2025-2026 MBTA Scholarship Application

Michigan Branch of Telluride Association's 2025-2026 Scholarship Application
Thank you for your interest in the Telluride House!

The Telluride House is a free room and board scholarship program for University of Michigan students interested in an intentional living community founded on the pillars of self-governance, intellectual inquiry, and community service. To learn more about house amenities and other scholarship requirements, please visit our website: telluride-house.com.

We are excited to read your application. Read below for some important information regarding the application process.

The Application

Our application process consists of two parts: first, an online application, followed by interviews offered to select candidates. While we consider all parts of your application, we highly recommend investing a significant amount of time into the essays; historically, candidates with weak essays have not been selected for the interview round.

There is no model application. The House accepts members as much for their artistic portfolios and/or scientific research as it does for their personal and/or professional experiences.

Dates & Deadlines

At this time, the Telluride House will be reviewing applications for the Fall 2026 cohort, and we will not have a Winter application cycle. If accepted, your residence in the Telluride House would begin in Fall 2026 (likely sometime in August 2026).

Any application received in full by *11:59 pm EST on September 13th, 2025* will be considered during our application cycle.

Applicants who advance to the second round will be interviewed from late October to mid November 2025 and all applicants will receive the final results of their application by the end of November 2025.

Terms of Scholarship & Eligibility

The Telluride House will only consider the applications of individuals who will, or plan to, be enrolled as full-time students at the University of Michigan in Fall 2026. Examples of applicant profiles satisfying this requirement include but are not limited to: current University of Michigan students who will be full-time students in Fall 2026 and individuals who are not currently University of Michigan students but are applying for or transferring into a University of Michigan program whose matriculation is in Fall 2026.

Please see the website for further information on other terms of scholarship.

If you have any additional questions, please contact mbta.apply@gmail.com.
Contact Information
Name:*

First NameLast Name
Preferred Name:*
Date of Birth (Month, Day, Year):*

MonthDayYear
MM-DD-YYYY
Email:*
example@example.com
Phone Number:*
Address:*

Street Address

Street Address Line 2

CityState / Province

Postal / Zip Code

Extracurricular And Community Service Activities

Describe three current/recent extracurriculars and community service experiences that are significant to you, including approximately how many hours per week you spend on each activity and any leadership roles you may have in each activity. Please do not include information about paid employment in this section (there will be a section for this later).

If there is insufficient space for all your current activities, complete the fields here for the activities in which you are most involved and include the relevant information for additional activities in the supplemental materials section, at the end of the application.
Activity 1:
- Name of Activity:*
- Activity Start Date (month/year):*
- Activity End Date (month/year):*
- Activity Position (if any):*
- Hours per week:*
- Description of Activity:*
Activity 2
- Name of Activity:*
- Activity Start Date (month/year):*
- Activity End Date (month/year):*
- Activity Position (if any):*
- Hours per week:*
- Description of Activity:*
Activity 3
- Name of Activity:*
- Activity Start Date (month/year):*
- Activity End Date (month/year):*
- Activity Position (if any):*
- Hours per week:*
- Description of Activity:*
Employment

This section is optional.

If you have employment experience that you consider relevant to your application, please share up to three such experiences in the next three pages. You may submit additional information about employment in the supplemental materials section of the application.
Employment 1
- Position/Role:
- Position/Role Description:
- Employer:
- Start Date (month/year):
- End Date (month/year):
- Bried Description:
Employment 2
- Position/Role:
- Position/Role Description:
- Employer:
- Start Date (month/year):
- End Date (month/year):
- Bried Description:
Employment 3
- Position/Role:
- Position/Role Description:
- Employer:
- Start Date (month/year):
- End Date (month/year):
- Bried Description:

Essays

The following essay questions aim to help us learn about you and your understanding of, interest in, and dedication to the three key pillars of our community: self-governance, community service, and intellectual inquiry. We encourage you to be genuine and reflective in your essays and to invest a significant amount of time into writing and revising them.

We strongly encourage you to read our website thoroughly to inform your answers. We want to hear your voice in these essays, so we strongly discourage the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) programs in writing your application. In our evaluation process, we focus on the content of your essays over grammatical correctness or stylistic elements.

