Adopted Applicant Guide

June 11, 2025

A photograph of 2018 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow Jenna Cook holding a New York Times advertisement featuring the class of 2018 Fellows.

If you are an adopted individual applying to The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, this guide is designed to help you determine your eligibility and complete the application accurately.

Adopted Applicant Guide

Eligibility Requirement: New American Status

To apply as an adopted applicant, you must meet all general eligibility requirements. The only distinction regarding eligibility for adopted applicants relates to the New American status criteria. You must meet one of the following:

You were born in the United States, and both of your biological parents were born abroad as non-US citizens.

You were born outside of the United States or its territories and were subsequently adopted by parents who had citizenship in the United States, through which you obtained US citizenship.

In the “Confirm Your Eligibility” task of the application, you will be asked to confirm your New American status by selecting one of the seven statements listed. If you are an adopted applicant who was born in the United States, please select the “US Citizen by Birth: I am a US citizen by birth” option. If you are an adopted applicant born abroad, please select the following statement: “Adopted: I was born outside of the United States or one of its territories and was subsequently adopted by American parents and was awarded US citizenship as a result of my adoption. To the best of my knowledge, neither of my birth parents was a US citizen.”

Application: Family & Personal Background Information

In the “Family Background Information” and “Personal Background Information” sections of the application, where questions about an applicants’ parents are asked, adopted applicants should provide information about their biological parents, to the best of their ability. If certain information is unknown, please enter “Unknown – Adopted.”

Including Information About Adoptive Parents

Please note that the “Family Background Information” and “Personal Background Information” sections of the application may not include designated fields for details about your adoptive parents. If you feel that including this information would provide important context about your background, we encourage you to do so in other parts of your application.

You may include relevant details about your adoptive parents in:

Your personal essays

The optional exhibits section

Sharing this context can help the PD Soros application readers better understand your story and circumstances, so we encourage you to include it wherever it fits naturally within your application.