Scholarships

The United States Senate Youth Program

The United States Senate Youth Program (USSYP), established in 1962 by U.S. Senate Resolution, is a unique educational experience for outstanding high school students interested in pursuing careers in public service.

The 63rd Annual USSYP Washington Week will take place March 1 - 8, 2025. Two student delegates from each state will be chosen to meet their U.S. senators and other high-ranking government officials during the comprehensive education, leadership and public service program, and each delegate will also receive a $10,000 undergraduate college scholarship.

Delegates must be juniors or seniors, and elected or appointed student officers for the 2024-2025 academic year, and they must reside in the state where they attend school. Eligibility considerations may also be made for student representatives elected or selected (by a panel, commission or board) to district, regional or state-level civic or educational organizations where the student is serving a constituency in a high-level leadership position for the entire academic year.

All student leadership qualifying positions are subject to the judgement of the state selection administrator and will be verified and confirmed. Names of students selected will be formally announced in early January 2025.

The 2025 program brochure with detailed rules and additional information about the selection process may be accessed on the USSYP website www.ussenateyouth.org.

SCHOLARSHIP   HOW TO QUALIFY   HOW TO APPLY   TIMELINE

Download the USSYP Application Form (note: same form as last year)
Submission deadline: Friday, November 8, 2024

See "How to Apply" for submission instructions.

Scholarship Requirements

In order to receive the $10,000 scholarship:

• A student must participate in the Washington Week. If a selected student is unable to participate, merits of his or her reasons will be considered by the program director relative to the scholarship award.
• A student must, within two years after high school graduation, enroll at an accredited United States college or university and attend courses in government or related subjects to his or her undergraduate program.

How to Qualify

Students must meet the following criteria in order to be considered for this scholarship and program (see the download the 2024-2025 Program Brochure for more information):

• U.S. citizen or permanent resident at the time of application (students who are not U.S. citizens must be in possession of their I-551 / "Green Card" at the time of application to be eligible to apply)
• Rhode Island resident for the entire 2024-25 academic year
• Current (school year 2024-25) high school junior (Class of 2026) or senior (Class of 2025) enrolled and attending a public or private secondary school (or home schooled) in Rhode Island (Note: a student who graduates at the close of the fall 2024 semester/quarter is not eligible to apply for the program)

• Currently (actively) serving in an elected or appointed position representing a constituency in an organization related to student government, education, public affairs, and community service for the entire 2020-21 school year.
  Eligible roles:

  • Student Body president, vice president, secretary or treasurer
  • Class president, vice president, secretary or treasurer
  • Student Council representative
  • A National Honor Society officer (including discipline-based Honor Societies such as the National English and Social Studies Honor Societies that include service components)
  • Student representative elected or appointed (appointed by a panel, commission or board) to a local, district, regional or state-level civic, service and/or educational organization approved by the state selection administrator.

  Ineligible roles:

  • Attendance or officer position at Boys/Girls Nation/State summer conference
  • Member of the National Honor Society (serving as an elected officer for the organization for the entire school year is acceptable)
  • A founder or chairman of a self-created group
  • A participant or officer in Mock Trial, Model U.N., or other academic club, conference, or competition where the primary engagement is for individual educational enrichment

Detailed information on application and eligibility and program participation rules can be found on the USSYP site. Any high school junior or senior student who meets the above criteria is eligible for the program provided he or she has not previously been a delegate to Washington Week and has not received a USSYP scholarship.

How to Apply

1. Download the USSYP Application Form
   • Note: This is the same form as last year.
2. Complete the form, with the required signatures
3. Attach the required essay questions to the application
4. Include at least one letter of recommendation with the application (cannot be from a parent or family member)
5. Send the completed application packet to Rhode Island's USSYP Coordinator via email (scanned as PDF) or mail. All applications once received are considered final.

Mail to: Colleen Brophy, USSYP Coordinator
Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE)
255 Westminster Street
Providence, Rhode Island 02903

Or

Email to: Colleen.Brophy@ride.ri.gov

Timeline

• Timeline

• Applications received until 5:00pm on Friday, November 8, 2024.  RIDE will confirm receipt of applications via email.  All applications received are considered final.
• Finalists will be contacted the week of November 11, 2024 to schedule an interview.
• Interviews will take place in person following November 11, 2024.
• RIDE will notify the USSYP Program of the selection of two delegates and two alternates by November 25, 2024.
• The USSYP Program and the Hearst Foundations will announce the two delegates and two alternates from each state in early January 2024.
• The two delegates from Rhode Island will attend Washington Week in person from March  1 - 8, 2024.  Please visit the program website for more information about Washington Week, program rules, and scholarship rules.

2025 U.S. Presidential Scholars Program

The U.S. Presidential Scholars Program was established by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and, since that time, the program has recognized more than 8,000 outstanding high school seniors. Per the original Executive Order establishing the program, students are selected based on outstanding scholarship. 

We encourage superintendents and/or principals to nominate students who demonstrate outstanding scholarship, but who might not otherwise be nominated through the current SAT/ACT, Arts, or CTE recognition processes. 

All high school seniors graduating between January and August of 2025, who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents and who attend public, parochial, or independent schools, as well as those who are home-schooled, are eligible.  The candidates will go through the application process, and as in the past, the 2025 U.S. Presidential Scholars will be selected by the Commission on Presidential Scholars and receive the Presidential Scholars Medallion.

It may be helpful to consider the following questions as you contemplate the selection of your nominees:

1. What about the student makes them stand out from their peers related to their academic performance or community service?
2. Are there special challenges or hurdles this student has overcome while still achieving high academic success?

