The MEXT (Monbukagakusho) Scholarship is the best way to gain a foothold in Japan and start your life here. Here is my collection of the best advice for that scholarship.
MEXT Scholarship/Monbukagakusho Scholarship Application Guides and Coaching
Hey travis, thanks a bunch. I’m actually applying for a MEXT scholarship intended for second year Japanese-studies undergraduate students. The scholarship is for one year of Japanese language studies, and the applicant must return back to his home country to finish his studies.
The application form for that kind of scholarship has three rubrics that the research-scholarship form does not have, and I haven’t found info about those on your website.
They are abit confusing, considering the applicant is a second year, and intending for his time of scholarship to study only language studies in japan
I’ve attached the form photos in an email i’ve sent. If you have any info about those – I’d love to hear back from you 🙂
The rubrics are:
*Study plan
*Future plans in academics and career
* 現在学習している内容
In your university: Subjects you currently
study or research
（具体的に記入する
こと。 ）
(Describe specifically.)
My area of expertise is in the scholarship for graduate students, so I have never focused on the Japanese Studies Students before.
I looked at the application form on the MEXT website, though. I could only find two essay questions in that form:
15. Study plan in Japan (Please write your specific study plan in the field of Japanese Studies which relates to your current study or research in your university)
16. Future plan in academics and career after graduation from your university
Are those the same questions as the form you’re looking at?
For the first one, you should describe the coursework you plan to take, any research you might conduct, and how that will fit into your overall plan for your ongoing degree and enhance it.
For the second, describe your long-term plans. As I have mentioned in the articles about the graduate scholarship, your long-term plans should focus on how you want to serve society in the future and why this scholarship/studying in Japan is essential to achieving those goals.
Hello Travis, I’ve been reading your guides to the MEXT scholarship and it motivated me to apply. I’m a civil engineering student in Lebanon, I am in third year of bachelor and I’m searching to apply to various universities to complete my engineering degree. My question is: If I apply to the bachelor degree at a university, am I going to start my studies all over again? Is there a possibility to continue my studies by skipping the subjects I already got? Should I contact the universities I’m applying to?
Hoping to receive an answer from you.
Thank you.
If you apply for the MEXT undergraduate scholarship, you would be starting from scratch. Most universities will not transfer credits unless you specifically apply for their transfer admissions exam, but transfer admissions are not covered under the MEXT Scholarship.
Since you’re in your third year already and the scholarship application takes over a year, why not apply for the scholarship for research students? If you apply in the 2023 cycle (starting around April/May for the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship), you would start your studies in Japan in fall 2024. Would your undergrad be done by then? If you are considering applying for the 2023 Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, now is the perfect time to get started preparing your Field of Study and Research Program Plan!
I have passed the first screening for the MEXT Scholarship. and I am waiting now for the English exam.
My question is, should I now start contacting universities to get letter of provisional acceptance or I should wait until I make the exam and pass the interview stage? .
Congratulation on passing the document screening!
Since the screening is currently underway, I recommend that you wait until after you pass the Primary Screening (which includes the document screening, exams, and interview phase) before you contact universities. You cannot officially request a Letter of Provisional Acceptance until you have completed the full Primary Screening and received the Passing Certificate of the Primary Screening.
For now, you should focus on preparing for the exams and interview.
Hi, I got through the first screening and I have a couple of questions:
First, I would like to thank you for all the posts and guides you have written, they were definitely valuable during my application.
I sent my documents by email the first time and (obviously) I sent only one pdf copy of each document. now I am asked to send a hard copy of the document by post to the embassy to be stamped and to get a “Passing Certificate of the Primary Selection”. my question is should I send only the one original copy I sent by email or should I provide photocopies of each document as if I was applying directly.
.
my second question: I did a graduation project in my college but did not write any theses because in my previous college we only output A0 drawings and it is not research related … but when I was contacted by the embassy and asked to send the documents I was told ( I think as a kind of advice) to write very brief abstract of my graduation project and to send it as well with the other documents … but I don’t know if I really should do this as I will have to also edit the application form and the checklist (special document required by the embassy in my country) as well, so please give me your advice/opinion about this.
and again thanks a lot for all your help.
Osama
Thank you for your kind words.
Have you asked the embassy how many copies they want? That would be my first recommendation, since this seems like a unique, local practice.
If they do not say anything or do not respond in time, then I recommend sending the originals and two copies as it says in the application guidelines. The worst-case scenario would be that they don’t need the extras and dispose of them or send them back to you. (Whereas, if you don’t send them, then they would have to ask you to send them again later, taking more time).
For your second question, I think that it would be beneficial to write a half-page abstract/summary of your culminating project for your previous degree. It wouldn’t have to be in the application form, it would be a separate document.
Last year, I successfully applied for the MEXT scholarship university recommended and will start the courses in October 2022.
A few months ago, I just found out that the covid-19 pandemic has changed my university’s academic calendar slightly, causing me cannot be graduated by the required deadline stated in the MEXT document, which is 30th September 2022.
Over the months, I have been discussing this issue with my university, trying to request my university to issue the graduation letter in advance in order to meet the deadline. During this period, I applied for the embassy recommendation this year as a backup plan because I was not sure if I need to decline the university-recommended MEXT scholarship.
And, recently, I finally got the final result that my university came to the conclusion that they could not issue the letter in advance, so I have to decline the scholarship as well as the university admission offer because the university cannot admit my enrollment in October 2022, and due to losing my eligibility for October 2022 admission, I also have to withdraw the scholarship.
In this case, may I know if I am still eligible for the MEXT scholarship embassy recommended? Because the japan university actually recommended me to the MEXT already, but I decline the scholarship.
Now the embassy-recommended track is still in the progress and hasn’t reached the MEXT yet. So, even if I pass the examination, interview and successfully get the letter of acceptance for this scholarship (embassy recommendation), would MEXT reject my application because they have seen my application twice (uni recommended track and embassy recommended track)?
That is all my question. It is a long story, thank you for spending time reading it.
Thank you very much. Have a nice day.
Before I make any comments about what to do for next year, I want to ask a question: Have you talked to the university in Japan about your situation?
If it is just a matter of the graduation ceremony and the issuance of the diploma being delayed, then as long as you have completed all of the requirements for your degree before September 30, there might be a workaround for this year. For example, if your university could issue a letter saying that you have completed all of the requirements to graduate, but the ceremony and issuance of documents was delayed.
I would hate to see you have to go through the whole application process again for something that is out of your hands.
If that isn’t possible, then I should say that applying for the Embassy MEXT Scholarship this year while awaiting the results of your University MEXT application from last year is specifically not allowed in the application guidelines. So, if it was discovered by the Embassy, they could reject your application or cancel its processing, even if you withdrew from the University MEXT.
