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Study abroad with or with out a scholarship
Thinking about studying overseas? Financing an international masters or research programme requires a significant amount of investment, no matter which country you decide to study in. Gaining funding for your studies, however, requires an even greater investment of your time to locate all of the sources of information for possible funding support. Former Head of Recruitment and Admissions at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and now a leading International Education Consultant to the QS World Grad School Tour, Tim Rogers outlines some of the key areas for funding students must consider when planning a period of study abroad.
If I have learnt any thing from a decade of advising students internationally it is that planning the process of funding your studies is crucial. It is not just a matter of saving money, – begging, borrowing or stealing as much of the tuition and living fees as possible – but making sure you are completely aware of deadlines. There is no point in just deciding to study overseas in the vain hope that someone will pick up the tab. Financing your studies is a complicated business and requires at least 12 months of preparation if you intend to compete and meet all of the requisite deadlines for one of the limited number of scholarships available for international students. On the bright side of things, however, is the fact that most governments and universities invest far more of their budgets in supporting postgraduate rather than undergraduate study.
‘There is no point in just deciding to study overseas in the vain hope that someone will pick up the tab.’
So where should you start to look? Indian national Siddharth Raja, now a successful lawyer with O’Melveny and Myers in Hong Kong, spent two years looking for a suitable scholarship scheme to support his intended study for a postgraduate LLM programme overseas. “Initially I contacted the advisory services of the countries I was most interested in studying in. Ultimately, because of the structure of the legal system in India I knew I wanted to study in the UK. That narrowed the search for scholarships down to the UK’s only national scheme – the British Council Chevening Scheme.” Offering over 2,000 awards every year for study in UK universities and colleges, mostly for masters programmes, Chevening is a highly competitive scheme that attracts more than 15,000 applications every year. Providing for tuition and living costs in most cases, scholarships are available to students from 166 countries whose applications are considered by means of a selection board and interview.
Some of these awards are co-sponsored by particular universities, as was the case with Mr Raja, “The University of Warwick offered two shared scholarships for the study of law in conjunction with the Chevening Scheme and I was fortunate to win the one supporting a student in the field of International Economic Law.” Leading international companies such as HSBC, BP, Cable & Wireless and Rio Tinto also lend their financial support to other joint Chevening awards.
Of course, the information age in which we currently live abounds with advisory services for international students wishing to secure financial aid or scholarships. National agencies such at Australia’s IDP (www.idp.com), the UK’s British Council ( www.britishcouncil.org) and the US’s Institute of International Education (www.iie.org) offer an abundance of information on their specific scholarship programmes. Similarly, French, German, Canadian and Dutch agencies boast informative websites highlighting an exciting range of scholarships and financial aid opportunities for postgraduate taught and research students in their particular countries.
Similarly, independent but often commercial organisations such as www.abroadplanet.com, www.scholarships.com and www.iefa.org offer extensive search facilities for scholarship opportunities in the USA and sometimes farther afield.While many of these sites draw together enormous amounts of information, nothing beats trawling through the prospectuses and catalogues of individual universities to see exactly what financial aid schemes they can offer you and when their deadlines are.
