FIVE THINGS TO PREPARE TO STUDY ABROAD WITH FULLY FUNDED SCHOLARSHIP

When you hear the words “fully funded scholarship” and “study abroad”, what are the things that come to your mind? A chance to travel the world? An opportunity to advance your career? Once in a lifetime moment to take beautiful pictures at historical and famous spots in your destination country? A sponsored education at your dream university? Well, we all have those thoughts in our mind, don’t we?

Everyone has their own reasons why they want to study abroad. Yet, with so many scholarships available provided by various institutions today, more people than ever have been pumping up their spirit and preparations to be awarded with the scholarships that could take them to achieve their dreams. What about you? Are you ready to be the next scholarship recipient? If you say yes, then this is the article that you really need to read to kickstart your journey to become a fully funded scholarship recipient.

Disclaimer: The five scholarship tips spells contained in this article are very powerful. Don’t skip any of it for high probability in securing your fully funded scholarship.

A student studying abroad

1. Plan Your Study

Everything starts with a plan and so does your study abroad and scholarship hunting journey. Many people underestimate the importance of planning their study prior to applying for a scholarship. As a result, most applicants fail to submit the necessary documents and even if they managed to proceed to the interview stage, they couldn’t provide the best answers for the interview questions like Why do they want to study in the UK? Why is it important for them to pursue a higher degree? And many other questions that will challenge your understanding pertaining to why you choose a certain country, university and course of study.

Given the above situation, here are some of the approaches that you may use in preparing your study plan:

A. Decide what kind of degree and program you want to pursue

Are you planning on pursuing a master’s degree or a PhD? Have you completed your undergraduate study and received your diploma? Once you have the answer on what kind of degree that you want to pursue, you can then try to search and hunt for a fully funded scholarship that offers sponsorship for you. Furthermore, if you’re aiming to pursue a master’s degree, you have to decide what kind of master’s degree that you desire.

Do you prefer it to be a research-based or a coursework-based master’s degree? If you’re still new with both terms, this article will help you to understand the difference between the two master’s programs.

B. Identify Your Target Countries and Universities

After you’re done with your study plan, now it’s time for you to start preparing for your study abroad journey. Firstly, you need to identify which countries that you are aiming to study in and why you would choose those countries. Is it because those countries offer similar norms and culture? Because those countries have the same climate and seasons? Because those are developed countries and you’re sure that you can learn a lot from those countries? Those are some of the questions that you need to think about so you could carefully decide which countries that you are aiming to go to.

Secondly, now it’s time for you to decide which universities that you want to study in. When selecting universities, here are some of the things that you need to consider:

  1. Do the universities offer the course that you want?
  2. Do the curriculum/syllabus offer the subjects that you want to study?
  3. If you’re aiming to join the workforce after completing your study, do the universities’ graduates have good employment rate?
  4. If you’re into research and publication, do the universities have good publication rate?
  5. Are there any specific figures, professors and academicians that you want to learn from?

Upon carefully considering all the things mentioned above, you now know the what, why and where you want to study. Once all set, now you are ready to hunt for the fully funded scholarship that could help you to realize your study abroad dream.

2. Scholarships Hunting

A woman holding her diploma

Out there, there are so many full funded scholarships that can sponsor you to study abroad for the degree that you wish and at the university that you dream of. Although generally you will be funded by only one scholarship, you still need to identify and apply for multiple fully funded scholarships to increase your chance of succeeding in securing a scholarship.

Here are some of the fully funded scholarships that you might want to consider:

  1. Fulbright Scholarship
    Destination Country(ies): USA
    Degree(s) Funded: Master’s and PhD
  2. Australia Awards Scholarships
    Destination Country(ies): Australia
    Degree(s) Funded: Master’s and PhD
  3. Chevening Scholarship
    Destination Country(ies): United Kingdom
    Degree(s) Funded: Master’s degree
  4. LPDP (Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education)
    Destination Country(ies): Various countries based on LPDP’s guidebook
    Degree(s) Funded: Master’s and PhD
  5. Malaysian Technical Government Programme (MTGP)
    Destination Country(ies): Malaysia
    Degree(s) Funded: Master’s and PhD
  6. Singapore International Graduate Award (SINGA)
    Destination Country(ies): Singapore
    Degree(s) Funded: PhD

Now that you’ve been informed about some of the fully funded scholarships that you can apply for. What you might want to do then is to study the scholarships that you’ve identified thoroughly which includes its requirements, application processes, deadlines and other important matters that should not be neglected. Once all set, it means that you are now one step closer to realize your dream of studying abroad with a fully funded scholarship!