It is also possible that MEXT will connect your current application and your application from last year and cancel the scholarship, but I don’t know for sure. In any case, if you are 100% sure that there is no way to salvage your fall 2022 scholarship and have already talked through the options with the university that recommended you, then I recommend that you process that withdrawal as soon as possible. If you are in MEXT’s records as having withdrawn, then they may not check the dates to make sure there was no overlap.
Unfortunately, there is no way I can say for certain that you’ll be find and have nothing to worry about, but there’s also no harm in trying.
Thank you so much for your prompt reply.
I am sure that I have to withdraw it.
So, you mean that in the MEXT records, when they see I have two applications, even if one is withdrawn and only another one is active, I still have a chance to get rejected?
Technically, when you submitted the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship application, you were not eligible. Specifically, by having another ongoing MEXT Scholarship, you fell under non-eligibility criteria 4 in the application guidelines. The “Non-eligibility” section says that if it is discovered later that an applicant is identified as ineligible after selection, they would have to give up the scholarship. So, there is a possibility that they could say that you were ineligible at the time of submitting your application.
I don’t know how strictly they will follow these criteria, since they didn’t discover it when you actually had two active applications. If you no longer have two applications when they realize it, then they may determine that you do not meet the “non-eligibility” criteria at that time and allow your application to go through. But there is always a chance that they could interpret it more strictly.
If they do interpret it strictly (no guarantee this will even happen!), you can try to appeal saying that you were in the process of withdrawing from the previous selection since you became ineligible due to circumstances beyond your control (your graduation date).
Hello, Travis.
Thank you once again for your Help and support you are giving to me everytime in this blogs , I owe you a lot sir and I hope you are doing fine.
I want to prepare for Mext exams but I don’t know which books are best to score good marks in especially “English” because I really make mistakes in finding “errors in sentences” where I can lose 20 marks out of 100. if you have any clues or any recommendations for books to prepare for english exam , Please.
I would appreciate your time and effort for your Advice.
Thank you.
Unfortunately, English textbooks are not my area of expertise, so I can’t recommend specific books, but perhaps someone else here can comment with the resources they used.
I recommend that you take the sections that you have been struggling with to an English teacher at your current/former university and ask them for advice on what you should use to study those sections.
It varies from embassy to embassy, but I think the most common method is email. Make sure you check your email, including your spam folder, every day!
Some embassies will only contact applicants that have passed the document screening and been invited to interviews, too. So, if you can find out when the embassy expects to release results or when they anticipate holding the tests and interviews, then if you haven’t heard back from them by that date (or one week earlier, in the case of the exam date), you can contact them to ask about your status.
I have decided to postpone my application for MEXT until next year in order to better prepare myself. I have some issues with my Research Plan Proposal since I study in music. I know that you mentioned that arts students shouldn’t have to worry about having lower chances because of their field of study (you recommended the RPP of Lars Martinson and I have read it), but being a musician is somewhat different and I have a hard time figuring out what I could research as a performer.
Graduate students that are performers at my current university or in North America in general (and I would safely guess throughout most of the world) do not have to write a thesis or a research during their master degree (or even PhD). Unlike Lars Martinson, I cannot say identify an art style that is exclusive to Japan in the field of music; I cannot really use that as an argument to study there or to build a research plan proposal around.
I have done your exercises to prepare my research plan and I have found several arguments, that I deem convincing, and could help me legitimize my application for the MEXT scholarship but it is rather difficult to shape as a research proposal. These arguments (backed up by statistics) prove that Japan would be the ideal place for me to study music since the country and its culture are renowned internationally for the versatility of the music it produces in general (since it is integrated within popular culture), but especially in the entertainment industry (ex. video games). Since music composition is not done exclusively by studying composition, I want to apply to a performance master degree.
I have already contacted the administration of the universities that I aim for, asking them if I could speak to the teacher that could eventually become my academic advisor to learn more about what research plan in music usually revolves around, but, paradoxically, they ask me for give a research plan proposal first (the administration proves to have some difficulties communicating in English).
Do you think that I should contact my local consulate so that they may tell me more about the application for music performer students? Do you know if the selection committee is somehow more flexible when it comes to judging music students, or whether they treat the application a bit differently (the application form does mention that musicians must send a video of a representative performance to show their skills)? Do they expect a music student research plan to be as elaborate as the one of someone wishing to apply for, let’s say, economics (or a field outside the arts)?
What is the final culminating project for the degree program that you want to enroll in in Japan? Your FSRPP should describe the steps that you will take to prepare for that project. If it is not a thesis, but rather submission of compositions and a performance or something like that, then you would need to prepare for that. I assume you won’t be doing field research, but you should be learning and practicing new techniques or deepening your knowledge in some way.
I do not think the selection committee is going to be more flexible with judging music students. You are going to be in direct competition with the engineering students and social sciences students, etc., for the same limited number of places, so the same standards will apply and you will have to show why you and the output of your research/studies in Japan would bring unique value to benefiting society and the relationship between Japan and your home country.
The contents of your plan are going to be different, but they will be held to the same expectations for a clear plan and benefit to society.
Hello, Travis.
Thank you once again for your advice and guidance you are giving to me. I hope your doing well
I think I made a blunder mistake in sending the applications forms
To the embassy , on the envolope I wrote “Mext scholarship applications” but the embassy conclude to write “UG scholarship 2023” on the envolope.
I Also kept covering letter inside the envolope.
Does this effect my applications.
I would appreciate your time and effort for your Advice.
Thank you.
I don’t think those things alone are going to hurt your chances by any appreciable amount.
The envelope should still get delivered to the right office and once they take the documents out, they probably won’t be looking at what was written on the envelope, anymore! As for the cover letter, I don’t think that should be a problem at all, either.
thank you so much for providing all of these amazing resources to us. This has been so much help to me through my application process. I do have one question: Who should we address the Letter of Recommendation to for the Embassy recommendation? I looked up the Consulate-General for my Japanese embassy and I have also emailed with the coordinator of my embassy’s MEXT program. I’m not sure who I’m supposed to address the letter to, or if in this case it is alright to write “To Whom it May Concern” (I saw that for the University recommended you said not to do this, but couldn’t find an article specific to the Embassy recommended). Your response is greatly anticipated as this is the last thing I need to be able to send my application! Woot!
For the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, “To Whom it May Concern” is fine. You can also address it to the Consul-General or Ambassador (depending on whether you are applying at a consulate or embassy). In that case, you would address it by title, not by name, so you don’t need to look up the names.
Where possible, you should download the forms as PDFs and fill them using Adobe Acrobat Reader (free) software, then print them. I do not recommend filling them by hand unless you have no other choice.