In addition, it may be useful for you to know that the reviewers will be considering the following categories when evaluating the nominees:

• Involvement and Service (in school and community)
• Leadership and Character
• Writing samples
• Academic achievements
• Discretionary points for extraordinary achievement, heavy workload, family responsibilities, or obstacles overcome.

Nomination Process

Each student you nominate should prepare an application to be sent with the nomination that includes:

• their resume, including home mailing address and personal email address
• a letter of reference from a school official
• a brief (approximately 500 to 750 words) essay that responds to this question: “What special challenges or hurdles have you overcome while still achieving high academic success?”

You must submit all of the following information for each student you nominate, or the application will not be considered for the award:

• Student’s name
• Student’s home mailing address
• Student’s personal email address
• High-school name and mailing address
• High-school CEEB code

We remind you that this last point (the CEEB code) is particularly important to this nomination process, as these nominations will recognize students who would not be considered for this award based solely on their academic achievement.

We are accepting nominations from superintendents and/or principals. Please email PresidentialScholarships@ride.ri.gov by Friday, November 1, 2025, with the nominations. 

From nominations we receive, we will select up to 20 nominees from Rhode Island. We will notify superintendents when we have submitted nominations to the Presidential Scholars Commission, but you will not hear further from us on the nominations.

The Commission will select finalists early next year, and Scholars will be announced in the spring. Scholars will receive an expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C.

To learn more about the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program and the Commission on Presidential Scholars, please visit our Web site at: http://www.ed.gov/psp.

Presidential Scholars in Career & Technical Education (CTE)

We are seeking from all Rhode Island Career & Technical Centers nominations of students to be named as 2025 Presidential Scholars in CTE. We encourage superintendents to work with career & technical center directors to nominate students to be recognized for excellence in CTE.

Criteria

• Academic Rigor – students will demonstrate high proficiency on their State’s academic standards, based in part on their high achievement reflected on their State’s academic assessments in the core academic subjects.
• Technical Competence – students will demonstrate mastery of technical skills demanded by industry.
• Employability Skills – students will demonstrate such professional skills as teamwork, decision-making, and problem-solving.
• Ingenuity and creativity – students will have solved a real-world problem through the application of technical skills they developed in their career area.
• Application pool – students will represent the multiple sectors that are viewed as the pillars of our nation’s economic growth Healthcare, IT, Advanced Manufacturing, STEM, and Transportation, as well as the socioeconomic characteristics of our nation’s high school graduates.

Specific Standards: 

• Academic rigor as calibrated to standard set by the National Technical Honor Society (NTHS) and based in part on their high achievement reflected on their State’s academic assessments in the core academic subjects:
  • An overall grade point average of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale (unweighted).          
  •  Grade point average in their selected career pathway of 3.25 with no grade below B-.
• Technical competence as demonstrated by one or more of the following:
  • Completion of a work-based or community-based learning experience (Note: The term ‘work-based learning’ means a program of structured work experiences (such as internships, on-the-job training, apprenticeships, school-based enterprises, and Supervised Entrepreneurial Experiences) that is coordinated with classroom-based learning and that is designed to enable students to learn and apply career and technical education skills and knowledge in a work context).
• Placing a medal in State and/or national Career and Technical Student Organization (CTSO) skills competition in student’s career area.
• Earning an industry-recognized certification/credential.[1]
• Employability skills as demonstrated by one or more of the following:
• Completion of a work-based learning experience that is an integral part of the curriculum of the program of study.
• Leadership role in a Career and Technical Student Organization (CTSO) at local, state, or national level.
• Completion of a community service project or other student leadership activity in student’s career area of interest.
  • Scores at the Gold Level in each of the three core areas of the National Career Readiness Certificate (i.e., Applied Mathematics, Locating Information, and Reading for Information), which means that the student has the foundations skills for approximately 90% of jobs of jobs examined.
• Ingenuity/Creativity/Problem Solving as demonstrated by one or more of the following:
  • Solution to a real-world problem (e.g., developed electric car that goes faster than any before).
  • Development of a new product/good or service (e.g., development of an app).

[1]      The term ‘certification’ means a certificate from industry and awarded by a certification body based on an individual’s demonstration, through an examination process, that he or she has acquired the designated knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform a specific job.

Nomination Process

Each student you nominate should prepare an application to be sent with the nomination that includes:

• their resume, including home mailing address and personal email address
• a letter of reference from a school official
• a brief (approximately 500 to 750 words) essay that responds to this question: “What special challenges or hurdles have you overcome while still achieving high academic success?”

You must submit all of the following information for each student you nominate, or the application will not be considered for the award:

• Student’s name
• Student’s home mailing address
• Student’s personal email address
• High-school name and mailing address
• High-school CEEB code

We remind you that this last point (the CEEB code) is particularly important to this nomination process, as these nominations will recognize students who would not be considered for this award based solely on their academic achievement.

We are accepting nominations from superintendents and/or CTE directors. Please email PresidentialScholarships@ride.ri.gov by Friday, November 1, 2025, with the nominations. 

From nominations we receive, we will select up to 5 nominees from Rhode Island. We will notify superintendents when we have submitted nominations to the Presidential Scholars Commission, but you will not hear further from us on the nominations.

The Commission will select finalists early next year, and Scholars will be announced in the spring. Scholars will receive an expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C.

To learn more about the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program and the Commission on Presidential Scholars, please visit our Web site at: http://www.ed.gov/psp.