3. Language Requirement

The word "Welcome" translated in various languageas

New country means new people and new language, right? That means you need to have a sufficient proficiency on the language that you will be using when you study abroad later.

With that said, you need to find out the language requirement which both the universities and scholarships that you will be applying require. Do they require certain score or band of TOEFL? IELTS? TOPIK? Or even TOAFL? If yes, what is their score requirement and ask yourself whether you can match that language requirement score or not. Nonetheless, here are some of the ways that you can do to succeed in fulfilling the language requirements:

1) Reflect on Your Current Language Proficiency

You need to start measuring your own language proficiency. For instance, do you think your current English proficiency is good enough? Have you ever taken an IELTS test before? If you have, how is the score? Those are some of the questions that you can use to measure your current language proficiency.

2) Start Improving Your Language

There are many ways that you can choose to improve your language proficiency. You may learn from E-books, YouTube videos and free courses that you can find on the internet. Other than that, you can also learn from your peers whose language proficiency is already good enough. Furthermore, you can also enroll yourself in a language course provided by various institutions that you can find around you.

4. Applying to Universities

A university abroad

Now it’s time for you to send your applications to your dream universities. Although you will only study at one university, applying to multiple universities will surely increase your chance of securing the admission offers.

However, you might be wondering “That means I have to spend a lot of money for my universities’ application fees?” Worry not! There are universities that don’t even charge any application fee. Some of those universities are RMIT in Australia, Yale University in the US, Leeds University in the UK and there are still so many universities out there you can apply for free.

Next, you need to properly check all the documents required by the universities. Usually, an application will require the following documents:

  1. Latest education transcript and diploma,
  2. Motivation Letter,
  3. Recommendation Letters,
  4. Passport, and
  5. Language Proficiency Certificate (Examples: IELTS, TOEFL, TOPIK and TOAFL)

If your education transcript and diploma are not written in English, you need to translate those into English by using a sworn translator service. But always keep in mind to find the legitimate and official sworn translator to avoid scams and other occurrences that you don’t want to happen.

5. Scholarship Application

Similar to the previous tips, applying for more than one fully funded scholarships will increase your chance of securing one. Usually, a scholarship application will not charge you any fee to apply for and that is one less thing to worry about. In order to succeed in your scholarship applications, here are some of the things that you need to keep in mind:

A.    Beware of the Deadlines

Each scholarship has its own registration period, including its opening and closing dates. Therefore, you need to properly research on the deadlines of the fully funded scholarships that you wish to apply so that you could have enough time to prepare all the documents and other requested information. It’s best if you could create your own scholarships calendar so that you won’t miss any important dates of the scholarships.

B. Study The Scholarships Requirements

Prior to applying for the fully funded scholarships that you wish, you need to watch out for its requirements. In general, here are some of the requirements demanded by most scholarships:

  1. Work experiences,
  2. Language proficiency certificates (IELTS, TOEFL, TOPIK, TOAFL),
  3. Age requirements,
  4. Minimum CGPA requirement, and
  5. Programme of studies/courses offered.

C. Practice Your Interview Skills

Shall you manage to get into the interview stage which commonly is the last stage of a scholarship selection process, then you really need to polish your interview skill. Here, it doesn’t only mean that you need to be able to dress well, show good body language, practice your voice tone and intonation, and other important matters that you need to present to the interviewers. Most importantly, you need to convince the interviewers with your answers which will make you stand out compared to the other scholarship candidates. With that said, you need to think of and come up with the best answers for the following questions that are usually asked during a scholarship interview stage:

  • Why should be selected other than the other candidates?
  • How does the scholarship will impact your career?
  • What is your plan after completing your study?
  • Why did you choose your target universities and country?
  • How are you going to contribute to your country and community?

D. Consult Previous Scholarship Recipients

Reaching out to those people who previously received the scholarships that you wish to apply for is the most effective way to gain information regarding the scholarships’ selection processes. After all, no one knows better about it than those people who experienced it before, right? Try to look up for those people on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and you could even try to ask some of your friends who might know those people.

CONCLUSION

So there you have it! All the tips that you need to know, remember and use if you’re planning to hunt for fully funded scholarships to study abroad. Always bear in mind that proper preparation and perseverance are always needed in your journey in attempting to secure a fully funded scholarship. But when you successfully receive the fully funded scholarship that you’ve been dreaming of, believe me, all your efforts will be paid with a whole new adventure that you might only experience once in a lifetime.

Good luck and all the best scholarship hunters!

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