The Beinecke is a national merit-based scholarship open to juniors who wish to pursue a research- or creative-focused master’s or doctoral program in the arts, humanities, or social sciences. Each year approximately 145 colleges and universities are invited to nominate a student for a Beinecke Scholarship, and up to 20 new scholarships will be awarded. Each school invited to participate in the Beinecke Scholarship Program is permitted to make a single nomination each year. As a result, URI has a pre-application process to be considered for nomination, which is due each year on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
The Scholarship program seeks to encourage and enable highly motivated students to pursue opportunities available to them and to be courageous in the selection of a graduate course of study in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Each scholar receives $5,000 immediately prior to entering graduate school and an additional $30,000 while attending graduate school. There are no geographic restrictions on the use of the scholarship, and recipients are allowed to supplement the award with other scholarships, assistantships and research grants. Scholars are encouraged to begin graduate study as soon as possible following graduation from college, and must utilize all of the funding within five years of completion of undergraduate studies.
Eligibility criteria
To be eligible for a Beinecke Scholarship, a student must:
- Demonstrate superior standards of intellectual ability, scholastic achievement, and personal promise during their undergraduate career.
- Be a college junior pursuing a bachelor’s degree during the 2024-2025 academic year. “Junior” means a student who plans to continue full-time undergraduate study and who expects to receive a baccalaureate degree between December 2025 and August 2026.
- Plan to enter a research- or creative-focused master’s or doctoral program in the arts, humanities, or social sciences. NOTE: Students in the social sciences who plan to pursue graduate study in neuroscience or clinical psychology should not apply for a Beinecke Scholarship.
- Be a U.S. citizen or U.S. national from American Samoa or the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
- Have a documented history of being eligible to receive need-based financial aid during their undergraduate years, with a slight preference for Pell Grant recipients. Other evidence of meeting this criterion is a student’s history of receiving need-based institutional, state, or federal grants-in-aid. The nominated student will be required to complete and submit a Financial Aid Data Sheet outlining how the student meets this criterion. During the selection process, the amount of financial need will be one of the factors considered, with preference given to candidates for whom the awarding of a Beinecke Scholarship would significantly increase the likelihood of the student’s being able to attend graduate school.
The campus process
The Beinecke Scholarship requires institutional nomination, a process coordinated by the Office of National Fellowships & Academic Opportunities. Each U.S. institution (college or university) is limited to one nominee per year. Since the number of qualified candidates for nomination at URI often outnumbers this maximum number, our campus has a pre-application process to select its nominees. The campus pre-application is submitted electronically and includes:
- A list of potential letter writers (no letters are submitted at this stage.)
- Unofficial transcripts from all undergraduate work.
- A resume
- Short answer questions
- The campus nomination pre-application deadline is always due the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving. For the 2025 competition this will be December 3, 2024. Submit the URI pre-application via the following link:
Once nominees are selected and notified, they will meet individually with Beinecke Scholarship Advisor Kathleen Maher to develop a timeline for approaching the full application including research essays and letters of recommendation. Nominees spend a great deal of time during the month of January working on revisions of their application materials with feedback from Kathleen Maher and faculty mentors.
Our success
The 2025 application cycle is the first one in which URI has been a participating institution! Perhaps you will be our very first Beinecke Scholar!
Questions? Email Kathleen Maher (kmaher@uri.edu) and visit the Beinecke Scholarship website at: https://beineckescholarship.org/