Selection and Eligibility

SELECTION CRITERIA

With the assistance of a panel of national experts, the Foundation will select Fellows using these criteria:

• Applicant’s superior academic ability and achievement;
• Dissertation’s significant contribution to exploring and understanding the factors that support and hinder high academic achievement for low-income students. Ideally, the results will enable practitioners, scholars, funders and community members to design strategies and programs to aid high-achieving, low-income students in reaching their full potential;
• The quality of the proposal with regard to its methodology, scope, theoretical framework, and grounding in the relevant scholarly literature, and;
• The feasibility of the project and the likelihood that the applicant will execute the work within the proposed timeframe.

MINIMUM ELIGIBILITY

Applicants for Cooke Dissertation Fellowships:

• may be US citizens, US permanent residents, or non-US citizens;
• must currently be studying at an accredited US institution;
• must be advanced doctoral students, who have completed all pre-dissertation requirements;
• must have successfully defended their dissertation proposal before the application deadline (February 4, 2013); and
• must not have previously received a scholarship or other funding from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, creed, color, sex, age, physical or mental disabilities, sexual orientation, or national origin. Foundation staff, board members, current scholars and their families are not eligible to apply.

MOre information

The 2013 Cooke Dissertation Fellowship Guidelines, the FAQs, the Eligibility Timeline, and the Reviewer Recommendations provide greater detail and additional pertinent information necesary for a competitive application.