Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship 2025: How to Compete for $90,000 to Fund Graduate Study for New Americans
A practical guide to the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, including who qualifies, what the award pays, how the application works, and how to decide whether to apply.
Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship 2025: How to Compete for $90,000 to Fund Graduate Study for New Americans
The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans is a major graduate fellowship for immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing full-time graduate or professional study in the United States. It is not limited to one field. Fellows have pursued degrees in areas such as medicine, law, science, engineering, public policy, the arts, humanities, and many other graduate disciplines.
The headline on this page still refers to 2025, but the official application page currently describes the 2027 fellowship cycle. For the live cycle, the application is open and due on October 29, 2026 at 2 pm Eastern Time. Use the official page as the source of truth before submitting, because the fellowship updates cycle dates and process details over time.
This guide is written for a normal applicant who wants to know whether the award is worth the work. The short answer: it can be worth serious effort if you are eligible, have a clear graduate plan, can explain how your New American experience shaped your work, and can get strong recommendations before a strict deadline. It is not a quick scholarship form. It is a selective fellowship application that asks for a coherent personal, academic, and professional case.
At-a-glance
| Item | Current official detail |
|---|---|
| Official application process page | pdsoros.org/application-process |
| Fellowship population | New Americans: immigrants and children of immigrants |
| Award size | Up to $90,000 over one to two years |
| Stipend | Up to $25,000 per year, paid to the Fellow |
| Tuition support | Up to $20,000 per year, paid directly to the university |
| Number selected | 30 Fellows from 77 finalists in the current cycle description |
| Eligible study | Full-time graduate or professional degree study in the United States |
| Fields | All fields are considered if the program is eligible |
| Application deadline | October 29, 2026 at 2 pm ET for the 2027 fellowship cycle |
| Finalist notification | Mid-January 2027 |
| Finalist interviews | Late January and early February 2027, described as virtual |
| Winners notified | March 2027 |
| Public announcement | Mid-April 2027 |
| Funding begins | Fall 2027 |
| Application fee | Free |
| Recommendations | 3 required; up to 5 accepted |
| Essays | Two essays, each with a 1,000-word hard limit |
What the Fellowship Offers
The financial benefit is the easiest part to understand: the fellowship provides up to $90,000 toward graduate education over one to two years. The official benefits page breaks that into up to $50,000 in stipend support and up to $40,000 in tuition support. The stipend can be up to $25,000 per year and is paid directly to the Fellow. Tuition support can be up to $20,000 per year and is paid directly to the university.
The word “up to” matters. The official eligibility FAQ explains that tuition support is tied to tuition and fees and cannot exceed eligible costs. It also explains that the fellowship coordinates with other awards. If you receive other funding, the final PD Soros amount may depend on how those funds interact with tuition support and stipend caps. Do not assume every Fellow receives the maximum cash value in the same way.
The fellowship also includes community and program obligations. Fellows take part in two all-expenses-paid weekends in New York City during their first two years as Fellows. The official eligibility page also says Fellows must attend the annual Fall Conference, remain in good standing in their graduate program, and cannot work full-time during the funded graduate program. The program director or deputy director visits each Fellow on campus during the first fall semester.
That combination makes this more than tuition relief. It is also a public marker that the program sees your work, your background, and your future promise as part of the New American story. That can be useful in academic, artistic, policy, scientific, and professional contexts, but only if you are comfortable telling a clear, specific story about your path.
Who Should Apply
You should take the application seriously if you meet the basic eligibility rules and can make a strong case in three areas: your New American background, your record of achievement, and the logic of your graduate plan.
This fellowship is a good fit if you are an immigrant or the child of immigrants and your experience is not just a biographical detail but part of how you understand your work. You do not need to turn your life into a dramatic hardship story. You do need to explain what shaped you, what you have done with those experiences, and how graduate training will help you continue contributing.
It is also a good fit if your record shows initiative. That may mean research, art, entrepreneurship, public service, organizing, clinical work, teaching, writing, engineering, advocacy, or leadership in a community or institution. The official selection criteria look for creativity, originality, initiative, sustained effort, commitment to constitutional values and civic responsibilities, promise of continued contribution, and a graduate program that supports long-term goals.
You should be cautious about applying if you are technically eligible but cannot yet explain why this graduate degree matters. The application asks why you chose your program or programs and how your current work and study connect to early career goals. A vague answer like “I want to make an impact” will not carry the application. You need a sharper explanation of what the degree helps you learn, build, practice, research, create, or lead.
