Churchill Scholarship

The Churchill Scholarship is awarded by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States to graduates of the more than one hundred colleges and universities invited to participate in the Churchill Scholarship Program, for the pursuit of research and study in the physical and natural sciences, mathematics, engineering, for one year at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge. The scholarship is often considered one of the most prestigious and competitive international fellowships available to American graduate students, alongside the Marshall, Rhodes, and Mitchell scholarships. Each year, up to two students may be endorsed by each of the 110 U.S. institutions invited to participate in the program.

With an acceptance rate of approximately 6.3%, the Churchill Scholarship is nominally less selective than the Marshall, Rhodes, and Mitchell scholarships (acceptance rates 3.3%, 3.7%, and 4% respectively), however, significantly fewer institutions are allowed to nominate candidates for the Churchill Scholarship (presently 110 institutions as compared to at least 240 institutions for the Marshall, over 320 institutions for the Rhodes, and at least 415 institutions for the Mitchell). Furthermore, each institution may nominate only two candidates to the Churchill Scholarship, so the endorsed candidate pool is initially very selective. By comparison, the Marshall scholarship typically receives 915-980 endorsed applicants and the Rhodes scholarship typically receives 850-880 endorsed applicants, and the Mitchell scholarship typically receives 300 endorsed applicants. In contrast to the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, applying to the Churchill, Marshall, Rhodes, or Mitchell scholarships all require the endorsement of an approved U.S. undergraduate institution. As such, the actual acceptance rates for these scholarships are significantly lower that the official acceptance rate of endorsed applicants (e.g., approximately 1.2% for the Rhodes in 2016). Instead of looking for the canonical "well rounded" applicant, the Churchill Scholarship seeks those with "interesting jagged-edges" and is considered one of the most academically challenging scholarships; the average GPA of the applicant pool is 3.8, and the average GPA of the winners is 3.98 (in 2016 all winners had a GPA above 3.95). From 2014-2017, 69% of the winning Churchill Scholars had previously received a Goldwater Scholarship.

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