Scholarship for Service (SFS) FAQs

SFS General Questions

What is the Scholarship for Service (SFS)?

Administered through Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service (SFS) is designed to recruit and train cybersecurity professionals through scholarships for undergraduate and graduate education. In exchange, recipients commit to serving in cybersecurity roles within federal, state, local, or tribal government agencies for a period equal to the length of their scholarship.  

For the undergraduate summer internship cohort, CISA will provide selectees with on-the-job training to prepare them for a career in the federal government in a cybersecurity related field. Those selected will receive a time-limited appointment in the excepted service. For the post graduate cohort, CISA may provide selectees with a full-time position in the excepted service. These opportunities are only for eligible SFS scholarship recipients, as part of the administration’s commitment to keeping its promise to cybersecurity students and to attracting top talent to CISA. 

Which institutions participate in SFS?

More than 100 colleges and universities across the country participate in the SFS Program. A comprehensive list of all participating institutions, as well as points of contact and additional information about specific university programs, is available on the SFS Institutions webpage.  

Can I apply for SFS as an international student?

Only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents/Green Card holders are eligible to participate in the SFS Program. 

How do I apply for the SFS program?

If you attend a participating college, university, or school, you must apply to the program through your institution. A list of participating institutions is available on the SFS Institutions webpage. 

If you are accepted into the program, you will be required to sign a service agreement. 

Please note: CISA does not play any role in the SFS application process. 

What are the SFS eligibility requirements?  

All participants must meet the following requirements to be eligible to participate in the SFS Program:  

• Be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident/Green Card holder;  

• Be currently enrolled as a full-time student at a participating college/university; and  

• Pursuing a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate degree in cybersecurity, computer science, information systems, etc. 

What is the difference between an SFS student and an SFS post-graduate?

SFS students are currently enrolled at a participating college/university.  

SFS post-graduates have graduated from a participating college/university.  

CISA SFS Internship Application Process

How can I become an SFS intern or post-graduate at CISA?

Eligible SFS recipients should use the USAJobs links below to submit their resume, transcript and service letters for CISA opportunities from December 15, 2025, through February 27, 2026.   

• CISA - Scholarship for Service (SFS) Internship Undergrad Program 

• CISA - Scholarship for Service (SFS) Post Grad Program

What documents should I submit for my application?

You should submit your resume, an unofficial transcript (obtained within the past 30 days), and your SFS service agreement via USAJOBS. If selected, you will also need to submit an official transcript to us via email.  

If you are a SFS post-graduate, we will need proof that you have graduated (i.e., a final transcript). 

Where can I find my SFS service agreement?

You can obtain this information from the SFS website, by emailing sfs@opm.gov, or from your school’s SFS program.

What format should my transcript (unofficial or official) be in?

An unofficial transcript obtained within the past 30 days should be included in your initial application. This transcript MUST include the student’s name, name of the school, specific degree program, current GPA/academic standing, and past and current coursework.  

Note: If you have multiple university degrees, you should provide a transcript for each degree program.  

If you have any transcript(s) from a foreign university, with information in a language other than English, you should also provide a translated version of the transcript.  

If your transcripts do not provide the information listed above, as well as proof of meeting the qualifications listed in the announcement, include additional official academic documentation that meets those requirements.  

I’m not an SFS student, but want to apply for an SFS internship. Can I do that?  

SFS Internships are only available for active SFS students. 

CISA offers other internship opportunities for non-SFS students. Please visit USAJOBS to review available opportunities.  

I submitted my application. Do you need anything else from me?

Once you have submitted your application, it will be processed and reviewed by our hiring managers.  

If we need any additional information from you, we will contact you via email.  

When should I expect to hear back?

Timelines may vary based on the hiring team’s process. Generally, candidates selected for the next steps can expect to hear from us by March. If you are not selected, we may not be able to provide individual notifications, but we appreciate your interest and the time you invested in applying. 

CISA SFS Intern Experience

Are SFS internships part-time or full-time?

CISA offers both full-time and part-time SFS internships. Full-time internships are more common during the summer.  

How long does the internship period last?

CISA’s Scholarship for Service internship is a temporary appointment starting in May 2026, with an initial duration of at least 12 weeks, and which is extendable to a maximum of 20 weeks.  

Can I be an SFS intern in the fall or spring, not just the summer?

While most of our interns are summer interns, summer internships can be extended, up to a maximum of 20 weeks.  

It is possible for SFS interns to intern part-time when returning to their studies. This is less common than summer internships, as we find that Principal Investigators often prefer SFS students to focus primarily on their studies during the school year.  

I am based outside of Arlington, VA. Do you have any internships in my location or remote internships?

We are only offering in-person internships in the National Capital Region or at our regional offices.  

CISA does not offer remote SFS internships at this time. 

What do SFS interns do?

SFS interns are exposed to a diverse range of cybersecurity-related topics and experiences. Previous CISA SFS interns have: 

• Developed ransomware vulnerability guidance for K-12 stakeholders, enhancing awareness of critical vulnerabilities and reducing the time to mitigate vulnerabilities prior to ransomware encryption. 

• Developed a strategy that reduced the time required to process vulnerability disclosure information by 30%, with research that analyzed 7,100 vulnerabilities and 2,546 published advisories.  

• Developed automations for the Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Reporting Engine, reducing the need for manual reporting activities and saving time on assessments.  

• Analyzed assessment surveys to evaluate how often the customers implemented CISA’s risk reduction recommendations.  

• Performed market research, and capability and legal analysis to enhance operations through the integration of open-source information and tools.  

• Developed an automated tool using Python to parse scanning data, directly updating vulnerability findings, and optimizing assessment completion times.  

• Developed automated scripts to monitor data quality and completeness trends for CVEs, which identified thousands of sites and leveraged the critical technology to uncover security.txt information used to analyze cybersecurity maturity.  

• Enhanced the Micro Evaluation Security Assessment (MESA) tool to improve success criteria for regional transition, enabling assessment execution scaling.  

• Used Packer, Ansible, and Terraform to automate the creation of virtual machines. 

• Enhanced vulnerability open-source information gathering and security researcher partnership efforts, providing analysis that enabled CISA’s Vulnerability Management team to implement an operationally dynamic communication method with valuable security researchers.  

• Created training materials on various platforms for vulnerability hunting.  

• Designed a tool to monitor changes in externally facing web applications for federal agencies, which helped the Federal Attack Surface Testing (FAST) service prioritize operational testing.  

• Automated the RustPacker and PythonLoader family of phishing payloads, which significantly simplified the assessment teams’ work, saving hours of manual effort for each assessment.  

SFS Hiring Events

Does SFS host hiring events?

Yes, the Office of Personnel Management hosts 1-2 private hiring events for SFS students and post-graduates per year.  

There is an in-person career fair in Washington, D.C., every January and a virtual career fair in October.  

Individual agencies also occasionally host virtual informational sessions exclusively for active SFS participants.  

What should I expect at an SFS hiring event?

SFS hiring events provide attendees with the opportunity to speak to multiple representatives and hiring managers from different federal agencies and other entities.  

Some candidates may be selected for specific position interviews at these events.  

Contact Information

I have questions about the SFS program/internship that can’t be answered on this website. How can I contact you?

If your question is not CISA-specific, you can reach out to sfs@opm.gov.  

If your question is CISA-specific, we encourage you to consult this website, the job listing, and any other prior communications you have received from us. If you need additional information, please contact us at student.careers@cisa.dhs.gov.  

Please note: We are unable to provide a status update for internship applications, unless we’ve previously contacted you, or if you were selected for an internship position.