The U.S. Department of State is offering Scholarships for high school students from Macedonia to attend the 2015 Benjamin Franklin Transatlantic Fellows Summer Institute.
Two four-week Institutes, offered in summer 2015, will accommodate up to 90 Fellows total. Each Institute, one at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and the other at Purdue University in Indiana, will be designed for 35 European students and 10 Americans, ages 16 to 18. Institute activities include discussion of global issues of common interest, leadership and media training, collaborative project development, community service, educational travel, and plans for follow-on activities. Both Institutes will take place from June 27 to July 25, 2015.
The goals of the Institute are:
- To develop a commitment to transatlantic cooperation;
- To foster relationships between American and European youth from different ethnic, religious, and national groups;
- To develop a cadre of youth leaders who will share their knowledge and skills with their peers through positive action.
A complete application must include the following:
- Applicants must be 16, 17, 18 years of age as of June 28, 2015;
- Highly proficient in English, as demonstrated in a personal interview or the results of a standardized test;
- Committed to enrolling in high school or university in their home countries in fall 2015, following completion of the Institute;
- Demonstrate strong leadership potential and interest in transatlantic relations and diplomacy;
- Indicate a serious interest in learning about the United States;
- Sustained high level of academic achievement, as indicated by academic grades, awards, and teacher recommendations;
- Demonstrate a commitment to community and extracurricular activities;
- Have had little or no prior U.S. study or travel experience in the United States;
- Be mature, responsible, independent, confident, open-minded, tolerant, thoughtful and inquisitive;
- Willing and able to fully participate in an intensive summer program, community service, and active educational travel program;
- Comfortable with campus life, shared living accommodations, travel and interaction with a multinational, coed group of participants from across Europe and the United States, and comfortable with engaging various Americans in the broader community. Able to adjust to cultural and social practices different from those of their home countries.
