About the Quaqua Protege Award
Each year the Quaqua Society bestows its most prestigious honor, the Quaqua Protégé Award, upon the most outstanding home-education graduate in the world. The Quaqua Protégé Award is an honor first and a scholarship second.

Quaqua Protégés should project to the general public, in the most accurate and positive way, the plethora of benefits derived from home education. A Quaqua Protégé must demonstrate excellence consistent with the principles advocated by the Society. He or she must be someone with a demonstrated and objective record of accomplishment, one who is in some way deserving of honor and respect. This person should have the evident potential to make great contributions to improving the lives of others. He or she should be on the beginning of a path leading towards the attainment and application of practical wisdom.

Absent unusual circumstances, the Quaqua Protégé must be on a track toward further education at an institution of higher learning at the time the honor is bestowed. The Quaqua Protégé Award focuses upon what one has done, as evaluated through the prism of practical wisdom. It rewards disciplined creativity, which is the ability to engage in self-initiated creativity and to then adapt new insights into useful expressions and applications for society by undergoing the necessary regimen of hard work and discipline.

The Quaqua Society values new ideas and advancements in various circles of human activity, including academia, the professions, the trades, the sciences, the arts, and civic involvement. In selecting the Quaqua Protégé, the Society is concerned about the results achieved, not about imposing or selectively rewarding one or more of the many particular approaches that can be used to achieve results.

The Quaqua Protégé may be idiosyncratic or conventional, young or old, rich or poor, male or female, a secular unschooler or a religious home educator. The Quaqua Protégé is not selected on the basis of national origin, race, religion, disability, veteran status, philosophy, political creed, curriculum use, pedagogical upbringing, social class, familial identity, geographic location, or cultural background. The Society makes a strenuous effort to protect the integrity of the selection process against myopia or favoritism.

The By-Laws require that members of the Selection Committee be recruited from a broad cross-section of society and the various segments of the home education community. To the degree practicable, the Committee must include members with a very diverse range of demographic characteristics, professional backgrounds, and pedagogical viewpoints. Individuals with no affiliation to alternative education are included to help provide input from the general public. Committee members are screened for conflicts of interest. The By-Laws also permit the Committee to solicit applications of individuals who are potentially deserving but may be unaware of the application opportunity. Additionally, the Committee is empowered to take measures needed to minimize any disadvantages unrelated to merit imposed upon an applicant due to economic disadvantage, medical condition, geographic isolation, or socio-economic disruption.

As Society resources increase, applicants for the Quaqua Protégé Award will be considered for other merit awards created on an ongoing basis as part of the Quaqua Protégé Merit Award Program. Some of these future merit awards will be named after prominent home education graduates of the past. Other scholarships sponsored entirely by large contributors may honor persons, places, or things designated by the contributor. It is also hoped, but not required, that the Quaqua Protégé Merit Award Program recipients will contribute some of their future resources to the Quaqua Society scholarship fund.

The home education community regularly produces outstanding graduates who can compete in their chosen fields with anyone in the world. The Quaqua Society is pleased to help support and promote these accomplishments through its Quaqua Protégé Merit Award Program. By educating the general public, helping the home education community network, and assisting outstanding students to obtain additional education, the Society hopes to help preserve the benefits of parental liberty and home education for future generations.