Funding Your Future is a General Intelligences series created with the intention of spreading knowledge to high-achieving high-school seniors of large, fall-deadline scholarships. This week, the series focuses on the Burger King scholarship application and everything that it entails. Keep reading until the end to find the student perspective of Allison Tav and Beral Chen, two recipients of the scholarship this past year. 

THE AWARD: The Burger King scholarship is mainly a monetary resource to its recipients. The majority of scholarship recipients will win $1000. However, there are also $5000 regional awards and a $50,000 national “KING” award. Keep in mind that even an additional $1000 could lessen your student loans in the future, so every scholarship is worth applying to. 

THE ELIGIBILITY: Applicants to the Burger King scholarship must be of the following requirements:

  • Living in the United States, Canada, or Puerto Rico
  • Have at least a 2.5 GPA
  • “Be active in their community through volunteering, sports, clubs and/or religious organizations”
  • Be planning to enroll in college full-time the following year

As you can tell, there are no income requirements for this scholarship, so people from all backgrounds can apply and be considered. 

THE APPLICATION: The application for the Burger King scholarship is definitely one of the more simple nationwide scholarship applications. There are a few paragraph responses including some information on passions, volunteering, and how the scholarship would help the applicant. Because the scholarship is so straight forward, it is important to make sure that the space you do have truly shines you in a brilliant and positive light. No space can be wasted! The scholarship application opens on October 15th, 2020 and will close on December 15th, 2020. Recipients are notified by email, and past recipients have been notified in the spring following their application season. 

STUDENT PERSPECTIVE: Allison Tav is a Burger King scholar from the past year. She is from Holland, Michigan. She will be going to Ferris State in the fall to study Health Information, Technology, and Management. Allison ran cross country in high school as well as participated in track and lacrosse. She also volunteered as a member of NHS and served on student government. 

For Allison, being a Burger King scholar meant that she could “get to join the thousands of others who have also received this amazing scholarship.” Being a part of this group, to her, “inspires” her to “keep working hard on myself [herself] and my [her] goals.” 

Some of Allison’s advice is to watch out for the “inactivity counter” on the scholarship application website, as this can entirely erase any unsaved work. Allison “made sure to write my answers on a separate google document.” Her overarching advice is to “just go for it. Whatever you are reaching for, whatever you want in your life. Look where you want to be, and go get it! You’ll never know what could happen. It could turn out just right for you! Remember to put thought into your application. Put a nice profile picture of yourself in it. And impress them so much by your true self you knock them dead.” 

Beral Chen is another Burger King scholar from this past year. She is an incoming first-year at Emory University planning on studying psychology and neuroscience on the pre-med track. She hopes to become a psychiatric researcher. In high school, she loved contemporary and hip-hop dancing as well as volunteering at healthcare events. Outside of school, she loves yoga and music. 


Beral’s advice is to “highlight the most important things you’ve done” in your application. Because there is such a small amount of space to truly make yourself shine, it is important to use the space that you have and point out the best things about yourself. This includes highlighting your extracurriculars “in the most positive way possible.”

As always, I wish you the best on your scholarship journey. Don’t forget to come back for more scholarships and check out past articles!