Scholarship Requirements

Materials that applicants for NAHJ scholarships must submit

All materials should be attached to your application. For more specific instructions on uploading some video, audio or photographic work samples, see below.

  1. School Transcripts If you have attended more than one school, a transcript is required from each institution unless grades from the previous school (s) appear on the present transcript.
  2. Résumés listing your educational background, work history, awards, journalism-related internships, other scholarships, language proficiency and any work done for your school or community newspaper, radio and/or television. KEEP RÉSUMÉS TO ONE PAGE!
  3. Two reference letters from people who are familiar with your academic and/or journalism work. Examples: professors, counselors, employers, faculty advisors, etc.). Letters from relatives will not be accepted.
  4. Essay. Please submit a typed, double-spaced not to exceed 1,000-word autobiography in the third person in the form of a news story. Pick one of the following topics.

A)   Why are you interested in a career in the field of journalism?

B)   What event, story, person, experience, etc., inspired you to want to pursue a career in this field?

C)   What hardships or obstacles have you experienced while trying to realize your goal of becoming a journalist?

D)   What role, if any, do Latino journalists play in the news industry?

  1. A copy of your parents’ W-2 Form. This documentation will help the NAHJ Scholarship Selection Committee to assess the scholarship applicant’s financial need.
  2. A copy of a Financial Needs Statement. This statement is found on the NAHJ Scholarship Application. It is a part of the application which asks for details on the applicant’s expenses and income. Again, this information is used by the NAHJ Scholarship Selection Committee to assess the scholarship applicant’s financial need.
  3. Only for Maria Elena Salinas Scholarship applicants: As explained above, these applicants must submit along with their application package an essay in Spanish that explains why you seek a career as a Spanish-language broadcast journalist.
  4. Samples of your best work. These include: Print, television, radio or photo samples. Please limit to threeWork Samples may be in English or Spanish. Judges will be viewing all applications in a web browser, so make sure you work is formatted for the web.

A.     Printing Samples can be stories written by the applicant that have been published in a high school, college campus or community newspaper or magazine or online. For the Student Campus applicants, articles written as part of journalism coursework or online. For the student Campus applications, articles written as part of journalism coursework will also be accepted. Applicants should include no more than three clips of published work. If not already on your computer, scan you work samples so that you can upload them.

B.     Television samples should be no longer than 3 minutesYou may upload the sample directly in the application or supply a link that is already posted on the internet. To upload the sample into the application, after you edit your work sample, export your clip to your computer using the web settings. Make sure you save you video as a Quicktime .MOV, or .MPG file. Once on your hard drive, upload like a regular file. To provide a link to the work on the internet, cut and paste the link onto a word document and then upload that document in the “work sample” window. If it’s posted on YouTube or Vimeo, make sure it’s posted as a public document.

C.     Radio samples should be saved as QuickTime MOV>, or .MPG files. Again, the total time should not exceed 3 minutes.

D.      Photojournalism Samples should be saved as .JPEG, or .GIFF files. Make sure the photo’s resolution is at 72 dpi and no larger than 600K file size. If you need to resize your image, you can use a resizing tool at www.resize2mail.com

E.      Multimedia work samples can be submitted by providing a link to the work. To do so, cut and paste the link onto a word document and then upload the document in the “work sample” window.

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This post was authored by a NAHJ staff member or a NAHJ board member.

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