Eligibility in Plain English
The official eligibility page says all requirements must be true as of the application deadline. For the 2027 fellowship cycle, that deadline is October 29, 2026 at 2 pm Eastern Time.
You must be 30 or younger as of the application deadline. The official page says there is no minimum age requirement and no exceptions to the age requirement.
You must be a New American. The fellowship defines this as an immigrant or the child of immigrants. If you are an immigrant, the official page lists categories that can qualify: naturalized U.S. citizen, green card holder, asylee or refugee, or someone who was born abroad and graduated from both high school and college in the United States. The official eligibility page specifically says DACA recipients can be eligible under the high school and college pathway if they were born abroad and meet that education requirement.
If you are a U.S. citizen by birth, the New American requirement is usually based on your parents. The official page says both birth parents must have been born outside the United States as non-U.S. citizens and must not have been eligible for U.S. citizenship at the time of their births. The page also describes a specific single-parent situation: if you were raised by only one birth parent, the parent who raised you must have been born abroad as a non-U.S. citizen, and the second birth parent must not have been part of your life growing up and you must have no contact with them.
You must be planning to start or continue an eligible graduate or professional degree program. For the 2027 fellowship, you must plan to be enrolled full-time in a degree-granting graduate or professional program in the United States during the 2027-2028 academic year. You can apply while applying to graduate school. You do not need to have admission in hand at the time you submit the fellowship application.
If you are already in graduate school, timing matters. The official page says you must not have started the third year of the degree program you want funded as of the application deadline. That detail can be tricky for PhD, joint-degree, and sequential-degree students. If your situation is complicated, read the official academic status FAQ carefully before investing weeks in the application.
The official page also lists ineligible programs: executive graduate programs, joint bachelor’s/master’s programs in which both degrees are awarded simultaneously, certificate programs, post-baccalaureate programs, graduate programs outside the United States, and graduate programs that are not fully accredited. Online programs can be eligible if they otherwise meet the requirements.
Application Process
The application is submitted online. The official process page says applicants create an account, answer eligibility and demographic questions, provide educational and New American background information, and submit transcripts, a resume or CV, two essays, and recommendations.
The deadline is strict. The official page says all application materials must be submitted online and that the program makes no exceptions to the 2 pm Eastern Time deadline. Do not plan to submit at 1:58 pm. A browser issue, recommender delay, upload error, or time zone mistake can turn a strong application into an incomplete one.
The current cycle review process is described this way: after applications are reviewed, the top 77 applicants are designated finalists and invited to virtual interviews in late January and early February 2027. All applicants are notified of their status in mid-January. Thirty finalists are selected as Fellows, notified in March 2027, announced publicly in April 2027, and begin receiving stipend and tuition support in fall 2027.
Applications are not reviewed on a rolling basis, according to the official eligibility FAQ. Submitting early will not give you a rolling admissions advantage, but it does reduce operational risk. A good target is to submit the main application at least 24 to 48 hours before the deadline while continuing to monitor recommendation status.
Required Materials
The official application process page lists these required or expected pieces:
- Eligibility, demographic, contact, New American background, and education information.
- Information about the graduate program or programs for which you seek support.
- A resume or CV.
- Two essays, each with a hard 1,000-word limit.
- Transcripts for college and graduate study, as applicable.
- Standardized test scores only if they were or are required for admission to the graduate program you want the fellowship to fund.
- Three to five recommendations, with three required for a complete application.
- Optional exhibits, if they add useful evidence.
For transcripts, the official guidance says an image of the transcript is sufficient for the application if it includes your name and the institution’s name. It does not need to be official at the initial stage. If you become a finalist, the program can request official transcripts and other official documentation.
For test scores, the rule is practical: upload only the scores required by the graduate program you want funded. If your medical school required the MCAT, the official page says you only need the MCAT. If your program required the GRE, you only need the GRE. If you will take a required graduate entry exam after the fellowship deadline, the official page says you can select the option indicating that and upload official scores when available, or a screenshot of your online account when scores are posted.
Do not type scores into a document and treat that as evidence. The official guidance says to upload an examinee score report, or a screenshot if needed. It also notes that secure PDFs may not upload properly; if a PDF is password-protected, you may need to remove restrictions through the issuer or print and scan the relevant pages into a valid upload format.
Essays: What They Are Really Asking
The first essay asks about your experiences as a New American. It invites you to discuss how being an immigrant or child of immigrants shaped who you are and what you have accomplished. It also says you may discuss people, institutions, law, culture, society, or American governance that affected your life. The point is not to produce a generic immigrant narrative. The point is to help readers understand the context behind your choices, achievements, responsibilities, and perspective.
