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.

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.