Unfortunately, I do not have any sample research proposals that I have permission to share. If you are simply looking for topics, though, sometimes you can find a list of past thesis titles on university websites, so I recommend checking the website for the program you are interested in.
Hello! I’m been trying to fill out my medical certificate for a while now but I’m hung up on the portion about eyesight. My physician and I are a little confused on what is supposed to be placed there. I wear glasses, and so I am wondering if it should be my corrected vision, perfect, in the ‘with glasses’ portion and the grade of my eyes in the ‘without glasses’ portion?
It sounds like you have it figured out exactly right!
It should be your vision with glasses in the corrected section and your vision without in the “without glasses”, just as you said.
First I would like to thank you for your efforts.
I’m applying for as non-regular student and would be conducting research.
I have a question regarding host institutions:
I have some labs that I am interested in their work and would be a good environment for my research such as ATR, RIKEN, CiNet, NIPS…..
so when filling the placement form, can these institutions or centers act like host institutions?
or should I write down a university that has partnership with that center, with the academic advisor being the head of the lab I want to study in?
For the MEXT Scholarship, you need to be enrolled at a university in Japan, so research centers would not count. If you can find a university that works with those research centers, or a professor who is affiliated with the center as well as a university, then applying to that university would probably be the best course of action!
hello sir and thank you for your great help to us by providing such a useful website. I have a question that has been occupied my mind for so long and I will appreciate if you could help me with it. I wanted to know if it is possible to achieve mext scholarship in the field of international law or other related majors. I have applied to mext scholarship this year and I’ve been majoring in international human rights law for both bachelor and master but I’ve heard no one ever has been accepted to this scholarship in the field of law, which makes me worried.
sincerely, sahar Hassani
It is possible to study international law and human rights under the MEXT Scholarship from an academic perspective. I have worked with at least one applicant who successfully applied for a MEXT scholarship in that field!
However, if you wanted to apply for a JD program (professional degree) to become a practicing lawyer in Japan, that would be much more challenging. You would need native level fluency, for starters, and I think it would be very hard to get past the screening or show any benefit to your home country with that application.
Hello Travis ,
Thank you very much for helping me till here, I hope you are doing well .
I have successfully sent all the require documents to the embassy through courier with care.
but I did not got any reply from them since two days. I’m worried
about it.
Is there anything wrong…
What can I do about it. . .
Did you use the courier’s tracking service? The best place to check about the delivery status is with the courier. Do not expect the embassy to confirm receipt or reply until they have the results to release. (Even then, some embassies only contact successful applicants, which can be frustrating). If you know when the embassy is supposed to release results for the document screening, or when they will be holding the tests and interviews, then look for an announcement around that time (two weeks before the tests/interviews if you know that date). If you don’t hear anything around then or you hear that other applicants have their results, you can reach out to the embassy then to ask about your application status.
Hi, I’m Kit from India!
Our Embassy requires for us to fill a Preliminary application form before sending it the actual application form. Could you help in filling that? I meant the form under the How to apply and where to send the completed forms box – https://www.in.emb-japan.go.jp/Education/Research_Student.html
I am a final Year undergraduate student so I have not written a thesis or publications, so do I leave the second page as blank?
Do Master’s students also have to write a Research Proposal?
On that topic, For the Master’s students, do they still have to sit 6months-1year as a research student (and take Japanese classes) then apply for the entrance examination of the desired University? Am I following this correctly? Then what would be the difference if someone filled the form as Research student instead of Masters? If a student applies for the Research course, how long will it take to pursue it to a Master’s Course?
If you have any specific questions about the Preliminary Application Form, please let me know and I will try to answer them.
In the meantime, for the second page, if you have no thesis or publications, it seems like there is nothing to fill in there.
Yes, Master’s students must write a Field of Study and Research Program Plan (research proposal).
It is not necessarily required for Master’s students to spend 6 months to a year as a research student. Whether or not you spend 6 months in the language program is up to your accepting university to decide, based on your Japanese language ability. Some universities will be willing to accept you directly as a degree student, without requiring an in-person entrance exam. In that case, you could start directly as a Master’s degree student. But if the university requires an in-person entrance exam, then you would most likely have to go first as a research student (or as a participant in the language program) and take the entrance exam during that time.
So, the difference is whether you prefer to start directly as a degree student or whether you want to deliberately spend time as a research student, first. If you start as a research student, it would usually be for one semester, followed by two years of the Master’s course.
I’ve spoken with a few scholars and have been working on my MEXT application for a while. It’s coming along well, but I’m having a hard time trying to get my transcript from Hanyang University authorised with a stamp.
To put the situation into perspective, this transcript was issued by the Dean of Hanyang University in South Korea during a summer school exchange program through my University in the UK. Hanyang have said that my home university needs to authorise it, but the transcript was not issued by them (Birmingham City).
Who would be the ones to authorise this document? And where would I attach this transcript in my application? I’m confused whether it should go together with the Birmingham City University transcripts or separately.
I think you are talking about certifying a copy as being true to the original, so that you don’t have to submit your only original. Is that correct?
Exchange transcripts can tricky. If you can get another original issued by Hanyang, then that would be the simplest way forward, but I appreciate that might take more time than you have.
If it is just a matter of certifying the transcript copy as being true to the original, you can also have a notary do that. A Certification by a school official is also acceptable, but typically I think that is limited to an official at the school that issued the transcript, so I am not sure MEXT would accept a Birmingham City certification on the Hanyang transcript.
You would attach this transcript with your Birmingham City transcript. The grades won’t be calculated toward your eligibility criteria, unless they are also reflected on your Birminghham City transcript with grades there (as opposed to simply a Pass/Fall or “Credit” designation), so it is just for reference.
Hello Travis
Thank for Your help for everything you are doing, I hope you are doing
I have a small question.
While sending the applications 1 sets is originals form and another sets do we have to submit colour copy or black and white copy because when I take application as black and white , the photo is somewhat not clear. What should I do about other set..
A black and white copy should be acceptable unless your embassy specifically says otherwise.
If you are worried that the photo is not clear enough in the copies, you could always attach a new, original photo to the copies. You might also try another copy machine that has a higher resolution capability.
Hello Travis,
Thank you for everything you are helping me, I hope you are doing well .
I have a little problem about the health certificate that my doctor left eyesight blank , is it okay to leave like that and also he left colour blindness as blank. Doctor did not wrote anything in that , is it okay
Pls help me for this thing..
In general, it is never acceptable to leave any part of the form blank, so I recommend that you take it back to him and ask him to complete the missing sections.
