Scholarships for Indian Students: How to Apply and Get a Scholarship?

Academically gifted individuals can be found in plenty in India. Thousands of students leave the country each year to attend respected colleges for further education. Approximately twenty to fifty Indian students are awarded scholarships to study abroad, out of thousands who are offered travel opportunities. The major reason behind this is that many students don’t know where to look for scholarships for Indian students studying abroad.

Insufficient online or offline resources regarding the entire scholarship application procedure can make it difficult to identify a suitable scholarship. To find fully funded scholarships to study at Sheffield University in the UK, Damini and Arjun had to thoroughly research each university’s website and compile a list of available scholarships based on specific criteria. Eventually, their efforts paid off, as they were awarded full scholarships. They received a lot of questions from friends and relatives after receiving their scholarships. This led to the creation of the Scholarships Facebook page, which the two of them started with the intention of supplying students worldwide with information on scholarships while they were still in college.

This article serves as a tutorial on how to find, submit, and be accepted for a study abroad scholarship. First, let’s talk about the many categories that Indian students are awarded scholarships under. Following that, we go over the various crucial facets of the scholarship application procedure for international study.

Scholarships For Indian Students: Categories

There are three main categories into which a study abroad scholarship might be classified:

• Scholarships determined by need
• Merit-based financial aid
• Specific scholarships for students in India

Need-Based Scholarships: Students with extremely low family incomes and those without any other means of funding their higher education are the primary target audience for this type of study abroad grant. The primary factor taken into account by the scholarship sponsors when evaluating applicants is their academic standing. For need-based scholarships, applicants must be students whose family income falls below a predetermined threshold.

Merit-Based Scholarships: Scholarships are awarded to students based not just on their academic performance but also on their merit. The recipients of these scholarships to study abroad are chosen after taking into account additional factors like the projects they completed during their course of study, their participation in raising social awareness about the various significant factors affecting today’s society, the caliber of professional internships they attended, etc.

The cut-off percentage or marks set by providers for any given category of scholarships is another element that many students worry about. Please be aware that the amount of applications that providers receive determines the benchmark scores. Let’s take an example where 100 students apply for a certain scholarship. The average proportion of marks taken into consideration by scholarship providers equals 95% if nearly fifty of these one hundred students have scores that exceed 95%. Let’s look at another scenario where the highest proportion of applicants for any given scholarship has academically achieved a 75% score. In this instance, a 75% average cut-off point will be applied.

Scholarships For Indian Students: Students who want to focus only on pursuing key topics of study are intended to benefit from special scholarships. For example, several international colleges provide sports scholarships to students who have demonstrated their abilities in specific sports, like basketball, football, etc. Parallel to this, certain esteemed societies offer Ph.D. grants to individuals who have demonstrated excellence in particular fields, such as writing or medicine.

Sources of Scholarships For Indian Students

Searching for study-abroad scholarships is one of the main worries of students who hope to enroll in esteemed universities overseas. Many students don’t know which big names in scholarships are available to Indian pupils. Most scholarships for Indian students are available from the following sources.

1. The government: Numerous nations offer scholarships to foreign students through their governments. To further their studies in India, for instance, deserving students can apply for numerous scholarships offered by the Indian government. In a similar vein, Indian students can study abroad using scholarships offered by the governments of nations like the US, UK, Canada, etc. One such program is the British Council’s and the UK government’s Jubilee Scholarship.
2. Universities: Major overseas colleges offer a significant portion of scholarships to Indian students wishing to pursue studies abroad. Thus, another source of scholarships for Indian students is any international university.
3. Corporate Companies: Well-known businesses like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and others provide applicants from a wide range of areas with a variety of scholarships to study overseas.
4. Trusts and Foundations: Many businesspeople have banded together to create foundations and trusts that provide scholarships to students attending esteemed foreign colleges. The candidates for these scholarships are chosen by the numerous charitable endeavors based on any of the criteria listed in the preceding sentences. Among them are the scholarships offered by the Tata Trust and the Inlaks-Shivdasani Foundation to students who have been admitted to Cornell University.

Where to Look For A Study Abroad Scholarship?

Finding a reliable site that offers a comprehensive list of scholarships is one of the largest issues facing students who qualify for them. Ten years ago, you would have had a difficult time looking for and applying to scholarships offered by many sources if you were an outstanding college graduate looking for funding for your further studies overseas.

This was because there were not many websites at the time that focused only on giving Indian students information about scholarships. As was previously indicated, in 2012, when they were searching for places to submit scholarship applications, the creators of WeMakeScholars encountered a similar circumstance. They created a website that is solely focused on assisting other deserving students in their search for and application for various scholarships at esteemed international colleges as a result of this inspiration.

Visit the WeMakeScholars website page to see how the scholarship application process functions in its entirety. The website features about 26,000 scholarships from international sources. This page’s general navigation is really simple. Depending on their area of expertise and preferred country, students can select from over 2000 scholarships across a variety of areas. This webpage serves as an illustration of how to use the WeMakeScholars website.

Once you search for WeMakeScholars on your preferred search engine, you should see drop-down boxes on the main page where you may enter your desired country of study, the desired degree of study, and the various areas that interest you. When all of these fields have been filled out, the website will navigate to the page with a list of all available study abroad scholarships. Before seeing the full details of study abroad scholarships on the WeMakeScholars page, students might need to register with the website.

How To Apply For Scholarships For Indian Students on the WeMakeScholars Website?

1. To select a preferred scholarship, click on it. Following this action, a new page with the scholarship details will be displayed to you.
2. When you’re ready to apply, click the “Apply” tab located at the bottom-right of the scholarship description after reading all the information.
3. Alternatively, you can shortlist a specific study abroad scholarship by clicking on the ‘Shortlist’ button if you are not sure whether to apply for it but still need to keep the scholarship details for later.

When to Apply For A Scholarship to Study Abroad?

Many students mistakenly believe that they must apply for scholarships only after getting acceptance letters from the overseas universities they have chosen. But that’s not the case at all. Usually, at least a year before the start of the course intake, scholarship providers open their unique admission portals to applicants. For instance, you would need to find, apply for, and get accepted into a scholarship program by November 2023, i.e., at least 8 to 9 months in advance of your admission period, or even earlier, if you aim to apply to institutions overseas in August 2024.

The aforementioned criteria are particularly relevant to scholarships offered by foreign governments, charitable trusts, and organizations, among others. At least eight to nine months before the entrance season, their scholarship application platforms close. These kinds of organizations don’t ask students to provide documentation of their admission to foreign colleges.

Five months or more before the start of the intake period is when the application sites of universities that provide scholarships for Indian students to study overseas shut. Any college loan provider will only allow you to apply for scholarships to study abroad for this amount of time. Because offer letters from colleges are not required as proof, if you are still waiting for your letter of acceptance to apply for scholarships to study abroad, please don’t wait any longer and apply as soon as possible.

What Happens When Your Scholarship Application is Rejected?

Without question, scholarships rank among the finest options for paying for an overseas higher education. But have you ever wondered what occurs to students whose applications for scholarships are turned down? How do they get funding? When it comes to setting up the finances for your further education overseas, it is always best to be safe. Having a financial backup plan is beneficial when it comes to the process of pursuing higher education. If their scholarship application is denied, students who depend only on it frequently have little choice but to abandon their plans for the year.

As soon as we launched the website, several students who had applied for scholarships to study abroad but had been turned down by the relevant provider contacted us with questions about the education loan procedure. WeMakeScholars began helping students with their education loan application procedure so they may study abroad at this point.