Please note that as you are submitting your essays through an online platform, there is a chance that your data will not be saved if you lose Internet connection. We again highly encourage you to draft your essays in a word processor to avoid losing progress on your essays.
Beyond your experience and skills, we’re excited to hear about you—the person behind the application. This is a space for us to get to know you; this could include your interests, hobbies, personality, passions, hidden talents, etc. Please tell us a bit about yourself! Please do not simply restate your CV/resume. (250-350 words)*

Max 350 words0/350
The Telluride House is composed of individuals from many different backgrounds (socioeconomic, cultural, geographic, etc.), age groups, areas of study, phases of life, and more. What backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences will you bring to the House? (100-150 words)*

Max 150 words0/150
What do you hope to gain from living in the Telluride House? (100-150 words)*

Max 150 words0/150
Telluride House is more than a shared living space; it’s a community where members collaborate on projects, engage in deep conversations, and support one another socially and intellectually. -- How would you participate meaningfully in House life and help foster a space for collective growth? Describe specific ways you would engage with the Telluride community, including 1–2 projects, events, or programs you might organize. Please be specific (200–250 words).*

Max 250 words0/250
Participating in the Telluride House is a significant time commitment. Housemembers have the privilege and responsibility of initiating, running, and reflecting on a variety of projects and obligations, as part of our scholarship terms. We would like to understand how you approach the prioritization of different responsibilities in your life. Tell us about a time when you fell short of expectations, or had to make difficult decisions between valuable projects or goals. Walk us through your thinking process. (200-250 words)*

Max 250 words0/250
Members of Telluride House come from different backgrounds, have various interests and obligations, and have to live and work together to keep the House running. With so many factors at play, conflicts inevitably arise. Take a moment to reflect on how you handle conflicts in your life. -- Can you describe a conflict you have had with someone else within the past few years? It could be with a friend, colleague, classmate, professor, supervisor, etc. How did you approach this situation at the time? What went well, and what would you have done differently? (500-600 words)*

Max 600 words0/600
Intellectual inquiry is one of the pillars of Telluride House, which we roughly understand to mean “curiosity, openness to new ideas, and the pursuit of knowledge.” Pick a specific topic or issue that you are passionate about—one that you have not yet had the chance to share with us. Please present it to us in a way that is informed and developed, but still accessible to those who have limited prior knowledge of your topic. You can discuss anything: politics, philosophy, science, law, social studies, art, literature—even things like gardening, playing music, or fixing machinery. We strongly recommend that you not recycle an essay from a prior class, but that you approach the topic in an original way that is unique to you. (500-700 words)*

Max 700 words0/700
Community service is another key pillar of Telluride House. A rudimentary definition of service is "unpaid, voluntary work to help or enhance aspects of others' lives." As a house, we are frequently reflecting on what service means to us and to those we serve, and how we should define service. We believe that there are many different forms of service and unique ways one might engage with it in their lives, as each individual's personal circumstances differ. -- Even while understanding these differences, we expect members to participate actively in this pillar by committing to shared service projects throughout the year and reflecting critically on service in House discussions. When conducting service work, it is likely that you will work with individuals who have been marginalized, and, as a current or future member of the University of Michigan, your institutional status places you in a relative position of power. -- With this in mind, how have you navigated your power and privilege in the past and what you have learned about power and privilege since then? How has your understanding of service changed with it? (500-700 words)*

Max 700 words0/700

Special/Unique Circumstances

This section is optional
If you have experienced any special/unique circumstances that are not addressed in other portions of the application that you feel would be important for us to consider when evaluating your application (e.g. illness, time away from school, etc.) and that you are comfortable sharing with us, please feel free to briefly describe them here.
Transcript and CV/Resume Upload
Transcript Upload*

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Curriculum Vitae or Resume Upload*

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Artificial Intelligence Acknowledgment

This is optional
We regularly use software that identifies whether responses in the application were written by generative artificial intelligence (AI). If you used AI in completing this application, we ask you to briefly describe the extent and your reasons for using it. (50 words, optional)

Max 50 words0/50
Additional Supplemental Materials

This section is optional
If you would like, please use this upload space to share with us any other materials that you would like. This could be anything from links to websites, folders, videos, images, audio files, etc.

Cancelof
Submission Signature
*By signing/typing my name, I declare that all the information provided in this application is accurate to the best of my knowledge and that the essays are my own work. - Please note that once you submit, you will not be able to go back and edit your responses.

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Michigan Branch of Telluride Association's 2025-2026 Scholarship Application

Contact Information

Demographic Information

Interest

University of Michigan Affiliation

Activity 1:

Activity 2

Activity 3

Employment 1

Employment 2

Employment 3

Special/Unique Circumstances

Transcript and CV/Resume Upload

Artificial Intelligence Acknowledgment

Additional Supplemental Materials

Submission Signature