Keasbey Scholarship

• The successful candidate will demonstrate academic excellence, active participation in extracurricular activities, leadership abilities, and the promise of personally and intellectually benefiting from two years of study in Britain.

• Applicants for a Keasbey Scholarship must be a citizen of the United States and must be a member of the graduating class of his or her college or university.

• A married Scholar may not hold the scholarship. Therefore, a nominee should not expect to marry before completing two years of study abroad. If the Scholar marries, the scholarship is forfeited.

• The Scholar may not have another scholarship, such as a Rhodes, Marshall, Mellon or a fellowship grant for foreign study from his or her own college.

• The Keasbey Scholarship may not be deferred or interrupted.

• For information on how prior study abroad experience in the UK will impact your application, and more detailed information about what the Keasbey Foundation is looking for in a competitive candidate, please click here.

• Applicants should be aware that the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs is involved with the campus review process.  Students with serious social or academic violations, such as those that are included as part of their permanent record at Bowdoin, are advised to consult with the Director of Student Fellowships and Research early in the process.  Students may also consult with their dean for guidance.

Interested students are required to complete an intent to submit application in the spring preceding the fall in which they hope to apply. Members of the Student Fellowships Committee will review the applications and briefly interview each candidate. Based on each candidate’s preliminary application and interview, the Student Fellowships Committee will either endorse, conditionally endorse, or not endorse each applicant.

• Endorsed: The candidate has received the College’s endorsement and does not need to be interviewed by the Student Fellowships Committee again.

• Conditionally Endorsed: The Student Fellowships Committee invites the candidate to continue to work on their application over the summer and be re-interviewed by the Committee at the end of August or early September, at which point the Committee will make a final decision about endorsing the candidate.

• Not Endorsed: The Student Fellowships Committee determines that the candidate is not yet ready to apply.

Students will be required to provide information about themselves (e.g., class year, citizenship, etc.) and whether they have any Honor Code violations. Applicants will also be required to indicate which fellowship(s) they are interested in applying to and upload the following three documents:  

• Unofficial Academic History from Polaris
• Resume (PDF format)
• Personal essays, which should be submitted as a single PDF addressing the following five prompts. Please label each prompt and put your name in the header. 
  1. Please describe why you are interested in applying for this particular fellowship(s) (500 words). The primary purpose of these fellowships is not to offer financial aid to students in need but rather to create a community of scholars who will fulfill and carry out a mission particular to each national fellowship. But another way, each fellowship is looking for students who possess intellectual merit, a history of exercising leadership, and a "something else" that is particular to the mission of that fellowship (e.g., Marshall's "something else" is ambassadorial qualities and Schwarzman's "something else" is a reason for wanting to better understand China). Briefly explain why you believe you possess the "something else" that is particular to the fellowship(s) to which you intend to apply and how your affiliation with the particular fellowship(s) will enable you to better achieve your aspirations.
  2. Proposed Academic Program (600 words). Describe the graduate degree you propose to undertake during your fellowship(s) and at what institution(s). Please follow the guidelines provided by the fellowship(s) to which you intend to apply. For example, if applying to Marshall, please provide two, two-year plans. Describe why this is the appropriate course of study for you (e.g., are there particular faculty you want to work with, are there particular research centers at this institution that you would like to engage with, etc.). If your proposed academic program requires a thesis, outline what you might focus on. Have you been in touch with anyone at these universities?
  3. Connection to Your Future (300 words). How will the graduate degree(s) you have identified build on what you have done to date and prepare you for your future professional goals?
  4. Leadership (500 words). All the national fellowships that support graduate study value leadership. Please describe a time when you exercised leadership, regardless of whether you were in a position of authority. What changed because of your actions? What impact did your efforts have on others? Please be as specific as possible.
  5. Engagement (300 words). If you are awarded a fellowship, in what ways will you engage with your local community and/or new institution(s)?
  6. Recommendations. Who would you ask for letters of recommendation? If you are applying for the Rhodes, please list eight names, including titles and brief descriptions of how you know each individual. If you are applying for any of the other fellowship(s) please list four recommenders, including at least one that could speak to your leadership qualities.

In the intent to submit application, you will also be asked to identify one Bowdoin faculty mentor. The application will automatically generate an email to that individual, asking them to submit a letter of recommendation on your behalf. Please make sure you have already discussed this recommendation with your mentor before you complete your intent to submit application.