Hello there, I finished reading the books and have kept reading material about the MEXT application process for quite a bit now, I feel I am on a good path and have most of my questions answers but I have a couple questions:
1) when I comes to English certification, although I will soon be taking the IELTS academic exams (and most likely getting it with a decent grade) I won’t have the results by the deadline but I do have an ECPE C2 certification issued by the University of Michigan, acquired through formal in-person examinations, that I can list, will that lower my chances?
2) How do I mark a page as “Attachments” that will contain the timetable and the refferences on the field of study and research plan section in order to maintain the limit of 2 pages?
3) Do the pages of the medical exam results that took place to fill in the Medical form also have to be put in the same folder as the medical form, and have respective copies for each instance required (in my case it says 1 original + 3 copies on every document category)?
4) Do I have to explicitly mention which university I would prefer and the professor I’d like as my advisor in my field of study and research plan? (I’d assume not since that would be very embarrassing if it where to fall into the hands of someone from another university, but you can never be too safe, even with stupid questions)
6) In the website of my embassy it doesn’t mention anything about a grade conversion but lists clearly the grade we must be above (in the local university grading system), which I am above, in order to be eligible but since these documents will reach foreign hands, I assume I still need to include a table of conversion toward the 3 point GPA system of MEXT from an official source?
5) Does following the MEXT recommendation letter sample file have better chances than a free-form recommendation letter?
6) I have been stressing over every single detail so much that I have trouble going to sleep without thinking about something missing or waking up and wanting to review everything again, is that too much?
Thank you for your time and sorry for the long post!
I hope you found the books helpful!
I will try to answer your questions below.
1. There is no requirement to submit proof of English language proficiency to the Embassy. You take a language test during the primary screening that is used for your official evaluation. Everything else is just a reference, so it would be fine to submit your EPCE C2 certificate and list that in the application form. (If you attended and graduated from the University of Michigan, then graduating from an English-taught degree program in an English-speaking country is generally considered sufficient proof of language ability, too.)
2. At the top of the page, title it “Attachment 1: Research Timeline”, etc.
3. No, you don’t need to submit the test results as long as the doctor has transcribed all of the relevant results onto the actual form. If the doctor left tests in the form blank and the actual results are needed to fill in those blanks, then you would have to attach them, with the same number of copies. (MEXT requires you to submit 1 original and 2 copies, but I’m assuming “3 copies” is a local embassy requirement.)
4. No. I do not recommend mentioning the specific university and professor in the FSRPP unless you are determined to only apply to that university and not consider alternatives under any circumstances. You have to submit the FSRPP to any universities that you apply to for Letters of Provisional Acceptance later. Mention your universities and professors in the Placement Preference Form only, to be safe, since you do not share that form with universities.
5. Not that I am aware of! Honestly, I don’t think the Recommendation Letter makes that much of a difference, anyway. Having seen hundreds over the years, I have only ever seen a few that stood out, and all of those were in negative ways (e.g. the professor rating the student very poorly)!
6. You probably know this already, but it’s not the tiny details that are going to trip you up. As long as you have the most important items in place – the FSRPP, your GPA, and the essay questions in the application are some the most critical elements – and everything else is in relatively good order, then you should be fine!
Hello Travis,
Thank you once again for giving advices for every question, I hope you are doing well..
I have one problem that our school does not possess any formats for recommendation forms , so can I give the sample recommendation form to our school and fill it and then can I give that same form to embassy… I appreciate your support for this problem.
In general, Letters of Recommendation are free-form letters and have no format. However, if your school wants to use the recommendation letter template that MEXT offers, that would be perfectly acceptable.
Hello Travis,
Thank you for everything you are doing for us regarding for the MEXT. So, I would like to ask a doubt about “Sending the application forms”.
Can I staple the Application form given by embassy in our country ?.
Should I make the application on one sided or double sided?
“How Should I Prepare To Send My Application Forms And Other Documents”.
[For Undergraduate] “Embassy Recommandation”
so that,
I could pass my initial screening..
I gladly appreciate your advice very much…
Thank you..
First, I recommend that you wait for the embassy/consulate to release the application guidelines and forms for this year and make sure that you check their instructions. If anything they say contradicts what I write below, be sure to prioritize the embassy’s guidance!
Staples: I recommend that you never use staples for anything, ever, but especially not for the MEXT application forms and/or photos. Use paperclips, instead, to keep the documents together.
Printing: I recommend single-sided printing.
I also recommend that you put all of your application documents in the package in the order specified by the embassy and make sure to put them in a document protector, as well.
Hello Travis, what if I am currently in Japan, can I still apply for Embassy Recommendations or is there any other form of MEXT I can apply for.
Don’t know if it’s possible to apply from Japan
It is possible to apply if you are currently in Japan, as long as you have a definite plan to finish your residence in Japan and return to your home country prior to the start of the scholarship.
I describe that requirement in my article about eligibility criteria. (The article is from last year, but I am currently working on updating it. The requirement to return to your home country to get a new visa has not changed.)
Hi Travis
First of all, thank you for your guidance in MEXT application. I was successful in getting selected in MEXT in 2019 and your blogs were a big asset in my preparation.
However, I had withdrawn from the scholarship back then since I got selected in a government job in my country India. Its very difficult to get such a secured job in my country and I thought by the time I come back to India after my study in Japan,this job will not be waiting for me. It was a hard decision to make but finally I decided to withdraw from the scholarship. Apparently, now I think I had taken a wrong decision and I want to desperately go to Japan for my Phd. Do you think I can apply again or will it be disrespectful towards the Japanese Government if I apply again?
At what point did you withdraw from the scholarship? It makes a difference if it was before you completed the pledge form/traveled to Japan or after that. If you completed the pledge form or accepted any benefits from the MEXT Scholarship, then you would not be allowed to apply to start a new scholarship until 3 full years had finished since you last received a benefit. (That should not be a problem if your last application was in 2019 and you are now looking to apply for 2023, but I mention it just in case).
As long more than three years will have passed, then there is nothing stopping you from applying again. I wouldn’t worry about it being “disrespectful”. (If anything, turning down the scholarship in the first place was, but reapplying is not.) You might face some additional challenges if any of the reviewers remember you or, if you did receive benefits last time before withdrawing, but it should still be possible.
Hi Travis
Thank you for your reply.That’s a relief. I had not signed the pledge form or taken any benefits from MEXT. I had withdrawn after my supervisor informally informed me that I had been selected in the final screening. The Japanese embassy didn’t not announce the results formally by the time I had withdrawn.
However,I wanted to know if I could submit the same research project that I had submitted during 2019 or do you suggest I should work on a new one.
Thanks in advance.
In that case, you should be able to apply with no problems.
You can reuse your former research plan, but I recommend that you double-check to make sure that it’s still relevant to the field and read up on the most recent related research to see if it needs to be updated at all (e.g. any references to the current research in the field should be up to date).
