Need a scholarship?

The first concern that students usually have is finance. Scholarships are the first thing many students start with when they talk to me. However, this perception is very flawed: instead of thinking of ways to cover your expenses, you should instead be focusing on affordability. “How much can my parents pay?”

Let’s get to the deeper end now. Students have a lot of grey zones in their mind about scholarships and the best way to address this is not by having a one paragraph answer but to really understand the different ways leading to a scholarship and how trends change over the years. Understand the possibilities and you will be playing in another field. For now, a short list of the types of scholarships: foreign governments, universities and third-party companies/institutes/NGOs. How do you find these? The Internet and your network!

What is your real priority?

You will need to shape your whole university search according to your priorities. So, you need to know how important scholarships are for you. But as previously mentioned, affording is more important: there are options where the universities are super cheap compared to others or even going to colleges which are even cheaper than universities sometimes. If the cheaper options are still too expensive, you need to look at your finances and whether scholarships can make it easier for you to finance your studies or not. You also need to find out the maximum you are willing to pay for your university, meaning that if you don’t have enough funding to go to a university , then you are not going to apply to that specific university.

That being said, if you are a strong student, there is ALWAYS options for funding your studies even fully (including living expenses). What does strong mean?

If your strength lie in academic grades, then that’s the type of scholarship you want to look for. If your strength is extra-curricular activities, that’s the kind of scholarship you’ll be looking for and if you only need the money but do not have any specific strength, there’s going to be another type of scholarship that you will be looking for. So, it is really important to know what you are good at and what you can sell so that you get the desired scholarship.

Types of scholarships available

1.     Merit scholarship

It is about how good your grades are and if you have been doing core curriculum activities (competitions, tests).

2.     Sports scholarship

It is for students who excel at sports and not all countries and not all universities give them.

3.     Financial need

It is about whether you really need the money and not about whether you have good grades or are good at sports. You need to show why you need the money by submitting bank accounts, tax information…etc

Types of scholarships in terms of awarding bodies

• Government

• University

• A department of university

• Third-party

The application process

You will automatically be considered for some scholarships during your application and you do not need a separate application for this scholarship. For others, you will need to apply separately and this may require you to write an essay, sending certificates and references.

Let me know if this is useful by commenting below!

A special mention to Kaviya who assisted in making this article possible.