Beinecke Scholarship

Scholarship Sponsored by Sperry Fund

The Beinecke Scholarship Program was established in 1971 by the Board of Directors of The Sperry and Hutchinson Company to honor Edwin, Frederick, and Walter Beinecke. The Board created an endowment to provide substantial scholarships for the graduate education of young men and women of exceptional promise. The 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. Since 1975 the program has selected 719 college juniors from 122 different undergraduate institutions for support during graduate study at any accredited university.

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 graduated study as soon as possible following graduation from college, and must utilize all of the funding within five years of completion of undergraduate studies.

How to Apply

Student Eligibility

Each year approximately 137 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.

Students enrolled at a participating institution who are interested in applying for a Beinecke Scholarship should contact their campus liaison for information regarding the procedure to be followed in selecting the school’s nominee.

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 2023-2024 academic year. “Junior” means a student who plans to continue full-time undergraduate study and who expects to receive a baccalaureate degree between December 2024 and August 2025.
• 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.