It will only be a hinderance if you are working for the military or if your government employer is unwilling to let you resign to go to Japan to study!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Ahmed Sh Ibrahim2022年4月8日
First and foremost, I want to express my gratitude for your assistance.
I hope everything is going well for you.
I’d like to apply for the MEXtT scholarship for the years 2022–2023, and I’m really excited and curious about getting this year through your valuable experience and expertise.
I’d like to know how I may get my hands on your newest edition to the field research studies book.? Could I have an opportunity to learn from you?
Thank you very much for your kind words! Things are well for me, and I hope the same is true for you, too!
The MEXT scholarship application begins about a year in advance, so the next opportunity to apply will start this month or next month and will be for the scholarship starting in April or September 2023.
You can find my book about how to write your Field of Study and Research Program Plan here, including links to buy it from me directly, from other online booksellers, or the information that you need if you want to ask your local library to order it for you, so that you can read it for free!
Thank you very much for your rapid answer and the useful information.
If you could place an order for it to be read in my local library, it would be a fantastic opportunity for me to gain a thorough grasp of how to draft a winning field research study proposal
Good Luck
-Ahmed sh ibrahim
I cannot submit an order on behalf of your library, they need to make the order themselves. The link I shared in my last comment has all of the publication information about the book that they should need to order it from their catalog, so you would need to bring that information to them and ask them to submit the order. It should be available in paperback and ebook from all of the usual sources that libraries use to purchase books.
Hello, Travis.
Thank you for everything you are doing for us. I have a question that I can’t understand what to do for it.. I appreciate your positive advice..
Do I really need to write English qualifications marks in the undergraduate application form or not
The thing is I did not took any qualification exam except, I took regular exam in schooling and collage..
Thank you for your kind words.
If you have not taken any English language proficiency tests, you can leave the test area blank, but do fill in your self-rating in ability level.
English language proficiency test scores are not required for the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship. You will take a language test later during the Primary Screening once you pass the document review part.
Thank you for the great advice Travis ,with out you no will answer my questions and also I have one more doubt about winning the scholarship.
What if I passed in primary screening with good progress in interview, exam and application strategy ,Is there a chance that I will be selected at final screening of the scholarship in undergraduate and win the scholarship without “WORRYING”.
I’m glad I could be helpful!
In general, almost all applicants who pass all stages of the Primary Screening ultimately end up being selected for the scholarship. Unlike the graduate scholarship, you do not need to go through the steps of getting a Letter of Provisional Acceptance from universities in Japan, so the Primary Screening is the last competitive step.
Dear TranSenz,
Thank you for the gud answer you have given me last time so, Has I am researching more about mext scholarship “undergraduate. I have some questions about it.. I appreciate your advice and answers you give.
1. How to build up my application rock solid and what are the common mistakes we do while writing the application
2. How should I fill up the recommendation form, If no one recommended me for the mext..
3. How should I prepare for Mext scholarship exam.
4. When should I apply for visa and passport.
This are the questions I got in my mind. I Hope that you will clear my all this doubt….
Thank you..
Hello I’m Franklin John Paul from India and currently I wanted to apply for mext scholarship and that is only my goal but, one thing is blocking me everything from my goal is that my 12th grade exams was postponed due to covid- 19 in our country and result will be delayed and I can’t get the grade marks till application deadline.. so What can I do for it, How can I break the wall which is blocking me…
and plan futher…
I request , please reply me soon🙏🙏🙏….
You should be able to apply for the MEXT Scholarship even if you do not have your final results. (Many applicants apply a year before graduating so that they can start their MEXT scholarship right away after their current program.) You should be able to apply by submiting the results that you do have as of the application deadline.
Hello,
I had a query regarding the GPA calculation for MEXT Scholarship. I intend to study doctoral course(second phase) in a Japanese University. And, my latest academic degree is my master’s degree.
On which course degree will the weightage be given on for GPA calculation whether it’s my Master’s degree or Undergraduate degree? I am a bit confused and concerned regarding this.
Hi Travis, I hope you’ve been well! I am Michael. I would like to ask a few questions about MEXT Scholarship for master’s degree (University Recommended).
So far, I have applied a university recommended scholarship and passed through the preliminary screening, and now I am moving to admission process. Most probably I will get the scholarship eventually.
At this point, I also saw another university call for MEXT Scholarship (University Recommended) applicants. This university is also attractive to me.
I do understand that a applicant cannot apply more than one at the same time. But how they know a student is applying for more than one? To my understanding, they will only know when two same documents with same name passed to MEXT, am I right?
If this is the case, essentially, we could apply more than one, but need to “BRAKE” ourselves before the universities sends two exactly the same documents to MEXT, am I right?
If it is true, may I know at which stage the university will send the finalized name list to the MEXT? Each university sends the document to the MEXT at the same time or at their own timing?
Are you recommend student to apply for more than one university if student really want to secure the chance to get scholarship?
I absolutely do NOT recommend that you apply to multiple universities for the MEXT Scholarship in the same year. That would be a violation of the rules and I would never encourage it. I think you should drop that thought immediately.
In the MEXT Scholarship application form, there is a question that asks if you are applying to other universities for the MEXT Scholarship that year and you are required to answer honestly. Any deliberate lies on the application form can result in you being disqualified from the scholarship (as would be deserved!), so you would have to tell the truth in that question, and in that case, the university would have to reject your application.
Do not apply to more than one university for the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship.
Hello there, Travis! Thanks for the hard work as always! Much appreciated!!
Knowing that MEXT scholarship for postgraduate requires applying for the same major I got my Bachelor’s degree in, or majors closely related to it, I am currently doing a 1 year Postgraduate Diploma program in order to change majors so I can apply for a Master’s degree in the new major (at least how it works in my country lol).
My question is: Can I apply for a MEXT Master’s degree scholarship using this Postgraduate Diploma (or it along with my old Bachelor’s degree)?
No, unfortunately a postgraduate diploma won’t “count” for determining your previous major. Your major under the MEXT scholarship has to be related to your previous major in a degree program.
I hope you can find some way to link your study field in Japan to your bachelor’s degree.
Aha, I see. I guess I will aim for the PhD scholarship in a few years then lol.
Though a question about that as well. From what I am understanding, to apply for the PhD scholarship I need to present both my Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees. But since both of those will be in two different fields, can I also attach my Postgraduate Diploma as an “explanation” to the difference between the two? Or am I misunderstanding the whole thing and a Master’s Degree by its own is sufficient for the application?
If you can explain a relationship between your bachelor’s field and the master’s field you are interested in, then you can still apply now. Be creative! If you have a justification, there’s always a chance.
