I. Eligibility

Candidates for the 2013-2014 Mitchell Scholars program must meet all criteria. They shall:

• be US citizens 
• be 18 years of age or older, but not yet 30, on 30 September (those who turn 30 on 1 October are not eligible).
• have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university before beginning study as a Mitchell Scholar. Degrees from international accredited universities are acceptable, if all other conditions are met.
• While married applicants or applicants with partners are accepted, no allowance is made for the expenses of an applicant’s spouse, partner, or dependents. It is important to note that spouses or partners who are non-EU citizens may be required to be enrolled full-time and prove financial resources for the year or to obtain a work permit before seeking paid employment in Ireland or Northern Ireland. Please check with the Department of Foreign Affairs (Ireland) or the British Council (UK) for details.

II. Application

Each candidate must submit the online application no later than 11:59pm, Eastern Daylight Time, October 2, 2012. The application consists of five sections: Personal Information; Education and Employment; Registration of References/Institutional Endorser; Awards and Activities; and Personal Statement, plus supporting documents, letters of recommendations, and a short video interview. All applicants must respond to all sections of the application before it will be evaluated. Only upon receving all an applicant's materials and supporting documents, as well as all required letters of endorsement and recommendations and the video interview, will an application be considered complete. The Mitchell Scholars program only accepts online applications. No printed copies of the application, including letters of recommendation, will be accepted; unsolicted hard-copy materials sent to the office will be destroyed to protect confidentiality.

A candidate should devote careful thought to the essay, which should describe a candidate's field of interest and justification for proposed study in Ireland or Northern Ireland. Selection committee members will place special emphasis on the personal statement. The essay cannot exceed 1,000 words and should be written clearly and well. The applicant must certify in the online application that the essay is his/her own work.

The candidate is responsible for researching and listing at least three specific proposed graduate programs at three different universities in Ireland and/or Northern Ireland. It is essential that candidates list at least three different university choices and may list as many as five. Listing only one or two university choices will significantly weaken a candidacy. University placement may be a factor in the selection process.

It is important that candidates spend sufficient time examining the various programs at universities in Ireland and Northern Ireland to determine the programs in which they are most interested and for which they are qualified. Candidates are not required to apply to a university in Ireland or Northern Ireland directly in order to apply for the Mitchell. Information about higher education in Ireland and Northern Ireland can be found at the following link: Institutions of Higher Learning in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Candidates should closely examine degree residence requirements because while Master's programs can be one or two years in duration, the Mitchell Scholars Program only provides tuition, fees, accommodation, and a living stipend for one year. Candidates also must have sufficient academic and professional preparation for each proposed post-graduate program; please carefully review prerequisites for each academic program.

III. Supporting Documents

The following supporting documents must be uploaded in the online application no later than the national deadline . Please do not send these materials in hard copy before the national deadline; any such materials sent unsolicited will be destroyed to protect confidentiality. Only finalists will be asked for some of these materials in hard copy; shipping details will be sent with the  request for materials.  

PLEASE UPLOAD PDF FILES ONLY.

• ONE electronic image file of passport-type photo, unmounted head and shoulders, of applicant must be uploaded. The system will accept ONE pdf file in this field for each application; system does not convert to pdf format.
• ONE electronic image file of the applicant's signature must be uploaded. Sign a blank piece of paper. Scan it. Upload that file. The system will accept ONE pdf file in this field for each application; system does not convert to pdf format.
• ONE electronic file containing unofficial copies of (all) a candidate's college (and graduate, when applicable) transcript(s) must be uploaded in pdf format. If a Social Security Number (SSN) is shown on transcript(s), please obscure that information. The system will accept ONE pdf file in this field for each application; system does not convert to pdf format. Finalists will be required to submit ONE original official hard copy of all transcript(s) (upon request and in advance of finalist weekend). ORIGINAL official transcript(s] must be certified by a Registrar or other responsible university official. Finalists must send all these materials together in ONE packet upon request.
• The following document is not uploaded at the time of initial application:
  
  

o    ONE electronic image file (ONE pdf file) of an applicant's birth certificate, passport, or documented evidence of US citizenship (a driver's license is NOT a citizenship document) must be available so that the candidate can provide it upon request (before the semi-final interview). Finalists will be asked to furnish a hard-copy of this document during finalist weekend.

IV. Online Letters of Recommendation

All candidates are required to provide four letters of recommendation using the online recommendation system contained within the online application. Candidates register those who are providing recommendations  online and must furnish an email address for each person. Once registered, each person providing a recommendation will receive an email with a login (user name and password). These are necessary in order to submit a letter online. University and business email controls often necessitate some follow-up on the part of candidates to ensure that their registered recommenders receive and follow the process in the emails sent from our system. We encourage candidates to contact the people providing recommendations to make sure the email instructions have been received, understood, and can be used. Timely receipt of letters is the responsibility of candidates, and no extensions are granted for submission of letters. Until an application is submitted, it is possible for a candidate to change recommenders who have not yet submitted letters. Recommendations are part of the application and must be present for an application to be considered complete; incomplete applications will not be considered.

Of the four letters of recommendation, if a candidate is a full-time student, at least two must be from persons with whom a candidate has done academic work (courses or research) at a college or university. Candidates who are not now and have not been full-time students in the past academic year are also required to provide two letters of recommendation from academics with whom they have studied or done research.

People providing recommendations who are without email capability may be registered with a colleague’s email address, although one email address can be used for only one recommendation for each candidate. Recommenders can enter text directly into the application form (not suggested); however, we encourage that the text be uploaded from another document and a copy of that document retained. Once a recommender submits a recommendation and confirms that the letter is authentic, an email confirming that the recommendation was received is sent to a recommender's registered email address as well as to the candidate. Candidates cannot eliminate a recommender once a recommendation is submitted from that person.

