The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships provide one to two years of merit-based funding for 30 New Americans (immigrants and the children of immigrants) in any field at any graduate degree program in the United States. The fellowship offers $25,000 in stipend support and $20,000 in tuition support (up to 50% of the tuition bill) per year. In addition to receiving up to $90,000 in graduate support, fellows join a highly selective, engaged community “poised to make significant contributions to U.S. culture, society, and academia.” Applications for the 2026 fellowships are due on October 30, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. (EDT).

The late Paul Soros, the older brother of financial wizard George Soros, was a successful businessman and multimillionaire in his own right. While George Soros enjoyed success in the financial sector, Paul Soros made his mark on the world by innovating in the shipping industry, filing patents, and winning several engineering awards in areas such as loading methods and shipping routes. Paul’s wife Daisy Soros studied interior design and has been a lifelong supporter of the arts. Paul and Daisy Soros both immigrated from Hungary in the wake of World War II, so it is only fitting that the fellowship they established in 1998 supports young immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in the United States. Last year, more than 2,600 people applied for the 30 available fellowships. 

I received a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship in 2013 to support a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Winning the fellowship helped me turn an initial rejection from one of my top-choice schools into an acceptance and opened up many opportunities for me once I arrived on campus. I still keep in touch with diverse and extraordinarily talented fellows from my class and am reaping the benefits of being a lifelong member of the Paul & Daisy (PD) Soros community. It feels like an extended family, and the program is constantly innovating, finding new ways to spotlight our achievements and facilitate connections.

Application Criteria and General Tips

The program stipulates certain eligibility requirements with respect to age, immigration status, and academic standing. In addition, the program seeks candidates who have demonstrated creativity, originality, and initiative; sustained accomplishment and the promise of future achievement; and a commitment to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. 

Applicants may apply for the fellowship at the same time they are working on their graduate school applications; you do not need to wait until you have already been accepted for graduate study. PD Soros uses a holistic review process. Application materials include transcripts, standardized test scores (if required by your graduate program), a resume, three to five letters of recommendation, and two essays. 

The PD Soros Fellowship also offers an optional exhibits section, where you can upload additional material to provide further insight into your background, accomplishments, and/or potential. Each exhibit should be well organized and labeled. For example, I submitted three optional exhibits: the citation for the Deans’ Award that I received at Stanford, links to three short films and documentaries I produced, and a writing sample from my novel-in-progress. Each exhibit was accompanied by a cover sheet that described the exhibit and provided a bit of context. Although you are given enough space to upload up to five exhibits, these are considered supplementary to the application, and the readers are not required to review them. Therefore, be thoughtful in what you include in this section and mindful of your readers’ time. I suggest uploading them in order of priority, with the most compelling evidence first.

The application is a two-stage process. The top 77 applicants will be designated “finalists” and invited to appear for virtual interviews in late January and early February. Fellowship winners will be notified of their selection in March. They will begin to receive stipend and tuition support from the program in the fall of 2026.

Essay Tips

The heart of the PD Soros application are two essays, each with a maximum length of 1,000 words. The first is about your unique story as a New American, and the second is about your career-related activities and goals.

PD Soros Essay One

Tell us about your experiences as a New American. Whether as an immigrant yourself, or as a child of immigrants, how have your experiences as a New American informed and shaped who you are and your accomplishments?

Feel free to discuss how individual people (such as family or teachers), institutions, aspects of law, culture, society or American governance made an impact on your life as an immigrant or child of immigrants. The program is especially interested in understanding and contextualizing your accomplishments, be they personal, professional, or academic.

This is a very personal essay, one that requires you to dig deep and let yourself be vulnerable. As I drafted and rewrote my essay in response to this prompt, I learned a great deal about myself, drawing connections between my family history, personal struggles, and career goals. I wrote about how my artistic ambitions and drive had been inspired by my great-grandfather’s work ethic and my parents’ immigration to the United States, how the Chinese concept of “saving face” privileged family honor over self-expression and encouraged me to hide my sexuality, and how embracing a career in writing gave me an outlet to express myself honestly and proudly.  

The program advises applicants to use this essay to share stories that provide a window into their world as a new American, the obstacles and opportunities they have faced, and the distance they have traveled. Many applicants find that talking with their parents about their childhood challenges and triumphs helped them illuminate the most salient lessons and experiences for this essay.

As an immigrant or the children of immigrants, what opportunities and rights did you gain in the States that you would not have enjoyed in your parents’ native country? How did that insight influence you? Alternatively, did your family experience obstacles adapting to life in the States? How did those challenges influence your perspective, trajectory, and actions? In what ways do you think your path is continuing or diverting from your family’s journey? How did your life experiences affirm your commitment to the values expressed in the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights? Remember, essays that share the depth of your feelings and not just your actions will resonate most with application readers.

PD Soros Essay Two

Tell us about your current and near-term career-related activities and goals, as well as why you decided to pursue the specific graduate program(s) and school(s) that you have. 

How do you see your current work and study informing your early career goals? If you have not been accepted into a program yet, please tell us about why you selected the programs to which you are applying. 

This essay about your career interests and ambitions might be much less personal than Essay One, but it should still be compelling and pick up key notes from your New American essay. The writing you do for this essay will be helpful in drafting your statement of purpose for master’s programs and vice versa. 

In my essay, I wrote about how I had worked to develop my writing career since graduating from college, and how the drive to self-expression that I described in my New American essay influenced the subjects I explored in fiction and film. I wrote about the social and political dimension of my writing and how I sought to challenge readers’ expectations and easy explanations. I wanted to apply to an MFA program to challenge what I knew, strengthen my voice as a writer, and further my activism in the arts.

Often, it helps for applicants to write about the questions they’re seeking answers to, the tasks they would like to do well, and the missions they would like to contribute to. This discussion then provides an easy segue into how graduate study will prepare them to accomplish their goals and fulfill those roles. With 1,000 words, you also have plenty of room to include details about how you have pursued those answers thus far, providing an additional opportunity to demonstrate that you are a fitting candidate for the PD Soros Fellowship’s search for creative, unique, driven, and committed new Americans.

For more information about the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, listen to Episode 206 of Accepted’s Admissions Straight Talk podcast.

A Stanford graduate and the recipient of prestigious fellowships from the Fulbright Program and the Institute of Current World Affairs, as well as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, Steven Tagle has taught and mentored students for 20 years. As a published writer, journalist, and former speechwriter for the U.S. ambassador to Greece, he knows how to draw out applicants’ unique stories and craft compelling personal statements that help their applications stand out from the pack. Want Steven to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch.

Related Resources

• Showcasing Leadership in Admissions, a free guide
• From Example to Exceptional: Crafting Standout Application Essays, a free guide
• Get Ready for Graduate School: A Strategic Guide for Your Application, a free guide