MEXT research scholarship advice, part 3: If you pass the embassy selection

Intro
Part 1
Part 2

In this post:

-Getting letters of acceptance (LoA)

-The Long Wait

-What are the chances of getting the scholarship?

-My sources

-A final note


Getting letters of acceptance (LoA)

Once you’ve passed the “primary screening” at the embassy, you have to contact your chosen 3 universities for a LoA. You do not have to receive one from all 3 to advance to the next stage. However, there is a small chance you will not be able to go to your first choice even if you get a LoA from them, so it’s best to get 2 or 3 if you can.

To get the LoA you generally send the embassy application and certificate saying you passed the primary screening to the appropriate international admissions office or the graduate office, not to your supervisor. (Occasionally the supervisor does in fact handle the application; this happened to me at Kyoto.) So first search on your university website to see if they have specific instructions for getting the LoA from them. If not, try finding their international office and send them an email. If you can't find that, contact the admissions office of the graduate department you want to study at.

Send them a polite email saying you have passed the primary screening and wish to request a letter of acceptance. Most universities will accept a pdf copy of your documents. But it's best to ask them in your first email if this is okay before sending them a massive file. Some universities may insist that you send them copies in the post. Your documents MUST reach the university in some form before the end of August.

The university may send the LoA to you both by email and normal post. In this case, if the letter doesn’t reach you by the embassy deadline - usually around the end of September - you can sometimes submit a copy of the emailed version.

You don’t have that much time to get the LoA. Interview results usually come out July to early August, and you have to contact universities before the end of August. Professors may be on holiday at end of August/beginning of September. Be prepared, don't wait until the last minute to decide on your university and supervisor preferences. You don’t want to lose the scholarship after all this effort because you ran out of time.

Many people ask, what are the chances of me receiving a LoA from such-and-such a university? The ONLY things the vast majority of universities are selecting on are a) is there a professor who is willing to supervise you? and b) is your application complete and received before the deadline? If you want to study in Japanese they will also check c) is your Japanese level sufficient?

I saw a lot of people posting on forums a week before the deadline because they couldn't find the email address for a particular university to send their application to, or their first-choice prof wouldn't reply. Get this out of the way in advance and you won't be in a panic.

An extra point – embassies often don’t mind if you contact universities that were not the original 3 on your preference form you submitted with the application e.g. if a supervisor suddenly decides they can’t take you on. However, confirm this with your embassy first.

The Long Wait

Once you’ve submitted your LoA, MEXT make the final decision about where to place you. This is usually called the “secondary screening.” Probably you will get your first choice if you received a LoA from them unless a) the university/supervisor suddenly changes their mind or b) your first choice is a private university (Keio, Waseda…) and MEXT don’t have enough private university spaces - the fees are much higher, so it takes money away from other students if they give out too many of these spaces.

Failure to get the scholarship at this stage is highly unlikely. In about February you’ll get a final confirmation of your place, and details of your flight to Japan from the nearest international airport to the address you gave them. Sometimes you will hear earlier than this in Dec/Jan from your embassy or university, but not always, so don't panic. Probably no news is good news.

You may also get an email about accommodation from the university in about January. In some cases you are automatically allocated a room, others you have to apply. In my case I did not get either of the accommodation options I applied for, so be prepared to search by yourself if necessary. Also note that most popular universities will only let you stay in their accommodation for a maximum of one year.

Once you get the final confirmation you can start the visa process. My embassy claims it takes about 5 working days to issue a visa, but I would allow more time just in case.

Note that although MEXT says they will pay for your ticket to Japan, you have to pay the part that is made up of airport taxes and any other random taxes yourself. In my case this was over £100. I really think they should make this clearer because I was assuming they would pay for the whole price of a normal ticket.

I said before that you will normally need to take the university entrance exam once you’re in Japan in order to transfer to a masters or doctoral course. But from what I’ve read it seems that most of the “entrance exams” given to MEXT doctoral students are more of a formality than anything else – if a professor has already accepted you to work with them, you’re unlikely to be failed unless you do something to really get on their bad side in the meantime. The master's entrance exams are another story, and may be very challenging. But this is strongly dependent on the department and university. If in doubt, ask your supervisor. In any case, you have a couple of years to pass the exam.

I have also written a post about my experience of the arrival procedures.



What are the chances of getting the scholarship?

The one thing everyone wants to know. Unfortunately stats are scarce.

For university recommendation, even the top universities generally only have 1 scholarship available per graduate school. That's not per department, as in physics department, biology department etc. That would be for the whole graduate school of science, both master's and doctoral candidates. So you can imagine if you're applying to one of the more prestigious schools, you will need good grades and a very good research proposal to stand a chance there.

For embassy recommendation it depends on the country. If you are from an Asian country with hundreds of applicants for the scholarship, obviously you will have to be more exceptional to stand out than if you come from a Latin American country with about as many applicants as places. From all that I’ve read, I think that if you are not from said Asian countries, the embassy selection process has a higher chance of success purely because there are more spaces available. For uni recommendation there is normally only 1 space available per graduate school, and you are competing with a lot of well-qualified Asian candidates.

You can try asking directly – my embassy told me they sent 9 people last time, but could only say they received “quite a few applications” each year. Again, not very helpful. For comparison, in Malaysia, which has about half the population of the UK but presumably many more applicants, 24 people will receive the scholarship this year. (Other numbers I have seen quoted for various years: Cambodia 12, Hong Kong 3, Jordan 5, Malaysia 21, Portugal 3, Phillipines 25).

Of course, even if you have the great fortune of being from a country that has more spots than applicants, they aren’t going to send someone completely unprepared or with poor language skills because that would reflect very badly on them.

Sometimes humanities students, especially artists, worry that the scholarships will only be given for STEM subjects and their research will not be taken seriously. However when I met some other recipients from my country before departure there were actually more humanities students and among them a couple of artists. Of course attitudes may be different at different embassies, but what these students had in common was that their research had a clear link with Japan e.g. they were going to study Japanese history or Japanese art.

I guess if you’ve read all this you’re going to apply even if there’s only a small chance. So you just have to work hard on your application and make sure you represent yourself as well as possible in the interview, exams and research proposal to have the best chance of getting a place. 頑張ってね！

And that’s it. Simple, right? Haha. For my masters scholarship I filled in some forms, got my recommendations, dashed off a “motivation” and that was all. Oh, those were the days.

My sources

The most helpful links I have not given elsewhere in the text:

http://www.jref.com/forum/forums/studying-in-japan.181/
(You have to wade through a lot, but there are some useful nuggets to be found)

http://unknowngenius.com/blog/archives/2013/03/18/going-to-graduate-school-in-japan-on-a-monbusho-scholarship/
(A frank look at the application process and what actually happens when you arrive. His Frenchness truly shines out.)

http://larsmartinson.com/how-i-got-the-monbusho-research-scholarship-part-1-of-4/
(He focusses mostly on his personal experience but there are some useful tips.)

https://fluxdesigns.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/how-to-get-monbukagakusho-scholarship/
(One more guy’s experience, at the Portuguese embassy)

http://www.transenzjapan.com/blog/embassy-mext-scholarships-passed-primary-screening/
(He describes how to get the LoA; however what he says may not be valid for every university and he also assumes you will wait until you've passed the interview to find a supervisor... if I haven't said this enough times yet, that's a terrible idea.)