Scholarship For Journalism Diversity

The Scholarship for Journalism Diversity Honoring Julie Schoo consists of a $5,000 one-year scholarship. The purpose of the scholarship, named for the former executive director of the National Press Club Journalism institute, is to recruit promising future journalists who will bring diversity to American journalism. The award can be renewed up to three years, for a total of $20,000 toward educational expenses.

To be eligible, applicants must:

• be a high school senior in the process of applying for admission to an accredited college or university in the U.S.
• have a 3.0 grade-point average or higher
• plan to pursue a career in journalism

Students do not need to be a U.S. citizen to apply for this scholarship.

The application is online. Please have all application materials prepared to submit before starting your application. You will not be able to start, save, and return to your submission. Late or incomplete submissions will not be considered.

A complete application consists of:

• A short elevator pitch: Why are you interested in journalism, and how have you pursued it so far? (no more than 150 words)
• Your most recent academic transcript (PDF)
• A 500-word essay on how you will bring diversity to U.S. journalism (PDF)
• A description of your financial need
• Three to five work samples demonstrating your ability or a career interest in journalism*
• Three letters of recommendation from teachers or professors, employers, leaders of the various groups you are involved with, or other people who are most familiar with your work and work ethic

Work samples can include published work, scripts for broadcast news stories, clips from a podcast, video news stories, other digital media, or other journalistic work samples. Audio or visual work samples should be no longer than 4 minutes per clip.

NOTE: Broken links, or those behind paywalls, will not be considered by judges. You will not be notified if your work samples are inaccessible. We suggest uploading a PDF for each work sample that includes the link and a one-sentence description of the work contained in the link. (Example: In this clip from my podcast,

"Exploring journalism careers," I interview a Washington Post reporter about their most meaningful work.