Mid-Hudson Mensa

College Scholarship Overview

Mid-Hudson Mensa is proud to participate in the Mensa Education & Research Foundation scholarship program. The application process includes a short essay and does not take into account grades, age, or financial need.

Applicants must be planning to be enrolled in a degree program at an accredited U.S. institution of higher learning next fall. The degree can range from Associate to Doctoral and students may apply every year that they meet the qualifications. There are three scholarship programs available:

U.S. Program

Any U.S. citizen or permanent resident can apply. Scholarships are awarded at the local, regional, and national levels. The general awards are unrestricted as to age, race, gender, level of post-secondary education, and grade point average. Special awards are available based on academic program (history, arts [fine arts, creative writing, journalism, architecture, photography, ceramics, textiles], interpersonal communications, mediation, natural sciences, mathematics, aero engineering), degree program (A.A., B.A. or Graduate degree), or life phase (veteran, returning to school, etc.). You can apply for multiple scholarships, if eligible. See online entry form for an up-to-date list of available scholarships.

American Mensa Program

American Mensa members or IRS dependents of American Mensa members can apply for this in addition to the U.S. Program.

International Mensans Program

This scholarship is for foreign Mensa members (or their children age 25 or younger) enrolled at a college or university in the United States.

How to Apply

All applications are to be submitted online. The application window opens September 15th and scholarship awards are for the fall semester the following year. Applicants must submit an essay of 550 words or less explaining his or her career, academic and/or vocational goals and how they plan to achieve those goals. The four-month application window closes January 15th (Central Time) and winners are notified late June. Complete instructions and online application form can only be found at the Mensa Foundation's College Scholarship program page:

Application Tips

For the US Program, the entry form will list multiple scholarships you can apply for. The ones you automatically qualify for are checked. Examine the remaining ones to see what others you may qualify for. You'll note that some scholarships are for specific fields of study or degrees. Carefully consider your college field of study and final degree in order to apply for all the scholarships you are eligible for.

Read the Rules and Guidelines and any FAQ links that appear in the left column of the page. Print or save them for reference. Go over them again before submitting the essay. For instance, it is important that the submitted essay not contain any personally identifying information — not even first name.

You'll want to compose the essay off-line and paste it into the application. As the entry form only takes plain text, don't bother with text styles (bold, italic, underline, super/sub-scripts, etc). Have someone review it (like a teacher — but take care that they are not involved with the Mensa scholarship program). Review the essay after you paste it in to make sure the form has correctly translated every character and that the end is not cut-off.

If applying for the American Mensa scholarship, make sure you see and check off the box for it on the entry form. If you don't see it, you didn't select it on the zip code entry page.