Fellows Scholarship

JA Fellows students and alumni have the opportunity to participate in our JA Experian 5-3-1 Scholarship Challenge. In partnership with Experian, we will be awarding $30,000 in scholarships.

Submit Your Application

Applications Now Closed

To apply for the JA Experian 5-3-1 Scholarship, students must complete an online application that contains two components: an essay response and a personal statement. Please note, students have the option to submit a written OR video response for both components.

Essay Response

Prompt: What are your 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year goals? How do you plan to achieve your goals for each time frame?

Your goals should be centered around professional and career development or financial objectives. As you state each goal, be sure to provide context as to why you have selected this goal and how it will support your future success. Provide a thoughtful and financially realistic plan on how you will achieve each plan. Written responses have a 500 word maximum and videos have a 3 minute cap.

Personal Statement

The personal statement is a space for you to share experiences, achievements, and aspirations to provide additional context to our scholarship judges on who you are and why you should be selected as a scholarship recipient. Written personal statements have a 300 word maximum and videos have a 2 minute cap. You are welcome to respond to any of the following responses for your personal statement:

  • Share an experience that has shaped your personal development
  • Share a time you overcame an obstacle & the lesson you learned from the experience
  • Share a time you made an impact in your community
  • Share why you want to pursue your desired major/career

Scholarship FAQs

JA San Diego and Experian are partnering together to launch the 5-3-1 Scholarship Challenge to support the higher education goals of our JA Fellow students and alumni. This challenge encourages students to contemplate their 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year plans and the steps needed to achieve each goal.

We will be awarding four $5,000 scholarships to JA Fellows who are current high school students and two $5,000 scholarships to JA Fellows students who have graduated from high school.

Scholarship funds can be used toward college expenses, including tuition and course materials, and trade/vocation schooling.

This scholarship is open to JA Fellows students and alumni currently enrolled or planning to pursue postsecondary education.

Submit an application that includes an essay and a personal statement. Applicants have the option to submit a written or video response for both application components. Please refer to the ‘Submit Your Application’ section above.

Applications will be open in February. Applications are due by Friday, April 12, 2024 at 11:59 pm.

Scholarship recipients will be notified in late-May/early-June.

We will coordinate with the scholarship recipients to confirm the school of attendance. Scholarship funds will be sent to the Financial Aid Office at the student’s college. The scholarship will be then applied to the student’s account to be used for their educational expenses.

Resources

Below we have provided links to JA and Experian resources to help you brainstorm and organize your application responses.

If you have any questions about the 5-3-1 Scholarship Challenge, please contact Catherine Van Weele at cvanweele@jasandiego.org.