Choate Fellowships to Harvard University

Ambassador Choate graduated from Harvard College in 1852 and Harvard Law School in 1854. He had a successful career as a lawyer working at law firms in New York City, often on cases that were of national interest. He was a reformer who campaigned against corruption in New York and was committed to public service and charitable enterprises, including involvement with the founding of both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History. He was appointed by President William McKinley as the United States' Ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1899, a post that he held until 1905. 

The Joseph Hodges Choate Memorial Fellowship at Harvard University was established in 1919 by members of the Harvard Club of New York City in memory of Joseph Hodges Choate, who died in 1917. It is awarded each year by Harvard University on the recommendation of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, for study in any Department of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Fellowship is held for one year and is not renewable.

The Choate Fellow is selected on the basis of outstanding and sustained academic achievement, strength of character, and potential for leadership in their field. (The selection and nomination of the candidate from Cambridge is normally undertaken by arrangement with the Trustees of the Henry Fund, which offers a cognate scholarship scheme.) Candidates for the Choate Fellowship should normally hold, or be likely to achieve, a First Class degree.

The successful candidate will be required to apply for admission as a non-degree Special Student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; the appropriate instructions to apply will be supplied by Harvard to the successful candidate. For further information about the Special Student Program and the types of graduate and undergraduate-level courses on which the Fellow may enroll, see the Graduate School’s webpages at: https://gsas.harvard.edu/programs-study/non-degree-programs.

The Trustees of the Fund

The selection and nomination of the candidate for the Choate Fellowship is undertaken by arrangement with the Trustees of the Henry Fund.  For more information about the Henry Trustees and for a list of current Trustees, please click here,