If you decide to wait until your PhD, though, then as long as it is in the same field that you majored in during your Master’s degree, it will not be a problem that your bachelor’s degree was in a different field. As far as the field of studies requirement goes, as long as the field matches any previous degree, it’s fine. They don’t all have to match.
Hi Travis, I hope you’ve been well! I am Alex. I am asking the question about MEXT Scholarship for master’s degree, regarding how to approach the professor.
In your blogs, For Embassy Recommendation, you mentioned we should refrain from mentioning the MEXT application or a letter of acceptance until we have established a bit of a relationship or we have passed the primary screening.
My question is, for University-Recommendation, shall we straight to the point, mentioning we came for MEXT at the beginning? I am worrying if we start from exchanging knowledge, going deeper and deeper, then only mention the MEXT, and due to some reasons the professor does not want to accept me (e.g. he/she doesn’t hold the MEXT slots, or the slots already filled by another student, so he/she would not have continued to keep in touch with me if know I am aiming for MEXT at the beginning). Therefore, if I mention MEXT at halfway and the professor does not want to accept me, aren’t we are wasting each other time?
Besides, I wonder is it possible to check if a professor is holding the scholarship slots,.
And, are we encouraged to send our research proposal in the first email?
I saw that you left multiple questions, but this one seems to have all of the previous questions included, so I am going to respond here. If I have missed anything, please let me know.
My recommendation about avoiding mentioning MEXT at the outset depends on when in the process you start contacting professors. Ideally, you would start months before the application and, in that case, I recommend avoiding mentioning MEXT until you have established a relationship. However, if the application process is already ongoing and you need a response soon, then you are going to have to get to the point quickly.
If you are really interested in studying with that professor, then you should be trying every way possible to get admission to the program (and a scholarship, as necessary). So, even if you were to miss the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship this time, I assume you would try again for the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship next year. Hopefully, the professor is going to be willing to stay in touch with you as make multiple attempts, if necessary.
Professors do not hold MEXT Scholarship slots. The university has a specific number of slots to distribute among all applicants. An individual professor cannot decide to award you a scholarship. In most cases, what you are seeking from the professor is an agreement to supervise your research if your scholarship application is successful. You are going to have to do all of the work to make that successful, not the professor.
Regarding sending the Research Proposal in the first email, this depends on how much time you have for communication with the professor before the application deadline/before you need to know whether or not they would be willing to supervise you if accepted. If you have over a month and can afford to wait for a few back-and-forth messages, I do not recommend sending it in the first message. But if you have no time and need to get to the point, then by all means, include it.
Hi, Travis, Thank you so much for answering all my questions with detailed explanations!
So the whole story is, a university has a specific number of slots to distribute among all applicants, and the professors can decide if they want to “nominate” a student for MEXT Scholarship: If professors like the research plan, they will ask students to fill the formal scholarship application form and submit it, supervising the research if the application is successful; if not, they don’t. Professor cannot directly award a student MEXT Scholarship, but can ‘nominate’ students to get the scholarship, am I right?
So, only when we have an agreement from a professor to supervise our research, then we can formally apply for the University-Recommendation MEXT Scholarship. And the agreement doesn’t necessarily mean we are successfully getting the scholarship, am I right?
If my thoughts are correct, basically we have two lines to pass, the first line is professor, we need to get an agreement for supervision; the second line is “higher management”, we need to pass all the interviews (or any other else) to get the scholarship. May I know most of the applications are rejected on the first line or second line?
For the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, each university sets their own application process, so there is no single way of conducting the screening (some universities don’t even have applicants contact professors directly at any point). I have never heard of a system like the one you described, though. It doesn’t mean that’s impossible, but I do find it a little unlikely.
The most common/similar system I have seen is this:
– Applicants contact professors to get their agreement to supervise them if they pass. The purpose of this step is not necessarily for the professor to nominate the student, but to confirm that if the applicant does pass the administrative screening, then there will be a professor able to supervise their research.
– Applicants then submit the application through the administrative office (or professors might forward it, in some cases). The administrative screening is where most applicants are eliminated, since they are looking at the objective criteria like GPA, language proficiency, etc. In general, only the top applicants are going to get through this stage. (I have seen cases where about 200 applicants were competing for five or fewer slots).
– Once the admin screening is done, the applications go back to the faculty. At this point, the professor’s level of investment in supporting your application is probably a more significant factor as the faculty members determine the final selectees from among the top remaining candidates.
Under this system, when you first contact the professor, they are not going to even know if you are eligible or not (universities would not ask professors to do that check), so at that point they can tentatively agree to take on multiple applicants, under the assumption that most will not pass the admin screening.
It is still important to get the professor engaged in your research at the early stage, but at that point, they should be able to support multiple students.
I finally get the whole picture.
Travis, thank you for the detailed explanation!
Isabella Shahid2021年10月23日
Hello!
My school follows the grading system of Pakistan.
In this system:
80-100% = A += 4 70-79% = A = 4
60-69% = B = 3 50-59% = C = 2
My score for my latest academic (Grade 11) year is:
Subject (1)= 66% Subject (2)=78% Subject (3)=64% Subject (4)=72% Subject (5)=72
Subject (6)=72%
Mext GPA is:
80-100% = 3 70-79% = 2 60-69 = 1
Then, my GPA on a 3 scale will be:
Subject (1) = 1 Subject (2) = 2 Subject (3) = 1 Subject (4) = 2 Subject (5) = 2 Subject (6) = 2
GPA = 1+1+2+2+2+2/6 = 10/6 = 1.6 (So I don’t qualify for mext, am I right?)
One more question regarding the mext GPA requirement
Is the GPA of the latest year required or of all high school years.
My GPA for grade 9 = 2.75/3
Subject (1)= 68% Subject (2)=95% Subject (3) = 100% Subject (4) = 92% Subject (5) = 89% Subject (6) = 87% Subject (7) = 86% Subject (8) = 92%
and grade 10 = 2.87/3
Subject (1)= 70% Subject (2)=97% Subject (3) = 100% Subject (4) = 94% Subject (5) = 92% Subject (6) = 89% Subject (7) = 90% Subject (8) = 94%
Kindly let me know if I qualify to apply for mext undergraduate scholarship or not.
Regards,
Isabella
Hi Travis. I hope you’ve been well! I am asking a question about MEXT Scholarship for master’s degree regarding the “Application Form” and “Field of Study and Research Program Plan Form”.
Both of them have a similar problem to each other, which is “Field of specialization studied in the past, under Application Form”, or “Present field of study, under Field of Study and Research Program Plan Form”. May I know what are the differences between them?
If I may, could you give some brief answer examples to clearly show the distinctions between them?
