Academic Scholarships
The UCD Ad Astra Academic Scholarship programme seeks to recruit exceptional, high-achieving students and provide them with additional support and unique scholarship opportunities as they study for a degree at UCD. These students will have a proven record of academic excellence, a desire to continue to achieve at the highest level and develop their leadership potential. These academic college scholarship are designed to further foster their talents by providing these students with a range of benefits, mentoring and development opportunities to allow them to perform to their full potential. There are close to 120 Ad Astra Academic Scholars in undergraduate programmes across all University programmes including Architecture, Engineering, Social Sciences, Law, Commerce, Economics and Finance, Science, Medicine, Nursing, Health & Performance Science, Linguistics, English with Creative Writing, History, Actuarial & Financial Studies, Psychology, Physiotherapy, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Nursing and more. Each year we offer up to sixteen places in the academic programme for school leavers applying to UCD and the Academy.
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Our scholars have gone on to do further studies. In 2018, our first Ad Astra Scholar to win a Fulbright Irish Student Award, Ben Moore used it to pursue a Master of Science degree in Aeronautics & Astronautics at Stanford University. Since then we have had several more scholars win the Fulbright Irish Student Award to pursue opportunities in a wide number of universities including The University of Edinburgh and The University of Oxford. Our recent alumni include several scholars who have pursued further studies (Masters and PhDs) in the world’s top ten universities including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Imperial College London and University College London, whilst some alumni have participated in the ESTEEM program in the University of Notre Dame.
Our academic alumni have taken on leadership roles in global companies such as Google, Amazon, Salesforce, Goldman Sachs, MSD Ireland, Permira and JP Morgan, whilst others have gone on to set up their own companies. Alumni Matthew Coffey and Katie Farrell are co-founders and CEO and COO of SQUID. It was founded in 2019 and now has over 550,000 loyalty customers, operates in over 1,750 retailers throughout Ireland, UK, Australia, Canada, has launched in the Middle East and has raised over €5.5 million from investors. Alumna Romy Lynch, Co-founder and CEO of Unflow was named in the 30 under 30 by The Sunday Independent and the 30 under 30 in Irish Tech in the Sunday Business Post and is now working with Keychain. Alumnus, Christopher Devenish pursued an MSc in International Relations at The London School of Economics and Political Science and is currently working as a John S. McCain Strategic Defense Fellow at the United States Department of Defense. Alumnus Rory Clarke is the Special Advisor to the Attorney General of Ireland. Alumna, Molly Gray graduated from Engineering and is now a Solutions Architect for Stripe, whilst Sharon Farrell pursued an MSc in Social Research Methods at the London School of Economics and Political Science and is now the Communications and Advocacy Officer with UNRCO Somalia.
We also have scholars excelling from our Performing Arts Scholarships and out Elite Sports Scholarships.