A strong first essay usually answers four questions: What shaped you? What did you have to learn or navigate? What did you do in response? How did that experience influence the work you are now pursuing? You do not have to cover your whole life. In fact, trying to cover everything often weakens the essay. Choose the few experiences that actually explain your current trajectory.
The second essay asks about your current and near-term career-related activities and goals, why you chose your graduate program or programs, and how current work and study inform early career goals. If you have not been accepted yet, the prompt asks why you selected the programs to which you are applying.
A strong second essay connects the degree to a concrete next step. Explain what training, methods, credentials, mentors, clinics, labs, studios, archives, patient populations, policy networks, or professional pathways make the program relevant. The reviewers should understand why this graduate plan is not interchangeable with any other prestigious option.
The two essays should work together. Essay one gives the reader the personal and historical context. Essay two shows that your next step is deliberate. Avoid repeating the same accomplishment list in both essays. Use the resume for the list; use the essays for meaning, judgment, and direction.
Recommendations
The application requires three recommendations and accepts up to five. The official page says recommendations must be submitted online through the application system, and prior-year letters cannot be forwarded into a current application. If you applied before, your recommenders still need to submit again for the current cycle.
Choose recommenders who can add evidence, not just praise. A recommender who knows your work in detail is usually more useful than a famous person who can only write a broad endorsement. Strong letters can explain what you did, what was hard about it, how you compare with peers, how you respond to setbacks, and why your graduate plan makes sense.
Give recommenders enough context to write specifically. Send them your current resume, draft essays if available, the fellowship’s selection criteria, the deadline in Eastern Time, and a short note about what perspective you hope they can provide. Do not script the letter for them. Do make it easy for them to remember concrete work.
The applicant can submit before recommendations arrive, but the application is complete only if at least three recommendations are submitted by the deadline. The portal shows recommender status as requested or received. If a recommender does not receive the email, the official page advises confirming the email address, checking junk folders, making sure you clicked save after registering the recommender, and using the resend invitation option carefully.
Optional Exhibits
Optional exhibits can help if they show something the essays and resume cannot show efficiently. Examples might include an abstract, writing sample excerpt, art portfolio link, policy brief, research summary, project description, press link, or documentation of a product or performance. The official FAQ says that if an exhibit was made with others, you should provide context about why you included it and what your contribution was.
Do not upload exhibits just to look busy. Optional material should answer a real evaluation question: What did you create? What was your role? What is the quality or significance of the work? What does this show about your initiative, originality, or promise? If the answer is unclear, leave the exhibit out or add a brief explanation.
Timeline and Deadline
For the current official cycle, the application deadline is October 29, 2026 at 2 pm ET. Finalist status is expected in mid-January 2027. Finalist interviews are scheduled for late January and early February 2027. Winners are notified in March 2027, announced publicly in mid-April 2027, and the fellowship begins in fall 2027.
Work backward from the deadline. Eight to twelve weeks before the deadline, confirm eligibility, create your account, identify graduate programs, and make your recommender list. Six to eight weeks out, draft both essays and request recommendations. Four weeks out, upload transcripts, test score evidence, and a resume or CV. Two weeks out, check every portal field and recommendation status. In the final week, avoid major rewrites unless something is clearly wrong.
The best practical deadline is not the official deadline. Your personal deadline should be at least two days earlier. That gives you time to handle PDF problems, missing transcript names, recommender email filters, portal confusion, and any mismatch between your planned materials and what the application system actually asks for.
How to Decide Whether It Is Worth Your Time
The fellowship is highly selective. The official materials say the program received more than 3,000 applications in 2025, and the current cycle description says 30 Fellows will be selected from 77 finalists. That does not mean you should talk yourself out of applying. It does mean you should be honest about whether you can submit a serious application.
Apply if you can answer yes to most of these:
- You clearly meet the New American, age, and academic timing requirements.
- You can explain your graduate plan without relying only on the school’s prestige.
- You have evidence of initiative, achievement, creativity, or sustained effort.
- You can write about your background with specificity and maturity.
- You can secure at least three strong recommendations by the deadline.
- You are willing to spend real time revising the essays.
Consider waiting or applying with lower expectations if you are still unsure whether your program is eligible, if you cannot get recommendations in time, if you are already too far into the graduate program you want funded, or if your essays are still generic a week before the deadline. Reapplying is allowed as long as you still meet the eligibility requirements, so a rushed weak application is not the only option.