Letters of recommendation should comment on a candidate’s general fitness for the proposed course of study. Confidential observations, negative as well as positive, on the candidate's character, integrity, generosity of spirit, intellectual distinction, leadership and commitment to service will be of great value to the selection committee in deciding which candidates should be Mitchell Scholars. By requesting these letters through the online application system, candidates waive their rights of access to these letters.

For Full-Time Students – Institutional Endorsement

A candidate who is a full-time student at the time of application must present an institutional endorsement. Candidates must be endorsed by an institution where they have been enrolled for two years of full-time study before October 1 of the year in which they are applying (undergraduate transfer students entering their second year at an institution may secure the endorsement from their current institution). The applicant must register an institutional endorsement contact using the online recommendation system contained with the online application. It is preferred that candidates in their first two years of graduate school should request an endorsement from their undergraduate institution and have recommendations from both undergraduate and graduate faculty. The Mitchell Scholars Program will accept institutional endorsements from a university president, dean, or fellowships advisor. There should be one person so designated on each campus. Please use the "find an advisor" tool on this website to learn if your campus's nominating official has registered. Absence from that listing means only that the official has not registered. It does not mean that we do not permit candidacies from a particular institution. The official is often the same person who manages the nomination process for other major scholarship programs such as the Marshall, Rhodes, Truman, or Udall Scholarships. A letter of endorsement should describe the on-campus university selection or review process of prospective candidates as well as addressing the characteristics of a candidate.

If candidates are not full-time students at the time of application, no institutional endorsement is required. Candidates who are not enrolled full-time may, however, elect to have an endorsing letter from their campus official as a fifth letter.

Please note that all online materials for a candidate’s Mitchell Scholar application must be submitted no later than 11:59pm, Eastern Daylight Time, October 2, 2011. The online application will be closed at that time, and no late submissions from applicants or recommenders are possible. A candidate is personally responsible for ensuring that recommenders and university administrators transmit their recommendations and endorsement on time. There is a very tight timeline for thorough review of all applications, so the deadline for application, supporting documents, and recommendation submission is strictly enforced. There are no exceptions.

V. Fellowship Advisor Read-Only Access (Optional)

A candidate is presented with the opportunity to register a fellowship advisor who will have read-only access to the application. Granting this access is optional for competition at the national level. However, candidates seeking institutional endorsement must comply with their campus policies. If a candidate would like a fellowship advisor to view the application before it is submitted for the national selection for the Mitchell Scholars program, the candidate must register that advisor in this section. The advisor will have the ability to VIEW BUT NOT EDIT the application online. A candidate can register an advisor at any time until the application is submitted. To register a fellowship advisor, a candidate must provide the advisor’s email address. The advisor will then receive an email with login information needed to access the application. If an advisor is registered by more than one candidate who is applying to the Mitchell Scholars Program, the advisor will receive separate login information, each with a specific password, for each candidate.

University email controls may necessitate follow-up on the part of candidates to ensure that registered advisors receive emails from our system. We encourage applicants to contact the registered advisor to make sure the email instructions have been received. If an email has not been received, a recommender should check spam folders to see if the message was filtered. Candidates are responsible for ensuring timely receipt of all letters.

VI. Criteria

Mitchell Scholars program candidates are judged on three criteria:

• Scholarship -- Academic excellence and intellectual distinction. Although the Scholars program does not require a minimum GPA, a prospective candidate must have the academic ability and preparation to succeed in a postgraduate program.
• Leadership -- An outstanding record of leadership which may be evidenced through a variety of activities and accomplishments. These efforts may be on- or off-campus, local, regional, or global.
• Commitment to community and public service -- A record of and sustained commitment to service and community, on-campus, locally, nationally, or internationally.

VII. Selection Process

The annual task of identifying up to 12 US citizens who best satisfy these criteria involves several steps. Initially, a Readers' Committee evaluates the applications, based on the material available to them, including the application, letters of recommendation, personal statement, and academic transcript(s). Following evaluation by the Readers, roughly 30 semi-finalists are selected and may be invited for semi-final interviews held via Skype. Semi-finalists will be invited via email and assigned a fixed date and time for the interview. Approximately 20 finalists are then invited to Washington, DC, for interviews with the Selection Committee. Final interviews will be held Friday and Saturday, November 16 and 17, 2012. All applicants who wish to become Mitchell Scholars must be present on both days. Applicants are responsible for their travel to Washington. If an applicant or his/her university cannot fund travel costs, some financial support may be available. The Mitchell Scholars Program provides accommodation in Washington. 

The Selection Committee consists of highly successful members with varied academic and professional backgrounds and may include Scholars from previous classes.

Assignment to a university in Ireland or Northern Ireland is part of the selection process, and is, therefore, competitive. Generally, each university will accept no more than two Mitchell Scholars each year. It is essential, then, that a candidate list at least three possible university choices on the application. Although candidates often receive their first choice, this is not guaranteed. Candidates who list only one or two university choices seriously weaken their chances of being selected. Once a candidate has been offered a position in the Mitchell Scholars Program and has discussed program choices with staff, the Mitchell office then presents a Scholar's credentials to universities in Ireland and Northern Ireland for evaluation and acceptance.

Because the Mitchell program has only 20 national finalists for a maximum of 12 awards, we ask that upon accepting an invitation to finalist weekend, a candidate commit to particpating in all aspects of the weekend and to accepting a Scholarship from the Mitchell Scholars Program if one is offered. There are many outstanding applicants, and we can interview only those candidates who declare their commitment to the Mitchell Scholars Program if invited to be a finalist. There are many outstanding applicants, and we can interview only those candidates who declare their commitment to the Mitchell Scholars program if invited to be a finalist.