. The address, by the way, is

Cathy Panagoulias
Deputy Managing Editor
The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281
USA

Apologies, all: The website was down for a few hours while we tweaked the server. Everything should be working again now, but sorry to those of you trying to reach us in the meantime.