Eligibility Overview

Quaqua Award recipients are drawn from the diverse segments of the home-education community. Award recipients, individually and as a group, may be from any demographic segment of society, as defined by race, nationality, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, world view, medical challenge, characteristics, pedagogies, or traditions, except as specifically limited [1] by Quaqua Articles of Incorporation or By-Laws. 


Eligibility for Protégé Awards, Merit Awards, Talent Awards, and Need Grants is limited to students who:


1) Have been educated in the home [2] for either–



2) Currently are, or will be within three years of the formal scholarship grant date, pursuing a college degree or equivalent achievement in an institution or program of higher learning



3) Have not yet achieved a bachelor’s degree or final-year undergraduate class status in a college or university or other institution of higher learning, unless the Protégé Award winner is receiving a category of the Award specifically open to graduate-degree students. [This requirement is suspended until further notice; graduate students are currently eligible to apply.]

4) Have obtained a score placing them in at the 80th percentile or above on a general exam used on a routine basis for selecting admission to a recognized program of higher learning.


5) The Protégé Award recipient and all other recipients of Quaqua financial assistance should exemplify the following characteristics:



NOTE: Eligibility requirements may, by sufficient vote of discretion by the appropriate Quaqua officials as it is harmony with the general purposes outlined in the Articles and By-Laws, be suspended or modified on a short-term or long-term basis with respect to one or more applicants as individuals or as a group or geographic region, to the extent required to achieve the intended objectives of Quaqua and to:

1) conform with applicable local laws or constitute a geographically-limited eligibility
2) address compelling problems caused by local customs, local conditions, or other considerations
3) prevent or alleviate rare and compelling individual instances of unfairness or injustice, and/or
4) protect the well-being of Quaqua, its programs and operations



[1]   For detailed information regarding the definition of an impermissible tradition, please refer to the By-Laws, section 2.4.8., footnote 8.


[2]
  A student's curriculum may be formal or informal, structured or unstructured, accredited or non-accredited, or include some participation in public school, private school, parochial, or community education classes, particularly any which may be mandatorily imposed by local law, so long as the predominant focus of the educational track is clearly in a physical educational environment unaffiliated with an institution other than the family (i.e., it is a home-educated student attending some non-family institution classes which constitute 40% or less of the total educational time and subject-matter for each week and year, not a non-family institution student participating in very limited self-education).



[3]   This requirement does not require an applicant to 1) acknowledge or endorse the legitimacy or sovereignty of any international, multi-national, national and/or non-governmental organization, 2) acknowledge the United States Constitution, however interpreted, as containing the only or best alternative for viable principles of societal governance, 3) pledge allegiance to the United States or any other sovereign, 4) renounce any specific flag, symbol, uniform, or general trappings or themes of political or social or religious heritage, or 5) renounce any historical or legal claim or assertion.  Endorsement of the right to vote may be waived when the applicant objects to the concept of voting for any person based upon personal religious or philosophical conviction.

Thus, for example, a Jehovah’s Witness could receive Quaqua assistance without pledging allegiance to a flag or endorsing the right to vote.  As other examples, a person could not be excluded for personal views concerning the Confederate Flag or symbols of Islamic unity.

A Quaqua participant may be an atheist, agnostic, secularist or pagan, and may not suffer prejudice in Quaqua or its programs or operations as a result, so long as they have done and commit they will not do anything publicly, with or without use of Quaqua resources or imprimatur, to ridicule the personal faith or organized religion of others or to derogate or further disenfranchise the meaningful cultural and legal role of personal faith and organized religion in the society of the United States.  It is not permissible, for example, to suggest that qualified persons should be disallowed participation in public office simply because they subscribe to a religious world view, or to suggest that a person cannot work as a credible scientist and still harbor religious beliefs.  Similarly, it is not permissible for a high-profile representative of Quaqua to personally advocate laws or law enforcement practices which have the effect of further curtailing in a relevant locale the ability of organized religious institutions to maintain the integrity and distinctiveness of their own internal functions and identity, to expand their membership in a civil and non-coercive manner, or to communicate their image and ideas to the public (including the electorate and governmental officials).

The personal views of Award recipients or Committee members regarding the above matters shall not be imputed to Quaqua as part of its official set of tenets.


[4]   This requirement is defined in context and aspects may be waived by appropriate Committee vote for outstanding individuals who are limited because of unique personal challenges arising from imposing medical or economic or cultural constraints.

In a situation where waiver must be considered, the Committee shall grant a request for waiver for any eligibility or selection process or requirement only if it is possible to adequately safeguard against manipulation of the applicant by guardians or others in ways designed to appropriate Quaqua's resources or imprimatur to further inappropriate objectives.