Applicants to the Duke Energy Scholars Program must be:

Be dependent children (natural, legally adopted, stepchildren, or legal wards) of qualified employees, retirees or surviving spouses/domestic partners of deceased employees of Duke Energy Corporation. Employees must be employed by Duke Energy Corporation at the time of awards selection. Children of deceased employees are eligible if their parent was employed at their date of death and had completed at least one year of continuous service with the company. (Note: The scholarship competition is not a part of any Duke benefits package.) Children of retirees and long-term disability recipients who meet the one year continuous service are also eligible.
Employees of companies acquired by Duke Energy Corporation must have completed at least one year of continuous service with the predecessor company or have a total of one year continuous service with the predecessor company and Duke Energy before January 1 of the college year for which application is made. Retirees of any company that is acquired by Duke Energy are required to have retired after the effective date of acquisition and must meet previously stated criteria regarding length of employment.
If there is a plan for an employee group to transfer to a Duke Energy company that sponsors Duke Energy benefit plans in advance of the scholarship entry deadline, employees from that area may submit an application, pending the enactment of their change in benefit/payroll status. Those completed applications will still be due on the same date as all other applications.
Be graduating high school seniors who plan to enroll in a full time undergraduate course of study at an accredited two or four year college or university or vocational-technical school in the United States. The non-proprietary educational institution must be qualified under IRS guidelines to receive contributions from Duke Energy Foundation.
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores or American College Testing (ACT) scores are optional. There is no minimum score required to apply.
Employees who are members of the Enterprise Leadership Team (ELT) at the time of application are not eligible to have their dependents apply for scholarships.