Selection Readiness Tips
Read the selection criteria before you write. The official page emphasizes creativity, originality, initiative, sustained effort, constitutional values and civic responsibility, promise of future contribution, and the relevance of graduate training. Your application does not need to use those exact words repeatedly. It does need to give readers evidence that those qualities are real.
Use concrete scenes and outcomes. Instead of saying you are resilient, explain a situation that required persistence and what changed because of your action. Instead of saying you care about public service, describe the population, problem, institution, or field you have worked with and what you learned.
Make the graduate program legible to non-specialists. The fellowship reviews applicants from many fields. A reader may not know the technical importance of your lab, instrument, archive, clinical placement, studio, or legal clinic. Explain enough that an intelligent reader outside your field can understand why it matters.
Do not flatten your New American story into hardship alone. Hardship may be part of your story, but the fellowship is also interested in contribution, agency, and promise. Show what you have built, studied, protected, questioned, or created because of your experience.
Check for consistency across materials. If your essay says your goal is public health research but your resume, recommendations, and program list point mostly to a different direction, readers may not understand the throughline. You do not need a perfectly linear path, but you should explain the logic of your path.
Common Mistakes
The most common mistake is treating the application like a graduate school personal statement with a new title. The fellowship has its own questions. Reused essays may help you start, but they need to answer the PD Soros prompts directly.
Another mistake is making the New American essay too broad. A history of your family can be powerful, but the essay still needs to tell the reader who you are, what you did, and how those experiences shaped your accomplishments. Do not let background replace agency.
Applicants also lose strength by listing too much and explaining too little. A resume can carry the list of positions, awards, publications, performances, or roles. Essays should interpret the list and show judgment.
Recommendation problems are preventable but common. Do not invite exactly three recommenders at the last minute unless you are certain all three will submit. Because three are required, one missed letter can make the application incomplete. Inviting four or five appropriate recommenders can reduce risk, but only if each person can write a useful letter.
Technical mistakes matter too. The official process requires online submission and says mailed or emailed materials are not accepted. Secure PDFs, unreadable transcript images, missing institution names, and misunderstood test score requirements can create avoidable problems. Check uploads early.
FAQ
Is the application currently for 2025? The title on this page includes 2025, but the official application page currently describes the 2027 fellowship cycle. The live deadline listed by the program is October 29, 2026 at 2 pm ET.
Can I apply before I know which graduate school admitted me? Yes. The official eligibility page says you can apply to graduate school at the same time you apply for the fellowship and do not need to have been admitted when you submit the fellowship application.
Can current graduate students apply? Yes, if they are still early enough in the program. The official page says applicants already enrolled must not have started the third year of the degree program they are seeking funding for as of the deadline.
Can I already have a graduate or professional degree? Yes. The official eligibility FAQ says applicants may apply with a previous graduate or professional degree, assuming they otherwise meet the requirements.
Can online graduate programs qualify? Yes, the official eligibility page says online programs are eligible if they meet the other requirements.
Can the first fellowship year be deferred? No. The official application process page says the first year of the fellowship cannot be deferred. The eligibility FAQ says year two may be deferred up to one calendar year.
Are there GPA or test score cutoffs? The official eligibility page says the program does not look at school, GPA, or test score range for eligibility. Test scores are required only if the graduate program you want funded required them for admission.
Can I submit by mail or email? No. The official process page says all materials must be submitted through the online application system, and mailed or emailed materials are not accepted.
Can I apply again if I am not selected? Yes, as long as you still meet the eligibility requirements. The official page says applicants can apply more than once.
What To Do Next
First, confirm your eligibility on the official eligibility page. Pay special attention to age, New American status, parent-status rules if you were born in the United States, and graduate-program timing if you are already enrolled.
Second, open the application system and look at the actual fields before writing final essays. The official application process page is detailed, but the portal is where you will see exactly what you must complete.
Third, make a materials plan: two essays, resume or CV, transcripts, required test score evidence, three to five recommendations, and any optional exhibits. Put the recommender deadline in Eastern Time and ask for letters well before the official cutoff.
Fourth, draft the essays as a pair. Essay one should explain how your New American experience shaped you and your accomplishments. Essay two should explain your current work, graduate plans, and early career direction. Together, they should make the reader understand why you are prepared for this fellowship now.
Finally, submit early enough to solve problems. A selective fellowship should not be lost to a preventable upload issue or missed recommendation.