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Mitchell Scholars Program Application Procedures, Class of '12

The deadline for the Class of '12 competition is Tuesday, 5 October 2010, Midnight, Eastern Time, for study to commence in 2011.

I. Eligibility

Applicants for the 2011-2012 Mitchell Scholars program must:

  • Be U.S. citizens.
  • Be 18 years of age or older but not yet 30 on October 1, 2010.
  • Have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university before beginning study as a Mitchell Scholar.
  • While married applicants are accepted, no allowance is made for the expenses of a married applicant’s spouse or dependent. It is important to note that spouses who are non-EU citizens are required to obtain a work permit before seeking paid employment in Ireland or Northern Ireland.

II. Application

Each applicant must submit the online application no later than Midnight, Eastern Time, Tuesday, 5 October 2010. The application consists of 5 sections: Personal Information; Education and Employment; Registration of Recommenders/Institutional Endorser; Awards and Activities; and Personal Statement. All sections must be completed before the applicant can submit the application. The Mitchell Scholars program only accepts online applications. No printed copies of the application, including letters of recommendation, will be accepted. The applicant should devote careful thought to the essay, which should describe the applicant’s field of interest and the justification for the applicant’s proposed study in Ireland or Northern Ireland. Selection committee members will place special emphasis on the personal statement. The essay should not exceed 1000 words and should be written clearly. The applicant must certify on the online application that the essay is his or her own work.

The applicant is responsible for researching and listing in this section at least three specific proposed graduate programs at universities in Ireland and/or Northern Ireland. It is essential that applicants list at least three different Irish/Northern Ireland university choices. Listing only one or two university choices will significantly weaken an applicant’s candidacy. University placement may be a factor in the selection process.

It is important that applicants spend sufficient time examining the various programs at the different Irish/Northern Ireland universities in order to determine which programs they are most interested in and qualified for. Applicants are not required to apply to the Irish/Northern Ireland University 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. Applicants should closely examine the degree residence requirements at the universities because master’s programs can be for one or two years. The Mitchell Scholars program provides tuition, housing, and living expenses stipend for one year only. Applicants also must have sufficient undergraduate preparation for each proposed graduate program, and should carefully review the prerequisites for the academic program.

III. Supporting Documents

The following supporting documents must be received by our office no later than Tuesday, 5 October 2010. Method of submission for these documents will be announced in spring 2010.

  • ONE documented evidence of U.S. citizenship, usually copies of a birth certificate or passport (a driver’s license is NOT a citizenship document).
  • FIVE passport-sized photos of head and shoulders of the applicant; an image of the applicant’s signature is also required.
  • All college and university transcripts. The ORIGINAL must be certified by the Registrar or other responsible university official. If a candidate has attended more than one institution, all transcripts must be submitted.

    • THE ABOVE DOCUMENTS MUST BE RECEIVED BY THE MITCHELL SCHOLARS PROGRAM NO LATER THAN TUESDAY, 5 OCTOBER 5th 2010.

    IV. Online Letters of Recommendation

    All applicants are required to provide five letters of recommendation using the online recommendation system contained within the online application. Applicants register recommenders online and must provide the email address of the recommender. Once registered, each recommender will receive an email with a login user name and password in order to submit the recommendation online. University and business email controls may necessitate some follow-up on the part of applicants to ensure that their registered advisors receive and process the emails from our system. We encourage applicants to follow up with the recommenders to make sure the email instructions have been received. References are part of the application; incomplete applications will not be considered.

    Of the five letters of recommendation, at least three must be from persons with whom the candidate has done academic work (courses or research) at a college or university, IF YOU ARE A FULL-TIME STUDENT. Applicants who have not been full-time students in the past academic year are required to provide only two letters of recommendation from an academic with whom they have studied.

    Recommenders without email capability may be registered with a colleague’s email address, although one email address can be used for only one recommendation. Recommenders can enter text directly into the application form, however, it is recommended that it be uploaded from another document. Once a recommender submits a reference and confirms that the work is authentic, he/she should receive an email confirming that the reference was received.

    Letters of reference 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.

    For Full Time Students Only – Online Institutional Endorsement

    An applicant who is a full-time student at the time of application must submit an institutional endorsement. Applicants must be endorsed by an institution where they will have completed two years of full-time study before 1 October of the year in which they are applying. The applicant must register an Institutional Endorsement contact using the online recommendation system contained with the online application. It is preferred that applicants in their first year of graduate school should request an endorsement from their undergraduate institution. The Mitchell Scholars program will accept Institutional Endorsements from a university president, dean, or fellowships advisor. The letter of endorsement should describe the on-campus university selection or review process of prospective candidates.

    If candidates are not full-time students at the time of application, no institutional endorsement is required.

    Please note that all online materials for the candidate’s Mitchell Scholar application must be submitted no later than Midnight, Eastern Time, Tuesday, 5 October 5, 2010. The online application will be closed down at that time and no late submissions are possible. The applicant is personally responsible for ensuring that referees and university administrators transmit their recommendations or endorsement on time. There is a very tight timeline for thorough review of all applications, so the deadline for application 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. This is completely optional. If a candidate would like a fellowship advisor to view the application before it is submitted to the Mitchell Scholars program office, the candidate must register that advisor in this section. A candidate can register an advisor at any time, up 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 the login information needed to access the application. If an advisor is registered by more than one student applying to the Mitchell Scholars program, the advisor will receive login information for each candidate. NB: The advisor will have the ability to VIEW BUT NOT EDIT the application online.

    University email controls may necessitate some follow-up on the part of candidates to ensure that their registered advisors receive and process emails from our system. We encourage applicants to follow up with the registered advisor to make sure the email instructions have been received.

    VI. Criteria

    Mitchell Scholars program candidates are judged on three criteria:

    • Academic excellence and intellectual distinction. Although the Scholarship program does not require a minimum GPA, it is understood that a prospective candidate must have the academic ability and preparation to succeed in a postgraduate program.
    • An outstanding record of leadership.
    • A sustained commitment to service and community.

    VII. Selection Process

    The annual task of identifying twelve US citizens who best satisfy these criteria involves several steps. Initially, a team of Readers evaluates the applications, based on an extensive amount of material available to them, including the application itself, letters of recommendation, personal statement, and academic transcript. Following the evaluations by the Readers, roughly thirty semi-finalists are selected and may be invited for semi-final interviews. Approximately twenty finalists are then invited to Washington, DC, for interviews by the Selection Committee. Final interviews will be held on Friday and Saturday, 19 and 20 November 2010.

    The Selection Committee consists of members with varied academic and professional backgrounds.

    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 a year. It is essential, then, that an applicant list at least three possible university choices on the application. Although candidates often receive their first choice, this is not guaranteed. Candidates who insist on listing 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, the Mitchell office then forwards the candidate’s application to the chosen Ireland/Northern Ireland university for final acceptance. No Ireland/Northern Ireland university has ever rejected a Mitchell Scholar’s application.

    Because the Mitchell program has only twenty national finalists for twelve awards, we expect that a finalist is committed to accepting an offer from the Mitchell Scholars program. Because there are many outstanding applicants, we will only interview those candidates who declare their commitment to the Mitchell Scholars program if invited to be a finalist.

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