What Davis United World College Scholars Program at U.S. Universities actually covers.
The Davis United World College Scholars Program is the largest privately funded international scholarship program in the world, providing need-based financial grants to graduates of United World Colleges (UWC) who enrol at one of over 100 partner U.S. universities and colleges. The program was founded by Shelby Davis and has provided scholarships to over 12,000 UWC graduates from more than 165 countries since 2000. African students who complete the International Baccalaureate at any of the 18 UWC schools worldwide — including UWC ISAK Japan, UWC Atlantic, Waterford Kamhlaba (Swaziland), and others — become automatically eligible for the Davis UWC Scholars grant at any of the partner institutions, which include Amherst College, Boston University, Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Georgetown, Princeton, Tufts, Vassar, and dozens of other top-tier U.S. schools. The grant supplements institutional need-based aid, filling financial gaps that the university itself cannot fully cover, and in many cases makes attendance at elite American institutions fully affordable. There is no separate scholarship application: once a UWC graduate is admitted to a partner institution, the university nominates them for Davis Scholars support. For African secondary school students admitted to a UWC school anywhere in the world, the pathway through UWC to a fully-funded education at a top U.S. university is one of the most powerful global scholarship pipelines available.
Who can apply.
Open to undergraduate applicants seeking to study in United States. Eligible nationalities are listed below.
46 more eligible countries — full list available on the official application page.
Every academic discipline is accepted.
This programme does not restrict by field. Research proposals across humanities, sciences, engineering, agriculture, and medicine are all accepted.
Four steps to a complete application.
Scholar Africa is a discovery and tracking platform — the application itself is submitted directly through the official provider site. The steps below mirror our HowTo schema.
Check eligibility
Confirm your nationality, academic level, and field of study match the criteria above.
Eligibility checklist
Prepare documents
Transcripts, recommendation letters, personal statement, and a valid passport.
Document checklist
Submit the application
Submit before January 1, 2027 via the official portal.
Submission checklist
Track your application
Use your Scholar Africa dashboard to monitor status and deadline reminders.
Post-submission checklist
What we checked, when we checked it.
Every scholarship on Scholar Africa goes through six checks (link, contact, organisation, winners, third-party, manual review). Davis United World College Scholars Program at U.S. Universities currently scores 0.0/10.
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Other scholarships worth a parallel application.
Same eligibility window or destination. Many strong applicants apply to three or four programmes per cycle.