Fee Waiver Policy

CWRU’s Mission

We are a comprehensive research university that strives to have an even greater impact—from books and publications, to the classroom, to patient care and disease breakthroughs, to product development and beyond.

We aspire to be a campus community without barriers and silos among faculty, staff and students. We seek to build a holistic local and global community that aspires to exchange ideas among all of its people, and in every sense. We must support one another and talk about difficult things. We must be intentional. We must serve as an anchor institution to our surrounding neighborhoods and region, and be a congealing place in University Circle and in Cleveland.

BSTP’s Mission

In the BSTP program, we strive to give even further access to applicants who may have encountered these barriers. All US citizens or permanent residents and all CWRU alumni and current CWRU students (current CWRU or CWRU international alumni must email bstp@case.edu for a fee waiver) are eligible to apply free of charge (without submitting a fee waiver code) up until the priority application deadline of October 15. Application fee waivers are not available to international students this year (except current CWRU or CWRU alumni international students).

Any applicant who identifies as an Underrepresented Minority (URM).

As defined by the NIH, a URM is defined as a U.S. citizen who identifies as Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. We also recognize multiracial students who identify with one or more of these identities and Permanent Residents who identify with one or more of these identities.

Any applicant who identifies as economically or socially disadvantaged.

For applicants who have or currently participate in two or more of the following programs and do not identify with the communities above, we also provide an application fee waiver to those U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents.


Additionally, all US citizens or permanent residents and all CWRU alumni and current students (international students must email bstp@case.edu for a fee waiver) are eligible to apply free of charge (without submitting a fee waiver code) up until the priority application deadline of October 15.

If an eligible applicant applies after October 15th, they should reach out to bstp@case.edu to request a fee waiver code to submit their application at no cost to them. Use 'URiM fee waiver request' as the subject line and state your citizenship and URiM status in your email. You must have initiated an application before requesting a waiver.

Do not submit the final application until after you receive an email reply stating that the fee waiver has been granted.