Eligible students (click here for criteria) can apply to one of the four national Ronald McDonald House Charities scholarships. Students should review the criteria for scholarships available through local restaurants or funded at individual universities and colleges, as eligibility criteria varies.

Head on over to your local restaurant to find out what additional scholarships are available specifically for students in your area. Several local scholarships are supported by our restaurants, owner/operators and executives. You can also check with your school’s admission office or several specialized search engines online.

Scholarship recipients are announced two months past the deadlines, typically in the spring of each year. Scholarships are for use during the following academic year. Check out the Important Dates section of the student site for the latest information. We also encourage you to review the application and deadlines for each individual award.

McDonald’s awards scholarship money in the form of a check made out to the honoree’s institution. Checks are mailed to individual honorees directly and are to be used solely for academic expenses, such as tuition and books.

An intern is a student who fills a temporary position with an emphasis on on-the-job training. Most often our interns are in the third or fourth year of their collegiate experience. During this period the student is able to apply learned theories and skills within a real-world business setting, providing value to both the young professional and the business.

McDonald’s Internship Program gives approximately 75 interns the experience of a lifetime every summer. Summer internships are 10-12 weeks in length and occur between May and August.

The program kicks off with an intern orientation that includes a welcome from a member of our Leadership Team. We have various start dates in May/June to accommodate a variety of summer schedules.

Any student currently enrolled in an accredited college or university is eligible. The student must have completed his/her sophomore year of college for the undergraduate internship or completed the first year of a graduate school program for a graduate internship. Intern candidates who are not currently enrolled for the upcoming fall semester will not be considered.

Each year our interns come from a wide variety of backgrounds and majors of study. However, McDonald’s Internship Program’s most common majors are Information Technology, Marketing, Communications, Accounting and Human Resources.

Most of McDonald’s internship opportunities are located at our Corporate and U.S. Headquarters located in Oak Brook, Ill., just outside Chicago. Internship opportunities in our 21 regional offices will be posted later next year.

At McDonald’s we offer a program that provides a hands-on functional experience and additional development opportunities including networking sessions, teambuilding and leadership events. You’ll be an integral part of the thousands of employees that together serve millions of customers each day!

All applicants will receive an automatic email confirming that their résumé has been received. One of our recruiters will contact you directly if you have been selected for an interview.

Explore our Career Search Site for available internships. You can apply directly to the internship that you are interested in.

Please visit our Important Dates & Resources section for a list of campus site visits.

Please send all students to visit our Career Search Site to apply for current internships or to sign up for a Job Alert to be notified once our Internship openings are posted.

The only thing we add to our beef is a shake of salt and pepper. Our beef patties are made from 100% real beef and nothing else. For more information, please visit McDonald's USA's Food Quality site.

Chicken McNuggets are made with all white meat chicken breast and come from the same companies that sell the chicken you buy in a grocery store for your own family.

The answer is that at McDonald's, because we serve so many people each day, we are able to buy in quantity and then pass along the value to you. This enables us to offer our customers the best prices on the freshest, highest quality products.

The Big Mac, developed by Owner/Operator Jim Delligatti of Pittsburgh, was added to the national menu in 1968. Learn more about this pop culture icon at the Big Mac Museum in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.

We start with fresh ground beef, then freeze the patties to "lock in" the quality and flavor. This ensures a great tasting hamburger every time!

We serve approximately 9 million pounds of fries a day globally.

Some of our used cooking oil is recycled for products ranging from animal feeds, soap, and bio-diesel fuel depending on the market.

McDonald's uses a variety of real cheeses including Swiss, Cheddar/Jack, Parmesan and American from many of the same brands that you use for your family.

Actually, a 4-piece Chicken McNuggets with Apples and milk contains fewer calories and fat than a homemade grilled cheese sandwich, cup of tomato soup and glass of lemonade.

We have more than 34,000 restaurants around the world in 118 countries. In the United States, there are more than 14,000 restaurants.

Yes, often we also cater to local tastes with products like the Barbacoa Tejana in Latin America, M Burger in Europe and Ebi-Filet-O in Asia.

McDonald's brand mission is to "be our customers' favorite place and way to eat and drink." Our worldwide operations have been aligned around a global strategy called the Plan to Win centering on the five basics of an exceptional customer experience – People, Products, Place, Price and Promotion. We are committed to improving our operations and enhancing our customers' experience.

For comprehensive financial information, please click on our Investors page. 

Local Chapters of Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC), with support from RMHC Global offer scholarships to students from communities who face limited access to educational and career opportunities. These scholarships are part of RMHC's ongoing commitment to education. For more information, please visit the Scholarships page on the RMHC website.

Ray Kroc opened the Des Plaines McDonald’s restaurant in 1955. For more historical milestones, please click here. 

Yes. The McDonald’s #1 Store Museum is located at 400 N. Lee Street, Des Plaines, Illinois. The museum is a re-creation of the first McDonald’s restaurant opened on this site, April 15, 1955, by McDonald’s Corporation founder Ray Kroc. For more information including hours of operation, please see our Museum Information page.

We have a very robust website that addresses many facets of our business. If you cannot find what you are looking for on the website, we suggest two additional books which might be helpful for your research. The first is Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc and the other is McDonald’s: Behind the Arches by John F. Love. If the website and these two books do not contain the information you are seeking, then it’s probably proprietary.