Bowdoin’s Internal Selection Process. Every third year, Bowdoin is allowed to nominate only two students for the Keasbey.  By the “Initial Bowdoin Deadline,” please submit the following materials to the Office of Student Fellowships and Research:

• Current resume
• Unofficial academic history from Polaris
• A four-page, double-spaced Academic Interest and Proposed Course of Study Statement
• Signed and witnessed "Permission Form and Waiver"
• Three letters from faculty members with whom the nominee has worked closely saying, in substance, that the candidate is believed to be capable of academic work which should result in the nominee obtaining a good Honors degree in his or her field of interest.  A faculty member should electronically submit his/her letter to Gina Pappas (gpappas@bowdoin.edu) by the "Initial Bowdoin Deadline".

The items listed above should be saved as PDFs and electronically submitted to Gina Pappas (gpappas@bowdoin.edu).

The Committee will review these materials, and those students who are deemed competitive will be contacted to schedule an interview date and time. Based on the submitted materials and the interview, the Committee will decide which applicant(s) will receive Bowdoin’s endorsement.

Materials for the Final Application. If you receive Bowdoin’s nomination, it is your responsibility to continue revising and collecting your material and to remind people writing your recommendations of all dates and deadlines. By the “Final Bowdoin Deadline,” nominees must provide the items listed below to the Office of Student Fellowships and Research:

• A curriculum vitae
• An official transcript of the nominee’s academic grades for the first three years
• A typewritten statement from the nominee summarizing the areas of the nominee’s major academic interest and the course of study proposed to be taken in Great Britain. This will require some research on the part of the nominee and, preferably, prior discussion with faculty members who have had experience with educational institutions in Great Britain so that the proposed course of study abroad will have a relationship to what the nominee has done as an undergraduate and to the nominee’s career objectives. This is particularly important if the successful nominee hopes to do at least some work in Great Britain at what would be considered the graduate level here, such as to read immediately for the M.Phil., B. Phil., or M. Sc. degree.
• Three letters from faculty members with whom the nominee has worked closely saying, in substance, that the candidate is believed to be capable of academic work which should result in the nominee’s obtaining a good Honors degree in his or her field of interest.

The above items should be saved as PDFs and electronically submitted to gpappas@bowdoin.edu.

The Office of Student Fellowships and Research will be responsible for gathering the following items and sending all materials directly to the Foundation for further consideration.

• A letter addressed to the Trustees by a senior administrative official who knows the nominee personally and who is generally familiar with the nominee’s academic qualifications. The letter should include a description of the nominee’s extracurricular activities and leadership qualities.

More about the Selection Process: The Foundation is asking three other American colleges to make two nominations each and expects to make one award. Bowdoin’s nominees will be interviewed by representatives of the Foundation in December at the law firm of Morgan Lewis & Brockius LLP in Philadelphia. Finalists are required to apply to the undergraduate or graduate program they propose to attend in the UK  prior to the scheduled interview in Philadelphia.

Samuel Lewis '19

A political theory and classical studies major and economics minor from Edgemont, New York, Sam will continue studying political thought and intellectual history in an MPhil program at the University of Cambridge as a Keasbey Scholar. After Cambridge, Sam hopes to attend law school and become a federal prosecutor. At Bowdoin, Sam was the president of the Peucinian Society and taught Latin to elementary school students at Harriet Beecher Stowe with the Aequora program.

Haley Miller '16

As one of two students in the country to receive the Keasbey Scholarship this year, Haley will continue exploring the overlap between their Chemistry and Religious Studies majors while pursing a M.Sc. in Science and Religion at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. In addition, Haley plans to pursue a second M.Sc. in Art in the Global Middle Ages with support from the Keasbey Memorial Foundation. Haley is interested in using analytical chemistry to analyze medieval art in order to better understand the interactions between different medieval religious groups or to help repatriate objects displaced by current religious conflict in the Middle East.

Katie Kinkel '13
Katie earned an English major with a concentration in creative writing at Bowdoin, and in her final year completed a book of original poems as an honors project. In the fall 2012 semester, she was one of two students awarded the Keasbey Memorial Foundation Scholarship to continue her study of writing and poetry at the University of Oxford. Under the Keasbey Scholarship, Katie proposed two years of study at Oxford’s Master of Studies (MSt) program in creative writing, where she would have been instructed in a variety of creative and poetic traditions and been encouraged to build upon her developing skills as a writer. Though Katie was delighted to have this opportunity through the Keasbey Foundation, she ultimately declined the Keasbey scholarship after being awarded a position and scholarship at the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop, which she will attend this fall. 

Tenzing Lama '10 
One of only two Keasbey Scholars named in the country during 2009-10, Tenzing will earn an M.Sc. degree in pathology at the University of Oxford, researching the molecular mechanisms of the antigenic variation process in parasites. After two years at Oxford, Tenzing plans to return to the U.S. and enroll in an M.D./Ph.D. program with a special focus on infectious diseases. His long-term goal is to become a physician-scientist.