Graduate and undergraduate students at North American colleges and universities or American students studying abroad are invited to apply for Overseas Press Club Foundation Scholar Awards. An applicant must be a college junior, senior or graduate student enrolled in a degree program at the application deadline and have demonstrated an interest in international journalism.

• 3rd Year
• 4th Year
• Graduate

• US Citizen
• Permanent Resident
• International or Other Visa Status
• Undocumented

Graduate and undergraduate students at North American colleges and universities or American students studying abroad are invited to apply for Overseas Press Club Foundation Scholar Awards. An applicant must be a college junior, senior or graduate student enrolled in a degree program at the application deadline and have demonstrated an interest in international journalism.

In a typical year, the Foundation grants 18 scholar awards for the pursuit of academic goals. Winners receive either a $3,000 scholarship for independent work or a $4,000 fellowship to be used to fund time in a bureau of a leading news organization such as the Associated Press, Reuters and Bloomberg.

Our program is aimed primarily at helping students, of whatever nationality, who wish to pursue international journalism, rather than returning to their countries of origin and becoming local reporters. Our program is also heavily oriented toward helping journalists launch their careers rather than assisting mid-career professionals.

All application material must be the result of your own journalism work. Any AI use must be responsible and clearly disclosed.

The Scholar Awards reception will be held in New York City in March and will be part of a two-day series of events including relevant training and networking with professional journalists. Winners are required to participate. 

The application must include the following three elements:

1) COVER LETTER: The one-page cover letter should be autobiographical in nature and should address such questions as how the applicant developed an interest in journalism and in a particular part of the world or international communities or issues, and how they would use the scholarship to further their career in journalism. Please explain any gaps or leaps in progress.

2) RESUME: The one-page resume should emphasize past journalism experience as well as language and media skills and visa/passport status for working overseas. Please include any international or domestic postings, freelance published work or independent unpublished projects.

3) WORK SAMPLE (choose one, either print, photo, video or audio):

• Print journalism:
  Applicants must submit a writing sample of 600-800 words that should concentrate on an area of the world or an international issue that is in keeping with the applicant’s interest and experience. Please mention if the work had been published previously and if it were edited or condensed, or if it is a school project. Winners have written on such diverse topics as playing blackjack on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the Indian diaspora in South Sudan and a Taiwanese bookstore in mainland China. Applicants need not have traveled abroad to apply. Past scholars have won for describing the dynamics among Syrians and Lebanese immigrants in a bar in Brooklyn or reporting on Ukrainian refugees on Long Island.
• Photojournalism:
  Please send one PDF of photos or a link to a website or other location where judges can view the work online. An entry may be a feature, personality, or news journalism piece, and may be either narrated or rely completely on interviews and verité.  Applicants are also required to submit a writing sample of approximately 500 words that contextualize the photos, explaining how the images were captured or their significance.
• Video and Audio Journalism:
  Please send a link where the judges can view or listen to the work online. An entry may be a feature, personality, or news journalism piece, and may be either narrated or rely completely on interviews and verité. No entry should be shorter than two minutes or longer than seven minutes and should consist primarily of international interest. Applicants are also required to submit a writing sample of approximately 500 words that contextualize the video or audio entry, explaining how the images or audio were captured or their significance as well as the role the applicant played in the creation of the piece. Applicants must give appropriate credit to all team members who participated. Each video or audio file must demonstrate the full arch of the story, with a beginning, middle and end.

The Overseas Press Club Foundation is the 501 (C)(3) charitable organization affiliated with the Overseas Press Club, which was founded in New York City in 1939 by a group of foreign correspondents to improve the profession of international journalism. The Foundation has a broad mandate to improve the media's understanding of international issues and to raise the quality of news-gathering efforts in covering the world. The most tangible expression of this charter is a scholarship program for undergraduate and graduate students in American colleges and universities, who aspire to become foreign correspondents. The program began in 1992 and every year offers up to $3,000 scholarships to 17 talented student winners of a national essay competition. In 2006, the OPC Foundation began partnering with media organizations to offer internships. The Foundation pays travel and living expenses for interns in foreign bureaus. Six of this year's winners will have internships with Associated Press (Cairo, Johannesburg, and Bangkok) and Reuters (Singapore, Beijing, and Hong Kong).

The Foundation feels it is more important than ever to encourage young correspondents to travel and work abroad particularly at a time when many major news organizations have sharply reduced their networks of experienced correspondents around the world.

For more information, email Katri Reilly, Executive Director, at katri@opcofamerica.org