The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation offers personalized, generous scholarship and educational support to exceptionally promising seventh-grade students from families across the nation who have financial need.
The Cooke Foundation’s selective, five-year Young Scholars Program provides comprehensive academic and college advising, as well as financial support for school, Cooke-sponsored summer programs, internships, and other learning enrichment opportunities.
Educational Advisers support Young Scholars to maximize high school experiences and to go on to thrive at the nation’s top-performing colleges. The programming and support may include identifying an appropriately rigorous high school; engaging in four-year planning and goal setting; funding for academic and extracurricular opportunities, such as music and art lessons, supplemental academic classes, and technology; annual summer programs, including two required Young Scholars programs; year-round Young Scholars community programming; and networking opportunities within a high-achieving peer community.
The Cooke Foundation reviews each application with assistance from a committee of education experts. The Foundation selects Cooke Young Scholars based on Academic Ability and Achievement, Leadership, Persistence, and Financial Need. Although all criteria are scored, the Academic Ability and Achievement criterion is the most heavily weighted.
The application period is open until April 30, 2025. The number of Scholars selected varies from year to year. (In 2024, 55 new Scholars were selected.) All applicants are notified in June about whether they have been selected as a semifinalist. Semifinalists enter the second half of the review process, which continues through summer. Recipients of the scholarship are notified via email in September.
Teachers, counselors, and other community leaders who work with seventh-grade students are encouraged to read, watch, and share the Young Scholars Program resources provided on the Cooke Foundation’s website.