Collegiate Scholars are motivated to excel academically and serve and lead in the larger community.

Are you a motivated student that is looking for opportunities to grow as a scholar and engaged citizen? Does the thought of learning off-campus, conducting research with a faculty-mentor in your discipline, developing your capacity as a leader and engaged community member, and examining challenging topics with students from other disciplines excite you? Welcome to Collegiate Scholars.

As a Collegiate Scholar you will complete four advanced academic or co-curricular activities. These activities could include participation in a musical ensemble or the Calvin Theatre Company, earning a second major, or studying abroad for a semester. Collegiate Scholars take upper-level Honors colloquia courses, designed to offer interdisciplinary engagement with big questions. The Collegiate Scholars track aims to inspire academic excellence while anchoring those achievements within the larger collegiate community.

What You'll Learn

Explore Your Leadership in the Church

The Ministry Leadership cohort is a learning and discerning community, helping first- and second-year students to understand their leadership in the Church. Walk alongside peers asking the same questions, guided by student mentors through small groups and by faculty through classes.

Program Values

• Build community: as unique members of the one body of Jesus Christ. 
• Practice leadership: using the particular gifts and in the particular ways God has given to you. 
• Love the Church: as it is in Grand Rapids, this nation, and spread throughout the world. 

As a member of the Ministry Leadership Cohort you will:

• Form strong connections with your peers by taking classes together, engaging in weekly small groups, visiting churches, and going on pilgrimage.
• Learn with and from professors and students whose worship, experience, and witness of God will challenge and develop your own.
• Travel to a major American city and learn what God is doing in the radically diverse churches of a specific urban area, stretching your understanding of the work of Christ through the Church.
• Discern how God is and will continue to use you in his Church through engagement with peers, professors teaching classes on worship and the Church, and leaders in ministry.

Who Qualifies?

• Students who will start at Calvin in Fall of 2026
• Students from any major who are passionate about ministry and the life of the Church.
• Anyone eager to serve in faith-based leadership roles.

If you are interested in starting at Calvin after 2026, please send us your information (see form below) and we'll let you know once your Cohorts application is open. Email cohorts@calvin.edu with questions.

Important Dates

Application opens on August 1. The deadline to apply is January 15. Find all dates and deadlines below!

Apply to the Ministry Leadership Cohort

Learn more about Cohorts at Calvin

Connect. Collaborate. Create.

Step into a community where art becomes a way of seeing, shaping, and serving the world.

The Arts Collective is a cohort for you to explore your creative calling—whether through visual art, music, writing, theater, or other forms of expression. You don’t need to major in the arts to join. You just need a desire to listen, create, and problem solve within Calvin's arts-invested community. You’ll take courses together, travel to places rich in the arts, and participate in events that stretch your imagination and deepen your understanding of the arts as a force for renewal.

Who Can Apply?

• Those entering Calvin as a first-year student in Fall 2026
• Students from any major who are eager to engage who want to engage in arts-based learning and community
• Creatives who are curious, collaborative, and eager to grow

If you are starting Calvin after 2026, please send us your information (see form below) and we'll invite you to apply when the application is open to you. Email cohorts@calvin.edu with questions.

Important Dates

Application opens on August 1. The deadline to apply is January 15. Find all dates and deadlines below!

Apply to the Arts Collective

Learn more about Cohorts at Calvin

Ask big questions with humility, explore with wonder, and pursue advanced academic opportunities in community.

Do you get excited about connecting ideas across science, society, and the arts? Want to use your city as your classroom or conduct impactful research and projects alongside a faculty mentor? That’s what Honors Scholars is all about.

Who Can Apply?

• Students from any major and background, with a wide range of academic interests and passions

• You can also double major, play varsity sports, or study abroad as an Honors Scholar—it just takes some extra planning

   

Apply to Honors Scholars

Learn more about Cohorts at Calvin

Bring Renewal into Every Corner of Society

In a hyper-partisan world, is it possible to work together toward the common good—or even agree what the common good is? It is possible. But it takes people with commitment and conviction to lead the way. People like you.

As a member of the Common Good Collective, you’ll join a vibrant learning community that explores what it means to love God and neighbor in tangible ways. You’ll engage in real-world projects in Grand Rapids and beyond, working alongside faculty, peers, and community partners to pursue the common good.

Who Can Apply?

• Those entering Calvin as a first-year student in Fall 2026
• Students from any major who are eager to engage deeply with community issues and contribute to meaningful change

If you are starting Calvin after 2026, please send us your information (see form below) and we'll invite you to apply when the application is open to you. Email cohorts@calvin.edu with questions.

Important Dates

Application opens on August 1. The deadline to apply is January 15. Find all dates and deadlines below!

Apply to the Common Good Collective

Learn more about Cohorts at Calvin