What Happened: From fall 2022 through summer 2023, Mountaintop listed on its materials that Fellows must be 30 years of age or younger to participate in the fellowship. This was intended to ensure that the program model could specifically target youth leaders, provide universally relevant training curriculum, and give a standard experience to hosts. However, several otherwise qualified candidates older than 30 provided feedback that the Mountaintop fellowship could be beneficial for outstanding leaders ages 30-40 or older who are still in the early stages of their careers, and by categorically excluding older candidates Mountaintop would be unnecessarily limiting the program's potential to scale and deepen its impact in many places.

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How Mountaintop Responded: Mountaintop decided that the age limit, while well-intended, was unnecessarily exclusionary and would reject many outstanding emerging leaders. Mountaintop removed the age limit and instead lists in its selection criteria that the fellowship seeks candidates "at the early stage of their professional careers, can demonstrate that the Mountaintop Fellowship can meaningfully accelerate their trajectory as a transformational leader, and help them stay in or return to their home community or country.

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Mountaintop's Learning and Commitment: Going forward, Mountaintop commits to ensuring that its selection criteria remains as inclusive as possible, opening up the possibility of non-traditional candidates to demonstrate their qualifications through the selection process. Further, Mountaintop commits to expanding its outreach strategies to older demographics of emerging leaders and social entrepreneurs. Finally, Mountaintop commits to constantly seeking input and advice from candidates, Fellows, hosts, and others who directly are experiencing the fellowship to continue to improve the program design.