I have covered how to answer each of those questions in my articles about the application form (University version / Embassy Version) and about the Field of Study and Research Program Plan (University version / Embassy Version), so I would suggest reading those articles. For the former, I do have an example answer, since it is relatively short, but for the question on the FSRPP, I have an explanation of what you should write and how. I hope that helps!
Hi Travis, I hope you’ve been well! I am Bernard Tiong. I am asking the question about MEXT Scholarship for master’s degree.
May I ask if I can apply for University Recommended and Embassy Recommended MEXT Scholarship simultaneously?
As you mentioned in your article, the correct way is to apply for Embassy Recommended first, then University Recommended, but I will be graduating in September 2022, so now I am planning to apply for University Recommended so I no need to wait to enter my master study if I successfully get the scholarship.
However, University Recommended is extremely challenging, so actually I am putting my hope on Embassy Recommended one (In my country, Embassy Recommended application opens around March or April 2022), but I also wanna try for University Recommended.
Therefore, I am wondering if I can apply these two simultaneously (University Recommended first and then Embassy Recommended)? May I know for the University Recommended, around when I can unofficially know if I get accepted, based on your extensive experience? If I can unofficially know my University Recomeneded final application status before the application of Embassy Recommended, then I have no concern and worries for applying Embassy Recommended, either not to apply because already get accepted in University Recommended, or apply because not accepted in University Recommended, am I right?
Hope you can answer my inquires because I saw some online articles saying students shall not apply both at the same time. If cannot apply both at the same time, I definitely will go for Embassy Recommended because I don’t want be disqualified from applying Embassy Recommended because of already applied for University Recommended because the chance to get accepted in Embassy Recommendation is much higher than University Recomended
Lastly, I will be appreciated if you can send me an email after addressing my question so I know my question is answered.
You are not allowed to have multiple active applications open for the MEXT Scholarship at any time. That means that you can’t apply to multiple universities for the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship in the same year and you can’t have an open application for the University- and Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarships at the same time. It is specifically forbidden in the eligibility criteria.
However, there should be no need to have an open application for both. Whether you start with the Embassy or the University application, the Primary Screening should be over before the other application type begins. You will receive a notification if you pass that Primary Screening.
For the Embassy, the Primary Screening runs from approximately May-August and for the University, it is usually some time between September to January at the latest. If you do not pass the Primary Screening, then your application is over and you are free to apply again. If you do pass the Primary Screening, then in most cases, you are practically sure to get the scholarship (in the case of the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, it is more certain after you have received at least one Letter of Provisional Acceptance from a university). So, if you pass the Primary Screening, then there should be no need to apply for the other scholarship type.
I’m afraid I cannot email you to let you know about this post, but I hope you get an automatic notification.
Hi I am ABDU from Djibouti and I visited the website of Japan embassy in Djibouti but there was no information there about mext scholarship. So would you give me some information if you can.
Thank you.
Typically, the scholarship application procedures are released in April or May and the application is due in May or June, so they might just not have any information posted since it is not the application cycle now.
I recommend that you check back with them around April. In the meantime, you can find the guidelines from this year on the Study in Japan website for your reference and preparation. I also have articles about how to apply for the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship linked from this page, so please review those for more details!
Hi Travis.
Following your email, I’m giving you feedback of my Embassy-recommended application. Unfortunately, for the second consecutive year, I didn’t get past the document screening. I truly invested all my time and effort in this application, and followed all the tips from your books. It just wasn’t enough.
I’m aware that last year, my research plan was week. This time, I feel like there was nothing more I could do. Maybe I should have written it sooner and asked a professor to review it, which is the only advise of yours which I didn’t follow due to restrictions in time.
I’m currently writing my thesis in order to complete my Master’s degree. Maybe next year I’ll have more chances, since I’ll have a proper abstract and a complete education. I also want to take the JLPT N5, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to have the certificate in time of the application due to the scheduled dates. It may not make a difference since it’s only the beginner level, but either way… I’ll also make sure to ask you to review my research plan. I know there’s a lot that can be improved, but I’m struggling to understand how I can do better.
After I finish my degree in November, I’ll probably try the University-recommendation route. I’ll have to apply first to the university in order to be considered for the MEXT scholarship, which requires a considerable financial investment, and the chances of being accepted and granted the scholarship are extremely low. Either way, I might ask you to review my research plan sooner than later.
Thank you for all your help.
I am very sorry to hear about your results, particularly when you were confident that you had done all you could. There can be any number of reasons that might have gone into the result, but when you are ready for your next application, please let me know if you are still interested in a review of your Field of Study and Research Program Plan or full application and I will be happy to work with you then to see what I can figure out!
For the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, the application period starts at different times depending on the university, so if you know where you want to apply, I recommend you check their application timeline as soon as possible.
I have heard of cases where a research proposal/application that was rejected by the embassy was accepted by the (typically more competitive) university application without any changes, since the two application methods have different priorities, particularly regarding the research proposal.
Again, I am sorry to hear about your situation. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help in the future!
Hi Travis! Thanks for all the help your blogs have given me. Unfortunately, I still made one mistake in the Application Form for the MEXT Embassy Recommendation—I missed including the location of my employment. Can I seek your advice on this? Based on your experiences screening applicants, would this automatically put me in the “no” pile or is there still a way to amend this info to my application say by emailing the embassy etc? At this point, I’ve lost quite a bit of hope I’ll make it past the initial screening despite the effort I put into the Research Plan, but I guess I would like to know if I should just move on and do better next time? Thanks so much!
Leaving out one entry in your application form should not be enough to get your application rejected by itself.
I recommend that you contact the embassy and ask them if there is a way that you can correct it or resubmit that page, though.
Hello
Great job for what you’re doing.. i discovered FAQ then I will be quick as possible. I applied to mext scholarship 2021 by sending scan documents through email but I’m in big trouble.. First set of scan documents with numérotation was in order although I didn’t mentioned title but only in email object ( RS + name)… Then I panicked because I was in hurry and sent an another and another set of application documents (because of the deadline) which I verified later was in disorder.. Since I’m anxious . Sure I got email’embassy notification stating : Dear.. we have received your documents but next time send it in format pdf (we have well received your documents). How is it going..
It sounds like the embassy confirmed that they have received your documents and that you do not need to resend them, but if they do ask you to resend, take your time to prepare and scan them correctly in the required format.
Please I forgot to ask this:
6. On the “Nationality” answer space provided, are we supposed to write the name of our country or the adjective ?
For example, I’m from CAMEROON. Should I answer with “CAMEROONIAN” or “CAMEROON” ?!
6. You should write the name of your country (Cameroon, in your case). But it is not a significant problem if you wrote the adjective and already submitted it, they will be able to figure it out and that will not hurt you.
Hi, I’m Frank Cabrel from Cameroon and I’m currently applying for the MEXT scholarship for Research students.
