Correction: MEXT Scholarship Slots for Super Global Universities


The University of Tokyo is Japan's best known university and a target destination for many MEXT scholarship applicants.

The University of Tokyo, a Type A Super Global University, gets 20 extra MEXT Scholarship Slots, but they are not University Recommendation slots, as I had previously assumed.


Over a year ago, I wrote that there were extra Monbukagakusho/MEXT Scholarship slots available to Super Global Universities. (a.k.a. SGU or Top Global Universities/TGU). This information was correct, but I was missing two important facts: the additional scholarships were for Domestic Selection and were an annual cap, not an annual number of awards.

MEXT Domestic Selection

Follow-up research indicates the additional scholarship slots for Super Global Universities are not available for the
University-Recommended Monbukagakusho Scholarship as I had assumed. With past grants, such as the Global 30 project, this was the case.

The additional scholarships are available for the Domestic Selection category. That means only students who are already enrolled in these universities as self-financed (fee-paying) students are eligible to apply for them.

Furthermore, the number of scholarship awards is the cap of awardees per year. That means that if a Type A university awarded all 20 scholarships in 2014 (the first year of the project) and decided to award each of them for multiple years, then there would be zero new scholarships available in 2015. Indeed, referring to several Super Global Universities websites, I see that they did not recruit for this scholarship in 2015.

When Will Scholarships be Available Again?

There will never be another year where all of the scholarships become available at once. Scholarship slots will become available as the current awardees complete their studies (or lose their scholarships).
Since both undergraduate and graduate students are eligible, scholarships could be available any time after 2016.

For example, first-year Master’s students (2-year program) who received the scholarship in 2014 would have graduated in 2016, so those student’s scholarships would be available again.
A PhD program is three years, so scholarships given to those students would come around again in 2017.
Scholarships awarded to undergraduates (4 years) would be available again in 2018.
For 5-year graduate programs, 2019.

Of course, these are just guidelines, assuming that all scholarships were awarded to first-year students and that nobody loses their scholarship partway through. Check with your university scholarship office or international office for details.

One thing is sure: Super Global University funding ends in 2023, so no scholarships awarded under this category will continue after that year. This is true even if the awardee hasn’t finished his or her degree.

Number of MEXT Scholarships for Super Global Universities

It is true that MEXT assigned additional scholarship slots to universities that were selected for the Super Global University Project. “Type A” Universities (see the table below) received 20 extra scholarship slots and “Type B” Universities received 10 extra scholarship slots.

Type A Universities Type B Universities
20 Slots/Year 10 Slots/Year
Hiroshima University Akita International University
Hokkaido University Chiba University
Keio University Hosei University
Kyoto University International Christian University
Kyushu University International University of Japan
Nagoya University Kanazawa University
Osaka University Kumamoto University
Tohoku University Kwansei Gakuin University
Tokyo Institute of Technology Kyoto Institute of Technology
Tokyo Medical and Dental University Meiji University
University of Tokyo, The Nagaoka University of Technology
University of Tsukuba Nara Institute of Science and Technology
Waseda University Okayama University
  Rikkyo University
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
Ritsumeikan University
Shibaura Institute of Technology
Soka University
Sophia University
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Tokyo University of the Arts
Toyo University
Toyohashi University of Technology
University of Aizu, The

Apology for the Error

I am very sorry to have spread incorrect information about the MEXT scholarship.

My goal is to provide the best information and advice about the scholarship to help you succeed in your applications. Unfortunately, this time my eagerness got in my way. I had only partial information about the additional slots and filled in the gaps with assumptions.

It wasn’t until Evan William Chandra asked a follow-up question about those slots that I went back to research in more detail and learned of my error. My sincere thanks to Evan!

Moving Forward

I will continue to seek out the best and most current information and advice about the MEXT scholarship. However, in the future, I will make it clear when something is my assessment versus established fact.

Now that the available slots known to me are even fewer than before, I am even more committed to helping you earn one. The competition is high, but that doesn’t mean either of us should give up. If anything, we need to try harder!

Good luck!

Questions?

Before asking any questions in the comments below, please read through the MEXT Scholarship Application FAQ top page and specific FAQ pages to see what I’ve answered already and to find tips about how to get your questions answered faster.

You can ask your questions in the comments here, on the FAQ page, or by email and I will answer them by updating the FAQ and letting you know when the answers are available.

I’d also recommend signing up for my mailing list to get notified whenever I have updates to any of the FAQs or new articles about the MEXT scholarship!

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35 Comments

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