Eligible applicants for Hertz Fellowships must be students of the applied physical, biological and engineering sciences who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States of America, and who are willing to morally commit to make their skills available to the United States in time of national emergency (see our Moral Commitment section).

College seniors wishing to pursue the Ph.D. degree in any of the fields of particular interest to the Foundation, as well as graduate students already in the process of doing so, may apply.

We screen Fellowship applicants for qualities the Foundation believes are essential ingredients of future professional accomplishment and/or reasonably reliable leading indicators of future professional success. These include:

• Exceptional Intelligence and Creativity with particular emphasis on those aspects pertinent to technical endeavors
• Excellent Technical Education evidenced not only by transcripts and reference reports from senior technical professionals, but also by the results of a personal, technical interview
• Orientation and Commitment to the applications of the physical sciences as is typical of most applicants
• Extraordinary Accomplishment in technical or related professional studies which may offset slightly lower academic records, or add luster to outstanding ones
• Features of Temperament and Character conducive to high attainment as a technical professional the assessment of which is difficult, albeit important to the Foundation 
• Appropriate moral and ethical values of considerable interest to the Foundation in the furthering of our basic goals
• Leverage what difference the award of the Hertz Fellowship is likely to make in the kind, quality, and/or personal creativity of the student's graduate research