Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) Survey Data Cohort 1, United States, 2000-2008

In 1999, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation started the Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), a 20-year initiative which intends to expand access to higher education for high achieving, low-income minority students. In addition to its academic objectives, GMS also has the goal of creating future leaders in minority groups. The program is administered by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Awardees can receive the scholarship for up to 5 years as an undergraduate and 4 years as a graduate student. The scholarship is renewable through graduate school in math, science, engineering, library science, and education. In order to see how GMS has impacted students and to know how to better prepare minority students for college, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has commissioned a survey of recipients. Cohorts are composed of both recipients and non-recipients. Non-recipients are defined as individuals who were asked to go on to the scholar confirmation/verification phase, but did not become a scholar for one or more reasons.For the first year of the program, GMS awarded 4,053 scholarships to freshman, continuing undergraduate students, and graduate students. Baseline, first follow-up, second follow-up, and longitudinal survey data have been collected from both recipients and non-recipients. Freshmen constitute one respondent type and continuing undergraduate and graduate students comprise a second respondent type.