BrazilMcKinsey Amsterdam offers grant and mentorship to top students
The Dutch arm of McKinsey & Company has launched ‘McKinsey Grant’, an initiative that will provide Dutch students with financial support for personal development initiatives and mentorship to help realise such projects. The programme joins a host of avenues through which McKinsey & Company support students, including the firm’s Scholarships for Excellence programme.
Personal growth can occur in a myriad of different ways, and consulting industry heavyweight McKinsey & Company has established a new fund for students and graduates to recognise exactly that. This year, the firm in the Netherlands has allocated €15,000 to support several initiatives* with one-off contributions.
The application procedure for McKinsey Grant; Amsterdam is open until the end of May 2018, and is designated for university students, current PhD students, and even recent graduates, while both individuals or groups of up to six people can apply. Successful applicants will likely be those with the most impressive academic results at both high school and university, while they should be able to demonstrate extracurricular activities which exhibit team experience, initiative, and drive. All applicants must be fluent in Dutch.
Candidates with surprisingly diverse and ambitious plans can request grants for a broad range of projects, including studying or researching at home or abroad, setting up a charity or business, supporting their exceptional athletic performance, or even participating in a music competition. On top of the firm’s financial contribution, meanwhile, successful applicants will also receive mentorship from a McKinsey consultant for a period of twelve months.
According to a statement from the management consulting firm, the scheme supports such an array of projects on the basis that personal growth can happen in many different ways. The firm’s grant website reads; “We are open to any special initiative - what's important is that you convincingly define how your plan will accelerate your personal development. Our Amsterdam office gives a number of ambitious and talented students the opportunity to focus fully on accelerating their personal growth.”
Among the concepts which were awarded the grant two years ago were: funding for a solar race in Australia, founding a non-profit to educate women in less developed countries, an exchange in Hong Kong, and setting up a student-run sustainable consultancy network in the Netherlands.
Supporting students
The grant scheme is just one of a number of ways in which McKinsey offers financial incentives to top students, who it believes will invest their money wisely. The firm’s Scholarships for Excellence, for example, is intended to cover tuition fees, while recipients of these scholarships must display an outstanding record of academic and personal achievement. Preference is given to candidates with outstanding communication, collaboration, team-player and problem-solving skills, as well as those with prior developing-country experience.
Aside from financial support, the firm also offers mentorship to students in a number of other capacities. McKinsey notably offer MBA students support via its Emerging Scholars initiative. The project provides a support network, and a coaching resource to help beneficiaries get the most out of their MBA experience, before culminating in a guaranteed McKinsey interview, presenting candidates with a potential gateway into the consulting industry after their studies.
* The number of grants awarded and their individual value is yet to be finalised, depending on the number of selected projects and the financing needs of the candidates.
