Full-ride College Chess Scholarships

Full-ride scholarships cover four years of college expenses, including tuition, fees, books, housing, and meals. Several U.S. universities offer full-ride college chess scholarships. While players with FIDE (International Chess Federation) titles are most likely to be awarded full-ride college chess scholarships, players with ratings as low as 2300 US Chess have been awarded these scholarships.

Notable Scholarship Recipients

Two U.S. Women’s Chess Champions (Nazi Paikidze and Sabina Foisor) came to the U.S. on full-ride college chess scholarships. U.S. Champions Yury Shulman, Alex Onischuk, and Wesley So also came to the U.S. on full-ride college chess scholarships. 

U.S.-born players have also accepted full-ride college chess scholarships. To give just one example, Chessable co-founder John Bartholomew (Minnesota) had a full-ride college chess scholarship to The University of Texas at Dallas and graduated from that institution. In addition to his work at Chessable, he has educated thousands about chess through his YouTube videos.

Current Generation

Currently, universities offering college chess scholarships end up with mostly international students on their teams’ rosters. While some U.S.-born top chess players accept full-ride college chess scholarships, others attend academically top-tier universities, such as Harvard University, that do not offer chess scholarships.

Players who are 19 and 20 years old are college age. Some may not be attending college, and others might attend universities that did not send teams to the 2023 Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship (Pan-Am). The Pan-Am is the most important annual college chess competition in the Americas.

Players who are 18 years old might still be in high school (12^th grade) rather than in college. For that reason, the 18-year-old players’ list is presented after the list for 19- and 20-year-old chess players.

Thanks to William Root for researching the lists presented next.

Top United States players ages 19 or 20 during the 2023 Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship (Pan-Am), January 5–8. The list below indicates what university each player competed for or if they did not participate in the 2023 Pan-Am. If a university offers full-ride chess scholarships, then its name is in boldface and linked to its chess program website. If the player has a FIDE title, that title is listed before their name. The lowest-rated player on this list is rated around 2300 US Chess.

1. Grandmaster (GM) Hans Niemann – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
2. GM Awonder Liang – University of Chicago
3. GM Brandon Jacobson – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
4. GM Praveen Balakrishnan – University of Chicago
5. GM David Brodsky – The University of Texas at Dallas
6. International Master (IM) Ben Li – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
7. IM Josiah Stearman – University of Missouri
8. FIDE Master (FM) Justin Chen – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
9. IM Carissa Yip – Stanford University
10. IM Annie Wang – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
11. FM Justin Paul – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
12. FM Akira Nakada – Harvard University
13. Woman Grandmaster (WGM) Jennifer Yu – Harvard University
14. Joseph Zeltsan – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
15. FM Rayan Taghizadeh – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
16. WGM Thalia Cervantes – Saint Louis University
17. Isaac Chiu – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
18. IM Alexander Costello – University of Washington
19. WIM Emily Nguyen – Stanford University
20. FM Marcus Miyasaka – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
21. Candidate Master (CM) Forest Chen – Vanderbilt University
22. Gabriel Sam – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am

Top United States players aged 18 during the 2023 Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship (Pan-Am), January 5–8. The list below indicates what university each player competed for or if they did not participate in the 2023 Pan-Am. If a university offers full-ride chess scholarships, then its name is in boldface and linked to its chess program website. If the player has a FIDE title, that title is listed before their name. The lowest-rated player on this list is rated around 2300 US Chess.

1. GM Andrew Hong – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
2. IM Nikhil Kumar – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
3. FM Anish Vivekananthan – The University of Texas at Dallas
4. FM Aydin Turgut – Princeton University
5. FM Christopher Shen – Harvard University
6. FM Danila Poliannikov – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
7. FM Wesley Wang – Harvard University
8. FM Samrug Narayanan – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
9. FM Shunkai Peng – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
10. Raghav Venkat – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
11. FM Andy Huang – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
12. FM Ryan Amburgy – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
13. Woman FIDE Master (WFM) Martha Samadashvili – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
14. Ashton Jin – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
15. Elton Cao – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
16. CM Prateek Mishra – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am
17. Bijan Tahmassebi – University of Maryland, College Park
18. CM Joshua Grabinsky – Did not participate in 2023 Pan-Am

Alexey Root is a Woman International Master and the 1989 U.S. Women's chess champion. Her peak US Chess rating was 2260. She has a PhD in education from UCLA. You can find her books on chess on Amazon.com.

William Root was a public school music teacher. William also taught chess in schools and camps. Now, he works in a library. His US Chess rating is 1743.