The University Offers two types of Assistantship programme to its students with the twin objective of encouraging  the meritorious students and to inculcate in them a professional  work culture.

• Student Merit Cum Means Scholarship Scheme
• Research Assistantship Programme

Student Merit Cum Means Scholarship Scheme

Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU) has initiated Student Merit Cum Means Scholarship Scheme (SMMSS) to inculcate work culture and competitive spirit among the students. SMMSS erstwhile (Student Assistantship Programme) SAP has been in existence since 2005 and for the first time in the state of Jammu & Kashmir by any University at this scale.

• Students enrolled in all full-time degree programmes and any future programmes are eligible for SMMSS.
• SMMSS will be awarded to top 10% meritorious students as per the following scheme:
  
  For a class strength of 55 to 60 students = 6 students
  For a class strength of 45 to 54 students = 5 students
  For a class strength of 35 to 44 students = 4 student
  For a class strength of 25 to 34 students = 3 student
  For a class strength of 15 to 24 students = 2 student
  For a class strength of less that 15 students = 1 student
• Every student covered under this scheme will be given semester tuition fee waiver of the annual tuition fee for the semester concerned in the following manner:
  
  For class strength of 60 students the following scheme will be implemented:
  
  First = waiver of 100 % of the semester tuition fee
  Second = waiver of 75 % of the semester tuition fee
  Third = waiver of 50 % of the semester tuition fee
  Fourth = waiver of 30 % of the semester tuition fee
  Fifth = waiver of 20 % of the semester tuition fee
  Sixth = waiver of 10 % of the semester tuition fee
• A minimum CGPA of 8.5 shall be compulsory for a student to be eligible for award of SMMSS.
• In addition to this a student hailing from poor background & securing a CGPA of 9 and above shall also be entitled to 100% tuition fee waiver of the semester tuition fee. He shall however, have to show sufficient and convincing official proof to the SMMSS Monitoring Committee members of his eligibility under the aforesaid clause (as desired by His Excellency Governor J&K State and Chancellor SMVDU in the 15th meeting of the Executive Council held on 3/05/2010).
• A fund will be setup out of this money which shall be used to institute awards/ prizes for those students who excel in domains (extra and co curricular) other than academics and bring laurels to the university by competing with students from other institutions at National/ State Level. This money shall also be used to provide scholarships to a select no of students who cannot afford to pay the fees etc. In addition to this since more stringent criteria have now been proposed it is possible/ expected that at times we may not be able to have 100% eligible candidates as mentioned in S.No.2.The unspent however earmarked amount thus will also be added to the fund.
• The practice of providing the additional financial benefit of Rs. 1000/- per month shall be dispensed with. However, the Director of the concerned School shall engage the awardees in various activities of the school such as:
  
  I. Laboratory related activities
  II. Library related work
  III. Other such work as may be approved for the purpose
• SMMSS will be awarded for the performance in a given semester only as is being done presently.
• SMMSS will be awarded to the newly admitted students on the basis of their score in competitive examination (AIEEE for B.Tech and B.Arch), performance in MAT and/or CAT+GD+PI (incase of M.B.A. and M.B.A. (BE)), percentage of marks in qualifying examination incase of the programmes where admissions are based on the same. In case of the programmes where admission is not on the basis of merit rank order of any national level entrance examination we may follow the percentage of marks obtained in the qualifying examination by the concerned candidate as the criteria for award of SAP with a lower ceiling of 80% minimum.
• A committee named as SMMSS monitoring Committee will be constituted to ensure smooth implementation and monitoring of SMMSS scheme.
• The administration shall notify the beneficiaries under the SMMSS scheme. Students eligible under the scheme shall submit SMMSS Form in the triplet to Director of the concerned School (not later than 10 working days prior to the commencement of Major Examination for the concerned semester), who shall forward the same to Chairman SMMSS Committee. Chairman SMMSS Committee shally then recommend the release of waiver to the administration.
• Incase if two students obtain same CGPA in a given semester.
  
  Such a situation shall be dealt with in the following manner:
  Example: For instance there is a situation such as the follows for class strength of 55 to 60 students:
  No of students eligible = 06
  Student No. 01 has CGPA of 9.22
  Two students at No. 02 having CGPA of 9.15 each
  Student No. 04 has CGPA of 9.12
  Student No. 05 has CGPA of 9.10
  Student No. 06 has CGPA of 9.08
  Student No. 07 has CGPA of 9.00
  [Total no of students in the above example is 06]
  Solution:
  • Since there are two students at S. No. 2 therefore S.No.7 is automatically ineligible for award of SAP so as to maintain the overall no at 06 (10%).
  • Under normal circumstances S. No. 2 is eligible to receive 75% waiver and S. No. 3 is eligible to receive 50% waver. Therefore to deal with such a case as above calculate the mean of the two percentages [(75 + 50)/2 = 62.5%].
  • Therefore S. No. 1 would receive 100% waver, the two students at S. No. 2 receive an equal percentage waiver of 62.5%, S. No. 3 receives 30% waiver, S. No. 4 receives 20% waiver and S. No. 5 receives 10% waiver.
  • In simple terms wherever there are two students with same CGPA we shall calculate the average of two percentages of that S. No. and the next immediate S. No. and release the average percentage in favor of both and accordingly slide one ladder down to maintain the overall no at 10% of class strength.
  • Incase there are two students with same CGPA at S. No. 06 in the above example then we may directly release 5% in favor of each.
• If a student is eligible for full tuition fee waiver for a particular semester from SMVDU and he is also a recipient of a similar assistance towards tuition fee provided by some external agency, in such a case SMMSS shall not be awarded. However, part assistance provided by outside agency shall make the candidate eligible for partial tuition fee waiver under SMMSS equivalent to the difference of the full tuition fee and the assistance provided by the outside agency.

Note: It may kindly be noted that for the students of batches 2006, 2007 & 2008 the old scheme of SAP will be followed as is being done previously and for the students of 2009 batch SAP scheme as published in Prospectus 2009 will be followed.

Research Assistantship Programme

In tune with vision & objectives of the University SMVDU offers Research Assistantship Programme to Research Scholars. The aim of this programme is to provide financial assistance to the students pursuing Ph. D in the University. Under this program an assistantship of Rs.8000/- to Rs.15,000/- per month is provided to the Research Scholars in various discipllines, besides an annual contingency of Rs.4000/-.  The program aims at preparing students for carrying out cutting-edge research in Science, Technology & Management.  The selected Candidates have to put in 10 hours of work in the respective School of Studyweekly or 140 hours per semester as per the academic job assigned by the Director of the School.