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The Illinois Club draws its membership from all areas of the University and the surrounding community. Since 1915, The Illinois Club has provided financial support to worthy undergraduate students. This year, we will be awarding the following scholarships:
  • Global Focus Scholarship Award
  • Humanities and Social Sciences Scholarship Award
  • Engineering and Science Scholarship Award
  • Isabelle Purnell Education Scholarship Award
  • The Judith Life Ikenberry Creative Arts Scholarship Award

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).

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 2026 semester, and graduate no earlier than December 2026. A minimum GPA of 3.0 at both the time of application and winning of award is also required.

Applications Open: Tuesday September 2, 2025
Application Deadline: 5pm on Saturday, October 11, 2025

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 Committee for 2025-2026

Scholarship Chair: Kathy Valdés
Scholarship Committee: Emily Klose, Wayne Davis, Carolina Rocha

If interested in helping us with this important work, please contact Kathy Valdés, the Chair of the Scholarship Committee, at scholarship@theillinoisclub.org.

The Scholarship Committee and our Scholarship Winners for 2023-2024