We’re talking about scholarships this week and here’s another one open to veterans. If you’re interested, you’ll need to “get after it,” as my retired Army husband likes to say, because the application deadline is next week – 11 February!
Formed in 1932 and officially chartered by Congress in 1958, the Military Order of the Purple Heart is a non-profit veterans services organization, similar to others you may be familiar with, such as VFW or American Legion, but its memberships is strictly limited to those individuals who have been awarded a Purple Heart and their spouses, parent, sibling, and “lineal descendants.”
In addition to their service programs, they offer the Military Order of the Purple Heart Scholarship. Their main website doesn’t list the scholarship amount but one of their chapter websites and several other sources put it at $3,000 per scholarship. The scholarship can be used to pay for tuition, books, room and board, fees, and other direct educational costs. (This is especially significant for students who may be using Post-9/11 GI Bill, as this can be used to cover additional tuition costs, rather than being subtracted from what VA is already paying toward tuition.)
The MOPH Scholarship is open to members of the organization, his/her spouse or widow, and any lineal descendants, defined as child, step-child, adopted child, or grandchild and to any spouses, widows, or direct lineal descendants of a servicemember killed in action or who “died of wounds.” Other eligibility requirements include:
– High school graduate or, if a child, be a senior in high school
– Be attending or accepted into a full time, undergraduate program of study at an accredited US college, university or trade school
– Minimum GPA of 2.75 (though this may be waived for an individual who is a member of the MOPH)
Interested individuals must complete and submit the follow items before 5p.m. EST on February 11, 2014 (their website is very emphatic that there will be NO exceptions to this hard deadline):
– Application – asks for basic personal information, MOPH membership information, educational history, school and program attending/planning to attend, extracurricular and volunteer information (specific emphasis on any veteran-related works), employment experience
– Verification of volunteer hours worked
– Official transcripts (must be on a 4.0, unweighted scale)
– 200-300 word, double-spaced essay on the topic of “The American Veteran”
– Two letters of recommendation
– $15 application processing fee
To give you an idea on your odds of receiving a scholarship, last year 300 people applied and 79 received scholarships – that’s not too shabby as far as scholarships application/award rates go.
One final note: All Purple Heart recipients who wish to apply must be members of the order. If you choose to join (and this is not an endorsement, just a relaying of information), you can complete the membership application online at www.purpleheart.org If you are a dependent of a Purple Heart recipient, the Purple Heart recipient must be a member for you to apply, unless he/she was a member at the time of his/her death or was killed-in-action or died of wounds sustained from combat.
The scholarship application and further details can be found at: http://www.purpleheart.org/Downloads/Bank/Scholarship/ScholarshipApplication.pdf
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