Spring 2024 ‘Making A Difference For Autism Scholarship’ Requirements

Apply for our autism scholarship here

Want to support Kerry Magro’s Scholarship Program? Kerry has helped support providing 150 scholarships for students with autism in the past 11 years. Pay it forward by supporting him and joining our community here.

Note: All high school students with autism attending a post-secondary program in the 2024-2025 academic year may apply. In addition, all current college students with autism may apply as well who will be attending a post-secondary program in the 2024-2025 academic year. This scholarship has no geographic restrictions meaning it’s open to all upcoming and current college students with autism in the U.S and internationally! If you were selected in a previous year and/or weren’t selected you may reapply as long as you are still attending college in the 2024-2025 academic year. Just make sure to send us a new original application and essay!

The winning applicant will receive a $500 dollar scholarship to be used to pay for their post-secondary education.

All scholarship applications need to be filled out with all of the requirements listed below by no later than Tuesday, April 30, 2024 at Midnight EST! After submitting your application, if you don’t receive an email within 72 hours about your application being received please message us via our KFM Making A Difference Facebook page here to let us know and we will see where the problem may be.

 Requirements for Application

Part 1: Cover Letter That Includes

o   A Short Bio (We want to hear your story as much as possible in 250 words or less).

o   Postsecondary Program Accepted in or Attending (I.E College, Community College, Vocational Program, etc.)

o   Autism Diagnosis (I.E Aspergers, PDD-NOS, ASD, etc. Age you were officially diagnosed)

o   Full Name

o   Address

o   Phone Number

o   Email

Part 2: Resume

Part 3: Letter of Reference (Included in the letter of reference should be a contact number and/or email which can be provided for any follow up questions which the Scholarship Committee may have. Whoever is writing the letter of reference for you should know that the letter should be written out to the KFM Making a Difference Scholarship Committee)

Part 4: Essay

In order to complete the essay, you must:

• Send us at least 3 high-resolution photos that you’d like us to include in your essay. These can be of yourself, photos of you growing up, action photos, family photos, etc.
• A title for your essay that’s no longer than 70 characters (including spaces)
• A 2-4 sentence byline to introduce you to our readers.
• Attach your essay in a Microsoft Word Document of no less than 750 words and no more than 1,000 words on your story of growing up on the autism spectrum. These essays should be aimed to educate, inspire and/or motivate our autism community. In writing your essay you should review some essays written by our scholarship founder Kerry Magro on his own personal journey on the autism spectrum. The most important thing with these essays are to be creative!
  • In writing your essays here are some of our personal favorites:
    • A Letter I Would Have Written For My Parents When I Was Nonverbal: http://kerrymagro.com/letter-nonverbal/
    • To Any Special Needs Parent Who Is Having One Of Those Days: http://kerrymagro.com/to-any-special-needs-parent-whos-having-one-of-those-days/

Note: Once we receive your essay it will live on Kerrymagro.com for others to view. Before we can post your essay you’ll have to sign, scan and email back to us this form here.

We do edit applications. Most of the edits will be grammatical changes, title changes, etc. By submitting this application you agree to also let us potentially publish your name, essay and photos as part of a book we are writing to highlight members in our autism community. (If you would prefer us not use your name please let us know and we will be more than happy to use a pseudonym name along with a stock image to include when your essay goes live!).

Selection of the winners

The decision on the winners of the scholarship shall be in the sole discretion of KFM Making A Difference. The winning application will be based on, at least in part, upon the amount of online interest in your essay (amount of times it’s shared on social media via Facebook/Twitter/Etc. and the amount of pageviews it receives). For that reason we encourage you to share your essay once it’s live on Kerrymagro.com as many times as you can with your friends and family to help build the online interest of your essay. We will send you an email with the link to your essay once it’s live on Kerrymagro.com.

Our scholarship fund wouldn’t be possible without the help of our community! Help our scholarship program moving forward by donating to our scholarship fund here. Don’t have the funds to donate? Not a problem! You can start a Facebook fundraiser here to encourage your friends and family to donate to the cause!

Help support Kerry Magro, a young man on the autism spectrum who started this scholarship program to help others who have autism!

Kerry has made it his mission to help others with autism and special needs via this scholarship program and if you’d like to pay it forward that would be amazing. Kerry considers referrals of places he may be able to speak as one of the highest compliments. If you know of a group who may need a speaker please send him an email at Kerrymagro@gmail.com! You can learn more about our nonprofit founder Kerry Magro, a professional speaker and best-selling author on the autism spectrum at Kerrymagro.com You can also follow him on Facebook here and Instagram here.