Each year, thousands of high school students around the world apply for the few spots offered by highly coveted merit scholarships.

The Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship is one of the world’s most prestigious high school scholarships.

In this post, we provide a comprehensive overview of the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship including key dates, application requirements, and tips and tricks for how to win.

For clarification, this blog refers to the Jack Kent Cooke College Scholarship for high school seniors, not the Young Scholars Program or the Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship.

What is the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship?

The Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship is sponsored by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.

Since 2000, the program has given out almost $300 million in scholarships to 3,300 underserved students.

Each year, around 85 Cooke College Scholars are chosen to receive up to $55,000 per year in last dollar funding.

This means that the scholarship is intended to cover all remaining costs after federal aid is applied.

Image Credit: Jack Kent Cooke Website Scholarship winners receive support in their college planning process as well as personal advising from a mentor throughout their undergraduate experience.

In addition, recipients receive access to a wide scholar and alumni network and become eligible for an internship and graduate stipend.

The Cooke College Scholarship Program is an undergraduate scholarship program available to high-achieving high school seniors with financial need who seek to attend and graduate from the nation's best four-year colleges and universities.

Jack Kent Cooke Website Selected students are expected to maintain good academic standing in college (a cumulative GPA of

3. 0 or higher) and follow core values detained in a Scholar Agreement.

Scholarship winners are also invited to a sponsored Scholars Weekend in Washington, DC.

What’s the Eligibility for the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship?

To apply for this highly competitive program, make sure you meet all the eligibility requirements below: Current senior planning to graduate from a U.

S. high school at the time of applying Planning to enroll in an accredited, non-online 4-year college Minimum cumulative unweighted GPA of

3. 5 or above Annual gross family income of up to $95,000 What are the Requirements to Apply?

To be considered for the scholarship, the Jack Kent Foundation must be applied to on the Common App.

A complete application requires the submission of the following:  A student application including demographic information, grades, activities, and honors 2 teacher recommendations, one of which coming from an 11th grade teacher in a core academic subject 1 Counselor recommendation (or a recommendation from a school official who has overseen the student’s academic journey) School Report/School Profile (a document including information about the student body and general school details) An official high school transcript Several short essays (ranging from how you plan to contribute to the Cooke College Scholars community to explaining future career plans) Financial information including the last 3 years’ Adjusted Gross Income for the student’s family https://www. youtube. com/watch?v=-TW-mUU2tRE Before you learn how to secure competitive scholarships like the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship below, hear it from someone who's successfully gone through the process first.

We've got you covered on guiding you through the application process for JKC, but make sure you take advantage of real tips for how to win it too!

Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship Acceptance Rate In 2023, the scholarship program received 5,600 applications, out of which 626 high school seniors were chosen as semifinalists.

Only 60 of these individuals received the coveted scholarship and were declared Cooke College Scholars along with 45 Young Scholar seniors chosen from the Cooke Young Scholars Program (that is applied to in 7th grade). 60 students chosen from more than 5,600 yields less than a

1. 1% acceptance rate.

This is extremely selective.

Cooke College Scholars go on to attend the most prestigious universities in the world (see the above image) and have thoroughly participated in civil engagement and leadership in high school.

This sets the bar very high for aspiring applicants.

How Do I Win the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship?

Now that we’ve established that the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship is a highly competitive program, you need to have an exceptional application to distinguish yourself in the applicant pool.

If you’re a JKC hopeful, make sure you follow these steps to win.

Image Credit: Jack Kent Cooke Website Start early.

Giving yourself ample time to prepare your application will reflect on the overall quality of your application.

In addition, starting your JKC application early ensures that your recommender and school counselor have enough time to prepare their materials on your behalf.

The rule of thumb is to ask for letters of recommendation or transcripts at least two weeks in advance.

See the JKC scholarship application timeline below for the most recent year.

August 24, 2023: Applications open on the Common App.

November 16, 2023: Application deadline.

January 2024: Announcement of semifinalist status via email.

March 2024: Scholarship winners announced via email.

Challenge yourself and excel in school.

One of the scholarship selection criteria is “Academic ability and achievement. ” You should be actively challenging yourself with a rigorous workload and showing the selection committee that you regularly seek challenges and work to overcome them.

Hence, doing well in your courses is crucial—make sure you’re on top of your classes and maintain that GPA above

3. 5 to ensure you qualify to apply.

Highlight your personality and achievements.

Utilize your application to your advantage.

Make sure to personalize your essays as much as possible in order to hammer home who you are as a person and why you deserve a spot in the program over everyone else.

In addition, the extracurriculars you describe in your application are just as important as the character you showcase in your essays.

The foundation especially emphasizes leadership and persistence when selecting scholarship winners.

Make sure these qualities shine through in your essays and application as a whole.

Remember, show, don’t tell when crafting your narrative.

Fulfill all application criteria.

Make sure that you’ve fulfilled all requirements prior to the deadline.

Do not risk a void application because of late or missing materials.

Concluding Remarks In conclusion, we provided a comprehensive overview of the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship as well as how to maximize your chances at winning.

Undergraduate scholarships not only do a great deal in alleviating financial burden but are overall great opportunities to socialize with other bright scholars and gain a supportive community.

However, each scholarship can only accommodate so many recipients—the key lies in applying to multiple to increase your odds at obtaining one.

Check out Rishab’s ultimate scholarship guide that contains 90+ vouched scholarships that are absolutely worth the time applying for.

Best of luck!.