Here, you can find answers to questions we commonly encounter. This page will be updated periodically during the application cycle.
For more information about TASS, please visit tass.tellurideassociation.org. If you have any questions not answered here, please contact us.
Each fall, we welcome nominations of students in their sophomore and junior year of high school who are intellectually curious, community-minded, and self-motivated. Submit your nominations at nominate.tellurideassociation.org.
If you miss the nomination window, don’t worry! We encourage you to direct your students to our website, where they can find digital copies of the information brochure and application forms. All our materials are available online, so students should not be prevented from applying just because they did not receive printed materials from us. Whether a student was nominated or not has no bearing on their chances in the review process, so please do encourage your students to apply.
Anyone may nominate students for TASS. We send annual invitations to nominate to teachers and counselors who have nominated students in the past or who have requested to be on our nomination mailing list. Please contact us if you would like to be added to this list.
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If you missed the current year’s nomination deadline, you may still send nominations to the Telluride office, but we cannot guarantee that your students will be included in our nominee mailings. Students do not need to be nominated to apply, and we encourage you to direct them to tass.tellurideassociation.org to learn more and apply online.
As a guideline, most forms of help you would give a student on an ordinary writing assignment are appropriate for the TASS application. In particular, you may discuss with them their ideas and essay structure or help them with conventions for referencing other works. All writing and editing, however, should be the student’s own.
We do not require a letter of recommendation for students until they are selected for an interview. Fewer than one in five applicants receive an interview, so we do not suggest that you write letters for your students unless they request them from you after having reached that stage of our application process. It is not required that students receive letters from the same person who nominated them. Students will receive specific instructions to give to letter writers when they are notified of their interview status.
To apply to TASS you must be a current high school sophomore (or equivalent) or a current high school junior (or equivalent). There are no other requirements, and there are no exceptions. If your student is in a program that does not follow the typical U.S. high school grade system and calendar and you are unsure of their eligibility, please contact tass-queries@tellurideassociation.org. As a guideline, TASS applicants generally have at least one full year of secondary school remaining before entering University following the program.