These official rules govern the Brook Church-Koegel Scholarship (the "Scholarship"), a private scholarship program funded personally and administered by Brook Church-Koegel of Southern California (the "Sponsor"). By submitting an application, you agree to these rules. This page is the authoritative version: if a scholarship directory, a college listing, or any other site describes the Scholarship differently, this page controls.
1. No cost to apply
Applying is free. No purchase, payment, donation, or business relationship with the Sponsor or with any company he is associated with is required to apply or to be selected, and none is considered. No product or service is offered or sold through this program, and applying creates no relationship of any kind beyond the Scholarship itself. You will never be asked for payment information at any step.
2. Eligibility
To be eligible, an applicant must meet all of the following at the time of application:
- Enrolled as an undergraduate or graduate student at an accredited college or university in the United States, in any field of study.
- Based in the United States. Citizenship is not required.
- Not a member of the Sponsor's immediate family or household.
There is no minimum grade point average, no minimum age beyond enrollment, and no field-of-study requirement. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.
3. Key dates
- Applications close: , at 11:59 PM Pacific Time.
- Review and selection: December 1 to 10, 2026.
- Recipient notified and announced: .
- Payment: mid-December 2026, coordinated with the recipient's institution.
One application per person per cycle. An application that arrives after the deadline is not considered. If a date has to change, the change is posted on this website and on the Updates page.
4. How to apply
Applications are accepted only through the application form linked from the Apply page. The form asks for your name, email address, college or university, whether you are an undergraduate or graduate student, your program or field of study, your expected graduation year, your essay, and your confirmation that you have read these rules and the privacy notice. Nothing else is required, and the form does not ask for a GPA, a student ID, a transcript, a home address, a phone number, or any financial information.
Listings of the Scholarship on college, university, or scholarship-directory websites are for information only; an application submitted anywhere other than the official form is not an application under these rules. An applicant who experiences any issue with the form may email info@alphacap.co before the deadline for assistance. Asking for help has no effect on selection.
5. The essay
The application includes one essay of 500 to 800 words on this prompt: Tell us about something you've built — a project, an organization, a skill, a body of work — and what it taught you about building things that last. The essay must be the applicant's own work. Essays are not published unless the recipient gives written consent after selection (see section 8).
6. Selection
After the deadline, every complete application from an eligible applicant is read. The recipient is chosen by the Sponsor, and any reviewers he designates, on the strength of the essay against the published criteria: initiative, persistence, clarity of purpose, and character. Applications are not scored by grade point average, school, field of study, or background, and no relationship with the Sponsor is considered. Decisions about eligibility and selection rest with the Sponsor and are final.
7. Notification, verification, and payment
The selected applicant is contacted by email at the address on their application. Before payment, the Sponsor confirms with the recipient's college or university that the recipient is enrolled; this is the only point at which enrollment documentation is requested, and only from the recipient. If enrollment cannot be confirmed, or the recipient does not reply within the time stated in the notification, an alternate recipient may be selected by the same process.
The award is $1,000, paid once to the recipient's college or university and applied to the recipient's tuition only. It is not paid to the recipient, cannot be used for housing, books, or other expenses, and cannot be transferred to another person or exchanged for anything else.
8. Publicity
The recipient's name is announced on the Updates page only with the recipient's written consent, given after selection. Any further publicity (school, photo, or an excerpt from the essay) is optional and covered by the same written consent. A recipient who declines all publicity still receives the full award. Whatever the recipient chooses, the Sponsor may publish that the year's award was made.
9. Taxes
A scholarship award may be taxable income for the recipient under U.S. federal and state law, depending on how the funds are used. Any tax is the recipient's responsibility. The Sponsor does not give tax advice through this program; recipients should consult their own tax professional.
10. Applicant information
Application information is used only to run the Scholarship, as set out in the applicant privacy notice, which forms part of these rules. It is not used for marketing, is not sold, and is not shared with any business.
11. General terms
- The Sponsor may disqualify any application that is incomplete, duplicated, not the applicant's own work, submitted by an ineligible person, or made in violation of these rules.
- If events beyond the Sponsor's control prevent the Scholarship from running as described, the Sponsor may adjust the dates or the process by posting a notice on this website.
- The Scholarship is intended to be awarded annually; each cycle is separate, and a student who is not selected may apply again in a later cycle while still eligible.
- These rules are governed by the laws of the State of California. If any part of these rules is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.