How to complete your application

We strongly encourage you to use the on-line application system, which you can access from this site.   Simply go to the home page and click on “Online Application” under “Quick Links.”

Additional instructions for completing the application process are available as you go through items in the online system.

The components of the application are designed to provide you with ample opportunity to demonstrate your eligibility and how well and thoroughly you fulfill the selection criteria:

I.  The application form asks for:  

• Contact information for you and your references,
• Background information relative to your family heritages and your linguistic skills,
• Information that indicates the bases for your eligibility,
• Information that helps us understand you academic history and plans as well as your experience with relevant standardized tests used to assess your graduate school applications, and
• Your summary overview of how you meet the primary selection criteria.

II.  The two essays ask you to:

• Present evidence of how your activities and accomplishments best demonstrate and illustrate your fulfilling the primary selection criteria, presented in the context of your own personal immigration story.
• Present evidence of how your plans and preparation for graduate study demonstrate and illustrate your commitment to fulfilling the fourth and fifth selection criteria. 

Be sure to answer the specific questions.  

It is important that the essays be your own writing. 

The word limitation of 1,000 words for each essay is firm.

III.  The request for exhibits provides you with an opportunity to help us better understand the significance of your creativity, originality, initiative, accomplishments and/or commitment to constitutional and bill of rights values.

You must submit a 1-2 page resume.  You may emphasize aspects of your academic and non-academic activities that are most relevant to the selection criteria.  In any case, make sure that you include some documentation of all periods subsequent to the completion of your bachelors degree. 

In addition you may attach no more than five additional pages that document or illustrate your strengths in one or more of the selection criteria.

Appropriate exhibits might include

• copies of newspaper or magazine articles about you and/or your accomplishments
• Excerpts from a portfolio
• Letters of commendation
• Programs for events you have organized or in which you have participated.
• Title and author pages of publications you have authored
• An additional letter of recommendaion.

If you are applying for support in the fine or performing arts, or if you feel that your performances or contributions to films, documentaries, etc. are important aspects of your accomplishments, you can submit CDs or DVDs, or no more than 12 slides.  

Please clearly mark all exhibits with your name as it appears on the Application Form.

EXHIBITS WILL NOT BE RETURNED.

IV.  Three recommendation letters are required and are typically critical elements in any application.

The letters provide opportunities for respected academic and institutional figures who are familiar with your activities and accomplishments to validate and to elaborate on the evidence you present relative to this program’s selection criteria.

Because the program’s selection criteria are distinctive and different from those of most graduate admission competitions and most fellowship competitions, it is important that you ask your recommenders to focus on your activities and accomplishments relative to this program. 

Because your essays provide the best indication of your own assessment of how you meet the program’s selection criteria, we strongly encourage you to provide copies of your essays to each of your recommenders well in advance of the due date.  

Of the three letters,

One should come from a faculty member or research supervisor who is familiar with your academic performance, whether as an undergraduate or in a graduate program.

A second should come from a supervisor or other responsible individual who is familiar with, and can assess and comment on, your involvement in one or more non-academic activities.   Such activities might include an extra-curricular organization, a business, a volunteer assignment, an internship, or a project you undertook on your own.  

A third letter could come from either of the above types of references, depending on the contexts in which you feel you have best demonstrated excellence with respect to the selection criteria.

If you feel a fourth letter of recommendation would materially strengthen your application, you can have it submitted in lieu of one of your exhibits.

V.  An Institutional Status Form must be submitted if you are a registered student – a senior or in a graduate program – as of the November 1, 2011 deadline.

The form can be completed by a registrar, a dean, a director of your program, or another authority. 

The institutional authority should clearly indicate when you can be expected to complete the degree towards which you are working.

If you are currently in a graduate program for which you hope to receive support under this program, the institutional authority should clearly indicate when you began work under that program.  

If you are working towards – or have obtained -- a masters degree that leads to a doctoral program in the same program at the same institution, the university authority should indicate when you began work on the masters degree. 

The institutional authority should send the completed form directly to the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship Program at 400 West 59th Street, New York, NY 10019.  

Please make sure your name appears clearly and legibly on this form, just as it appears on the Application Form.   

VI.  The request for transcripts allows the program to validate and better understand your academic history and accomplishments.

Transcripts from your undergraduate institution or institutions is/are required.

One or more transcripts from any graduate programs you have been – or are currently -- enrolled in are also required.  

VII.  The request for copies of immigration/citizenship documents is required to verify:

• Your status as a green card holder or naturalized citizen if you were born abroad, or
• Your parents’ status as naturalized citizens if you were born in this country.

Though the deadline of November 1 may seem to give you ample time for delay, keep the following in mind:

A.  The essays are deceptively challenging.  They require introspection and serious reflection. They benefit, in many cases, from discussions with parents if you are not already thoroughly familiar with your own family’s immigration story.   You should allow several weeks for preparation and revision of your essays.

B.  You will want your references to be able to validate and elaborate on the evidence you present in your essays for how well you meet the selection criteria..  That means you are well advised to give your references copies of those essays (as well as a transcript and your test scores). 

C.  You will want to give your references ample time – around three weeks – to

• familiarize themselves with the program’s selection criteria (which are quite different from those of many fellowship programs),
• read your essays,
• write a thoughtful recommendation in support of your application, and
• submit it in time to meet the November 1st deadline.

D.  That means you are well advised to have begun serious work on your essays and on the gathering of materials for your application at least six weeks before the deadline – i.e. by mid September.   If you are behind that schedule, you will want to think seriously about how best to telescope your preparation.