Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Arts Award
Please consult the program website to confirm program details, including applicable deadlines.
Program Website
Program Purpose
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Arts Award aims to recognize and reward America's promising up-and-coming artists from lower-income backgrounds with the nation's leading graduate scholarships in the visual arts, performing arts, and creative writing.
Program Description
The Foundation's Graduate Arts Award enables students or recent alumni with exceptional artistic or creative promise and significant financial need to pursue up to three years of study at an accredited graduate institution in the U.S. or abroad. Each year, the Foundation selects from a national pool of approximately 200 nominees, approximately 10 recipients for this award.
Supported Fields
Applicant must plan to attend a full-time graduate degree program in the fields of visual arts, performing arts, or creative writing. This degree program must lead to the applicant's first graduate or professional degree.
Benefits
Each award will fund a portion of educational costs, including tuition, room and board, books, and other required fees for the normal period of time required to complete the graduate degree program, up to three years. The amount and duration of awards vary by student, based on the cost of attendance and the length of the program, as well as other scholarships or grants received. The maximum annual award per student is $50,000. Most awards are for less than $50,000 per year.
Applicant Profile
There are no age or nationality restrictions associated with this program.
Selection Criteria
A review panel of distinguished artists, arts faculty, and university administrators select Scholars using criteria including artistic or creative merit, academic achievement, financial need, will to succeed, and a breadth of interest and activities. While the Foundation considers artistic and creative merit first in evaluating candidates, competitive applicants must also demonstrate unmet financial need, which has two components: (1) education costs that are appreciably greater than the total amount of other scholarships or grant awards; (2) insufficient student and family income to meet educational costs.
Application Process
Students may not apply directly to the Foundation. Instead, students interested in applying to the program must be nominated by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Representative at their university. At S.F. State, the Foundation Representative is Dr. Joy Viveros (fellows1@sfsu.edu). S.F. State University may nominate up to two students to be considered for the Graduate Arts Award.
Applications are invited in two stages. In Phase I, applicants may upload a short application along with recordings, portfolios, or other demonstrations of their work.
The Foundation will invite finalists to upload a full application by the Phase 2 deadline. Finalists selected to submit a Phase 2 application must submit a full application to S.F. State by the Phase 2 campus deadline.
Official transcripts must be provided for every institution attended, including during a study abroad period. Transcripts in another language must be 'officially translated' into English.
The Foundation seeks to support only those applicants who, in addition to showing significant promise in their field, have great and longstanding financial need. All applicants, except those whose status is "independent" must therefore submit their parents' financial information (tax returns). Applicants are considered financially "independent" if they (1) are 24 years old or older; (2) are married/divorced/separated/widowed; or (3) have a child. Financially "independent" applicants submit their own financial information, but do not need to document parental income.
Eligibility
Graduating senior or "recent" alumnus/alumna (graduated within the past five years), with a GPA of 3.2 or better, and demonstrated unmet financial need to finance the graduate program he or she will begin in the upcoming Fall Semester.
Citizenship
U.S. and international students may apply, so long as the applicant has attended and been nominated by an accredited U.S. institution.
Deadline
The two national deadlines--November 28, 2012 for Phase I of the application, and January 23, 2013 for finalists--do not apply directly to S.F. State applicants, who must apply by the University's Phase I and Phase II campus deadlines.
Campus Deadlines:
Phase I: Applicants must complete the short version of the online application, and upload a portfolio, by the campus deadline of November 7, 2012.
Phase II: Finalists must submit a complete application to S.F. State's Fellowship Advisor, ADM 211, by Noon on January 23, 2013.
How To Apply
