I get a lot of questions from friends and students when they encounter different scholarship procedures and do not know or understand how to go about the process?. This misunderstanding often leads to frustration and consequently abandonment of the application process by most prospects. The most common cause of this is because students especially those who are new to the scholarship process are not able to recognize the different scholarship types and approach these accordingly.
So if you stay with me here to the end of this article, İ will share some insights that will be a game-changer for every student out there who is about beginning his quest for a scholarship.
Different countries, universities, scholarship organizations and foundations have varying procedures which one must follow in order to successfully complete an application. It is paramount you develop the skill to identify what is required of every scholarship you come across. This gives you a broad perspective as to what you need to do without even beginning the process and saves you a lot of trouble. From my experience in scholarship applications, I am able to categorize scholarships into 2 main classes.
1. Direct Link.
The simplest and most straight forward scholarship applications out there you are going to come across are those in which the application for the scholarship is directly linked with admission into the university of your choice. In these types of scholarships, all you need to do is sign up to create an account and fill out the required information. If you are awarded the scholarship, you have automatically been admitted into the university. Typical examples of these type of scholarship include the Turkish government scholarship among others.
2. Indirect Link.
This type of scholarship application procedure is exactly where students get a little confused on how to go about it because it is a 2 step process.
Step 1: You are required to apply for admission to the university/department of your choice.
Step 2: Use the admission letter to apply for scholarship funding.
Simple as that, isn’t it? A good example of such type is the MasterCard Foundation scholarship. They award scholarships only to those students who have gained admission into partner-universities. Now, you are going to come across such types of scholarships quite a lot. So, it is required that you are proactive and send admissions applications early enough to the respective universities and departments of your choice. Immediately, you receive your admission letters, then all got to do now is go to the scholarship site and upload this together with any other required documents and you are done.
Bonus Strategy.
This strategy I’m about to propose is what I learned from my friend who got accepted for 4 different scholarships in 2018. He realized that universities, governments and some individuals or foundations give scholarships to students with admission into one of their universities. He then made up his mind to browse the internet for hours. He applied to universities around the world from Africa to Asia from Australia to the North and South of America. All he needed was an admission from any of these prestigious universities and boooom!!. From admission straight to scholarship. So go out there, search the best universities in the different continents of the world and apply for admissions. After that, do a google search of scholarships by the university, by foundations, by individuals and most importantly by the government of that country for international students. You will be surprised by the number of scholarships offered by these institutions. Your chances of nailing one scholarship in the head will be quadrupled.
I strongly recommended that for those of you with the hunger, the passion, the drive to change your future to go out to the ocean of scholarships with everything you got and I believe you are going to catch at least one fish before the sun sets in the evening.
Thanks for reading to the end. Please, any comments/suggestions are welcome.
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