Work in progress – pardon our dust (27 apr 2026)
General Eligibility
The Illinois Club is offering undergraduate scholarships that will be awarded for the 2026-2027 academic year. You must be an undergraduate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, have earned at least 60 credit hours by the beginning of the Spring 2027 semester, and graduate no earlier than December 2027 (scholarships awards are for the 2027-2028 school year). A minimum GPA of 3.0 at both the time of application and winning of award is also required.
Applications Open: Tuesday September 8, 2026
Application Deadline: 5pm on Saturday, October 10, 2026
To apply for these scholarships, please complete the application at
go.illinois.edu/TheIllinoisClubScholarshipApplication
Note: Applications will NOT be accepted after the deadline. It is strongly recommended that you allow yourself adequate time to navigate the application, upload your documents, and communicate your questions to the Committee well in advance of the final hour.
Scholarship Descriptions
Global Focus Scholarship Award
Open to students with any major. This award honors Peri Ceperley, a dear friend who left us too soon. Peri loved traveling, studying foreign languages, and exploring internships and volunteering opportunities abroad. Applicants must share those interests in international experiences and/or have an internationally focused program of study. Applicants must demonstrate how their internationally focused work and/or volunteer plans will make a difference in the world.
Humanities and Social Sciences Scholarship Award
Open to students majoring or minoring in the Humanities or Social Sciences. Applicants must demonstrate the benefits that studying the Humanities or the Social Sciences provides to themselves and their community. Majors/minors that may apply for the Humanities and Social Sciences Scholarship Award include English; Philosophy; Religion; Comparative Literature; Cinema Studies; History; Classics; Art History; Communication; Psychology; Anthropology; Musicology; Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication; Human Development and Family Studies; Agricultural and Consumer Economics; all foreign languages; all ethnic studies; all Business majors and minors; and undergraduates in the I-School.
Engineering and Science Scholarship Award
Open to students majoring or minoring in the STEM fields, including Animal Sciences, Crop Sciences, and Computer Science + Crop Science. Applicants must demonstrate the benefits that studying Science, Mathematics, Technology, Engineering, or Agricultural Sciences provides to themselves and their community.
Isabelle Purnell Education Scholarship Award
Open to students earning a Secondary Education Certificate or College of Education majors. Applicants must demonstrate how they hope to make a difference in the classroom and in students’ lives.
Judith Life Ikenberry Scholarship Award
Open to students majoring in the creative arts. Applicants must demonstrate how their art impacts their lives and the world and what they hope to accomplish with their art. The Ikenberry scholarship is generally given to a student who plans to make a living as a working artist, performer, or writer (e.g., painter, sculptor, musician, composer, dancer, actor, novelist, playwright, poet, screenwriter, essayist, or other creative profession).