P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans

The 2016 Fellows come from all over the world. This map represents the heritage of the 30 Fellows in the Class of 2016.

In this chart of the 2016 Fellows' religious and spiritual identities, 3 percent is the equivalent of one Fellow.

This chart represents the schools and universities where the 2016 Fellows attained their undergraduate degrees. Multiple Fellows earned their degrees from UC Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, UNC Chapel Hill and the University of Oklahoma, which is why they are bigger. Mubeen Shakir (2016 Fellow) and Akash Patel (2016 Fellow) were our very first Fellows to have attended the University of Oklahoma!

New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC and Chicago are the 2016 Fellows' favorite cities in the United States to visit for fun.

While it's not a consideration in the application process, it's interesting to consider what level of education the 2016 Fellows' parents have attained. Many of our Fellows are first-generation college graduates, and will be the first in their families to attain a graduate degree.

Our Fellows come from all different backgrounds and circumstances. This quote was taken from one of the 2016 Fellows' application essays.

When asked about their favorite books and TV shows about the New American experience, several responses came up over and over again.

We asked the 2016 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows about their go-to news sources. Here are the top answers.

We loved learning about the 2016 Fellows' dream mentors. We wanted them to think big and they certainly did. In addition to the mentors listed here, a few other names that came up, include: Elon Musk, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Reza Aslan, Russ Altman, Vivek Murthy (1998 Fellow), and Marina Abramovic.

As a merit-based Fellowship, The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans supports Fellows from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds.

The 2016 Fellows are attending graduate programs across the country including University of Michigan, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Yale, UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, UC San Francisco, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Princeton, Weill Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan-Kettering Tri-Institutional MD-PhD program, Carnegie Mellon University, Princeton and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The size of the text is dependent on the number of 2016 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows attending the school.

The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans is open to immigrants and children of immigrants. Of the 2016 Fellows, 10 were born in the United States, five are green card holders, 14 are naturalized US citizens and one is a DACA recipient.

Of the 20 Fellows who were born abroad, six came to the United States when they were 10 or older. 14 came to the United States when they were 10 or younger.

Having come from all over the world and country, Fellows have a diverse set of lived experiences. This is a quote from one of the 2016 Fellows' application essays.

We asked the 2016 Fellows about their favorite apps. They highlighted Dropbox, DuoLingo, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook.

We also asked the 2016 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows about their favorite sports. We heard a lot of different answers: volleyball, tennis, squash, archery, modern dance, softball, table tennis--but basketball, swimming, soccer and running were the top sports selected.

The average of the Class of 2016 is 25. Many Fellows take a few years off between college and graduate school.

The many different professional fields represented by the 2016 Fellows.

Iris Hu (2016 Fellow) is pursuing her MFA at Columbia and Shadi Ghaheri (2016 Fellow) is pursuing a degree in theater directing at Yale.