Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program: Eligibility, Requirements, and Opportunities

The Knight-Hennessy Scholars (KHS) program at Stanford University is a graduate-level scholarship program established in 2016 with the goal of cultivating future leaders who can address complex global challenges. This highly selective program provides full funding for scholars to pursue any graduate degree at Stanford, coupled with unique opportunities for leadership development, mentorship, and experiential learning across diverse disciplines. The program aims to build a community of scholars who can collaborate on impactful multidisciplinary projects.

Program Overview

Knight-Hennessy Scholars supports scholars with coaching, funding, and mentors, and provides workshops to help them develop their ideas to address important regional or global issues. A key component of the scholarship's programming is the McMurtry Leadership Lecture program, which invites a prominent speaker to address Knight-Hennessy Scholars once per quarter.

The program enrolled its first cohort of 51 graduate students in 2018, with participating students hailing from 21 countries and pursuing 31 different degree programs. A new cohort of Knight-Hennessy Scholars has been selected in each subsequent year.

Key Features of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program

While the funding may be what first attracts many applicants to KHS, there’s much more to it than money. The funding, learning, and networking opportunities offered by KHS make it a highly attractive prospect for anyone considering graduate study at Stanford.

Funding

Graduate study at Stanford can be an expensive commitment, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars when factors like housing and living expenses are included. The Knight-Hennessy program covers tuition, fees, and living expenses, making graduate education accessible to exceptional students from all socioeconomic backgrounds.

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Community and Networking

The Knight-Hennessy program aims to foster a vibrant community, allowing scholars to network and collaborate beyond their field. Denning House, described as KHS’s “convening space,” is a building on the Stanford campus. It houses classrooms, lecture halls, meeting rooms, a lounge, and a dining room-as well as an art collection.

Leadership Development

The King Global Leadership Program (KGLP) is the core of the KHS curriculum. KGLP is structured around quarterly themes (such as civil rights or the future of education). Scholars are given flexibility regarding how much they engage with the program, given the demands made of Stanford graduate students. Events are typically scheduled during breakfast, lunch, or dinner to accommodate scholars’ schedules.

Experiential Learning

A unique opportunity afforded to scholars is participation in KHeystone Projects. At the Ideas Festival held each year in the fall, scholars can pitch their ideas for KHeystone Projects and form teams with scholars from other fields. Project teams are then supported by KHS throughout the year with mentorship, funding, and workshops as they develop and implement their ideas. At the KHeystone Project Showcase in the spring, teams present their activities and what they learned from the experience.

Additionally, the KHS Global Travel/Study Program takes groups of scholars on weeklong trips, led by Stanford faculty, to destinations across the globe to experience different cultures. Trips are organized in the winter and summer breaks.

Eligibility Requirements

Knight-Hennessy Scholars has no restrictions based on age, college or university, field of study, or career aspiration. The program encourages citizens and residents of all countries to apply. There are no quotas by discipline, program, or world region.

There are two baseline eligibility requirements for those applying to the 2026 cohort.

Admission to Stanford

First, in addition to applying to Knight-Hennessy Scholars (KHS), you must apply to, be accepted by, and enroll in a full-time Stanford graduate degree program including, but not limited to, DMA, JD, MA, MBA, MD, MFA, MPP, MS, or PhD programs. All Knight-Hennessy scholars apply and are selected for admission. Applying to Knight-Hennessy Scholars (KHS) is not simply checking off a list of requirements.

Educational Background

Applicants must hold a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent from a college or university of recognized standing. To apply to join the cohort in 2026, you must have earned your first bachelor's degree by January 2019 or later. For applicants who served in the military, the eligibility window is extended by two years in acknowledgement of longer service commitments; you must have earned your degree in January 2017 or later to enroll in 2026. Current college students are eligible if you will earn your first degree by September 2026.

Application Process

In order to have a shot at becoming a Knight-Hennessy scholar, you need to get through the program’s highly selective application process. The KHS application is an invitation to show how you demonstrate our criteria in ways that are unique and distinct to you.

The Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program selects high-achieving students from around the world with demonstrated leadership and civic commitment to receive full funding to pursue a wide-ranging graduate education at Stanford, with the goal of developing a new generation of global leaders. Applications are accepted from citizens of any country who intend to enroll in a full-time graduate degree program at Stanford (e.g., JD, MA, MBA, MD, MS, or PhD) or plan on pursuing one of Stanford’s many joint- and dual- graduate degree options (e.g., MD+PhD, JD+MA, MBA+MS). Applicants who are not enrolled in a bachelor's degree program at the time of application must have completed their bachelor's degrees within the last five years. Recipients are expected to complete their graduate program in-residence at Stanford University. The first and foremost criterion for selection is that the applicant be an excellent candidate for admission to his or her selected graduate program at Stanford. The application for the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship is two-fold: one must apply for admission to Stanford in addition to applying for the Scholarship program.

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It is important to note that the complete Knight-Hennessy scholarship application must be submitted online by the October due date, and applicants must also apply to their intended graduate program at Stanford. Some Stanford programs, such as the MBA and MD programs, have earlier deadlines. Knight-Hennessy applicants for all other graduate degree programs must submit their Stanford graduate applications no later than December.

Key Stages

The Knight-Hennessy admissions committee will review all applications and rank the top candidates. In a parallel process, individual departments at Stanford will conduct their review of applicants based on their academic criteria. The applicants who rise to the top of both the Knight-Hennessy and departmental review processes will be invited to submit a required video statement in January, and from those, a limited number of finalists are selected to attend the required in-person Immersion Weekend at Stanford in early March, which include additional evaluative events that further influence selection.

Stage 1: Online Application
Submit your online application by October 8, 2025. This includes the application form and your resume, transcripts, standardized test scores, recommendation letters, and essay responses.
Stage 2: Invitation-Only
Invitations to submit a video statement will be sent out on a rolling basis during January 2026 to up to 500 applicants. If you’re invited, the deadline for submitting your statement will be 5-10 days after the invitation.
Stage 3: Finalists
On January 28, you’ll be notified if you’re a finalist.

Evaluation Criteria

Applying to Knight-Hennessy Scholars (KHS) is not simply checking off a list of requirements. There is no formula for admission, and there are no scores, achievements, or stories that automatically qualify you for admission.

As we evaluate and select Knight-Hennessy scholars, we look for evidence of three criteria:

Independence of Thought
We seek visionary thinkers who are curious, open-minded, analytical, eager for cross-cultural perspective, and genuinely excited to boldly and creatively address our world’s important challenges.
- Demonstrates intellectual ability and clear thinking
- Communicates clearly based on reflection and introspection
- Seeks out new knowledge, perspectives, and experiences
- Makes sense of ambiguous circumstances
- Generates ideas to solve problems
Purposeful Leadership
We seek courageous leaders who are ethical, decisive, resilient, driven to achieve meaningful results, and motivated to inspire others to effect positive change at scale.
- Achieves impactful results
- Confronts challenges with courage, persistence, and resilience
- Includes and inspires others to effect change
- Makes decisions in accordance with values
Civic Mindset
We seek collaborative community members who are humble, empathetic, trustworthy, oriented to act in service of others, and deeply passionate about contributing to the greater good.
- Demonstrates humility, integrity, and accountability
- Makes a habit of serving and helping others
- Thoughtful and considerate of others’ perspectives
- Embraces difference and celebrates diverse opinions and experiences
- Strives to make our world a better place

We find evidence of these selection criteria throughout your application and, if you are invited to participate, in your video statement and during the Finalist Experience.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The Knight-Hennessy program seeks applicants who are academically excellent, with significant records of leadership and service. The ideal candidate is one who can “out-think, out-work, and out-care” others. With that, they seek candidates who are other-oriented and low-ego.

Benefactors

Phil Knight is known for cofounding Nike and for his extensive philanthropic work. Other major benefactors included Dorothy and Robert King (hence the King Global Leadership Program) and Roberta and Steven Denning (hence Denning House).

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