Shelby Davis Scholarship

The Shelby Davis Scholarship is granted to graduates of the United World Colleges to study at universities in the United States. The Davis family's contribution to the United World Colleges, in scholarships and grants for building projects, represents the biggest contribution to international education ever made by a single donor (as of 2002).¹Shelby Davis, the scholarship's namesake, is an investor whose largest fund, Davis New York Venture, was named to the Forbes Honour Roll for mutual fund investments; he is the son of Shelby Cullom Davis.

Davis began the scholarship program in 2000, an open-ended grant that meets the full financial need of each United World College student who wishes to attend a participating university. The Shelby Davis Foundation scholarship in addition provides a $10,000 grant to the institution that matriculates the UWC student, as well as a $5,000 grant for that university's admissions outreach. Originally, the scholarship was offered to students matriculating at one of five colleges in the United States: the College of the Atlantic, Middlebury College, Colby College, Wellesley College or Princeton University. That network of eligible universities was expanded in 2004 to include 91 institutions in the United States, including other Ivy League and NESCAC institutions. Currently 821 UWC graduates are funded from 188 countries.

The scholarship is unusual as it is restricted to students who have already faced heavy competition, in their penultimate year of high school, to attend one of the United World Colleges where they will complete their high school education. The United World Colleges (UWCs) are a confederation of sixteen upper-level secondary schools located throughout the world that educate international students, many from developing countries, as they pursue the International Baccalaureate Diploma. The colleges offer partial or full scholarships permitting students of all socio-economic backgrounds to participate in the peace project.

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