Scholarships can be awarded for many different reasons and can be provided by a range of organisations, including universities, private companies, charities, and the government. The terms for awarding a scholarship differ for each organisation. Besides, there are scholarships and bursaries, and here are the differences.
Scholarships are non-repayable sums of money typically awarded on the basis of academic excellence. They often come with strings attached – such as working for a specific company after you graduate or taking extra responsibilities within the university. Winning a scholarship is usually a competitive process.
Bursaries are also non-repayable, but they are lump sums or annual stipends available to any student who qualifies for them. This could be students on a specific course, those in the most financial need, or groups that are under-represented on a course or in an area of work.
Some scholarships and bursaries are specifically designed to pay for tuition fees, others to help with living costs. They may cover all your expenses or just make a small but useful contribution – you may even be able to secure funding from more than one source.
- Personal Circumstances: Scholarships that are based on things that are specific to your personal circumstances, such as where you live, where you go to school or other achievements.
- Musical Scholarships: if you have musical talent and would be happy to perform during your stay at the university there are scholarships offering for a wide range of choral and instrumental students.
- Sporting achievement. It does not matter what you want to study, if you have made outstanding achievements in sport, many universities will offer scholarships to attract the best talent. You will of course have to represent the university at sporting events while you study.
If you think that scholarships are only for academic success, here are some examples of different scholarships:
- Industry scholarships: Companies or professional associations offer scholarships to attract talent in to their industry or to recruit graduates and some include work experience as part of the offer. Often scholars are offered employment on graduation.
- Charitable purposes: these are more often called grants or bursaries and are offered by charities and trusts, of which there are thousands in the UK.
- Financial Need: These are the more traditional type of scholarships, which award money to individuals who are in financial need.
- Postgraduate scholarships for international students
Chevening Scholarship
The requirements that you need to cover for this scholarship are:
– you have an undergraduate degree;
– you have at least 2 years’ eligible work experience;
– you meet the Chevening English language requirements;
Chevening accepts English language tests from five providers with the following scores:
- Academic IELTS – overall score of 6.5 with a minimum 5.5 score of each component.
- Pearson PTE Academic – Overall score of 58 with a minimum of each component – 42.
- TOEFL iBT – overall score of 79 with a minimum of each component – 17
- C1 Advanced (formerly Cambridge English: Advanced [CAE]) – overall score of 176 with a minimum of each component – 162
- Trinity ISE II (B2) – overall pass and minimum pass in each skill across both modules: Listening – 2; Reading – 15; Speaking – 8; Writing – 14;
Commonwealth Scholarship schemes
The requirements that you need to cover for this scholarship are:
- You are from a Commonwealth country
If you’re from a developing Commonwealth country you can apply for funding for:
- a masters
- a PhD
- a split-site PhD
If you’re from a developed Commonwealth country you can only apply for funding for a Ph.D. or a split-site Ph.D.
Marshall Scholarship
The requirements that you need to cover for this scholarship are:
If you’re from the USA
- you graduated from a 4-year undergraduate course in the USA in the last 3 years
- you got a GPA of 3.7 or more in your degree
- you haven’t studied for a UK degree before
For more information you can visit:
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/postgraduate-study/funding-postgraduate-study/scholarships-and-bursaries
https://www.gov.uk/postgraduate-scholarships-international-students