Travis pls I have the following questions concerning the Application documents and I really need your help
1. Concerning the photograph on the application form, i just stapled all three photos on it, so will i encounter a complication in future or can I print another copy of the application form now and paste the photos with a cello tape?
2. My doctor used a blue pen when filling my Medical certificate so I’m wandering if this is a problem?
3. Concerning the Research thesis I’m to submit, should I submit the whole copy with the total number of pages done or i should submit just an abstract….(By the way I’m not yet done with my research thesis because I’m still carrying out the data analysis)
4. Still for the photos, should I trim them appropriately for them to fit in perfectly in the box on the application form or should I paste it as it is ?
5. When submitting the documents to the Embassy should I put each document in a separate envelope before compiling them in one folder or what should I do Travis…I’m so confused ….and I’m to submit my application file next week
Please Travis reply to me as soon as you get this 🙏🙏
Hey travis, thanks a bunch. I’m actually applying for a MEXT scholarship intended for second year Japanese-studies undergraduate students. The scholarship is for one year of Japanese language studies, and the applicant must return back to his home country to finish his studies.
The application form for that kind of scholarship has three rubrics that the research-scholarship form does not have, and I haven’t found info about those on your website.
They are abit confusing, considering the applicant is a second year, and intending for his time of scholarship to study only language studies in japan
I’ve attached the form photos in an email i’ve sent. If you have any info about those – I’d love to hear back from you 🙂
The rubrics are:
*Study plan
*Future plans in academics and career
* 現在学習している内容
In your university: Subjects you currently
study or research
（具体的に記入する
こと。 ）
(Describe specifically.)
Hi Dan,
My area of expertise is in the scholarship for graduate students, so I have never focused on the Japanese Studies Students before.
I looked at the application form on the MEXT website, though. I could only find two essay questions in that form:
15. Study plan in Japan (Please write your specific study plan in the field of Japanese Studies which relates to your current study or research in your university)
16. Future plan in academics and career after graduation from your university
Are those the same questions as the form you’re looking at?
For the first one, you should describe the coursework you plan to take, any research you might conduct, and how that will fit into your overall plan for your ongoing degree and enhance it.
For the second, describe your long-term plans. As I have mentioned in the articles about the graduate scholarship, your long-term plans should focus on how you want to serve society in the future and why this scholarship/studying in Japan is essential to achieving those goals.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis, I’ve been reading your guides to the MEXT scholarship and it motivated me to apply. I’m a civil engineering student in Lebanon, I am in third year of bachelor and I’m searching to apply to various universities to complete my engineering degree. My question is: If I apply to the bachelor degree at a university, am I going to start my studies all over again? Is there a possibility to continue my studies by skipping the subjects I already got? Should I contact the universities I’m applying to?
Hoping to receive an answer from you.
Thank you.
Hi Hala,
If you apply for the MEXT undergraduate scholarship, you would be starting from scratch. Most universities will not transfer credits unless you specifically apply for their transfer admissions exam, but transfer admissions are not covered under the MEXT Scholarship.
Since you’re in your third year already and the scholarship application takes over a year, why not apply for the scholarship for research students? If you apply in the 2023 cycle (starting around April/May for the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship), you would start your studies in Japan in fall 2024. Would your undergrad be done by then? If you are considering applying for the 2023 Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, now is the perfect time to get started preparing your Field of Study and Research Program Plan!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello.
I have passed the first screening for the MEXT Scholarship. and I am waiting now for the English exam.
My question is, should I now start contacting universities to get letter of provisional acceptance or I should wait until I make the exam and pass the interview stage? .
Thank you in advance.
Best,
Bashar
Hi Bashar,
Congratulation on passing the document screening!
Since the screening is currently underway, I recommend that you wait until after you pass the Primary Screening (which includes the document screening, exams, and interview phase) before you contact universities. You cannot officially request a Letter of Provisional Acceptance until you have completed the full Primary Screening and received the Passing Certificate of the Primary Screening.
For now, you should focus on preparing for the exams and interview.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi, I got through the first screening and I have a couple of questions:
First, I would like to thank you for all the posts and guides you have written, they were definitely valuable during my application.
I sent my documents by email the first time and (obviously) I sent only one pdf copy of each document. now I am asked to send a hard copy of the document by post to the embassy to be stamped and to get a “Passing Certificate of the Primary Selection”. my question is should I send only the one original copy I sent by email or should I provide photocopies of each document as if I was applying directly.
.
my second question: I did a graduation project in my college but did not write any theses because in my previous college we only output A0 drawings and it is not research related … but when I was contacted by the embassy and asked to send the documents I was told ( I think as a kind of advice) to write very brief abstract of my graduation project and to send it as well with the other documents … but I don’t know if I really should do this as I will have to also edit the application form and the checklist (special document required by the embassy in my country) as well, so please give me your advice/opinion about this.
and again thanks a lot for all your help.
Osama
Hi Osama,
Thank you for your kind words.
Have you asked the embassy how many copies they want? That would be my first recommendation, since this seems like a unique, local practice.
If they do not say anything or do not respond in time, then I recommend sending the originals and two copies as it says in the application guidelines. The worst-case scenario would be that they don’t need the extras and dispose of them or send them back to you. (Whereas, if you don’t send them, then they would have to ask you to send them again later, taking more time).
For your second question, I think that it would be beneficial to write a half-page abstract/summary of your culminating project for your previous degree. It wouldn’t have to be in the application form, it would be a separate document.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis.
I would like to ask a question.
Last year, I successfully applied for the MEXT scholarship university recommended and will start the courses in October 2022.
A few months ago, I just found out that the covid-19 pandemic has changed my university’s academic calendar slightly, causing me cannot be graduated by the required deadline stated in the MEXT document, which is 30th September 2022.
Over the months, I have been discussing this issue with my university, trying to request my university to issue the graduation letter in advance in order to meet the deadline. During this period, I applied for the embassy recommendation this year as a backup plan because I was not sure if I need to decline the university-recommended MEXT scholarship.
And, recently, I finally got the final result that my university came to the conclusion that they could not issue the letter in advance, so I have to decline the scholarship as well as the university admission offer because the university cannot admit my enrollment in October 2022, and due to losing my eligibility for October 2022 admission, I also have to withdraw the scholarship.
In this case, may I know if I am still eligible for the MEXT scholarship embassy recommended? Because the japan university actually recommended me to the MEXT already, but I decline the scholarship.
Now the embassy-recommended track is still in the progress and hasn’t reached the MEXT yet. So, even if I pass the examination, interview and successfully get the letter of acceptance for this scholarship (embassy recommendation), would MEXT reject my application because they have seen my application twice (uni recommended track and embassy recommended track)?
That is all my question. It is a long story, thank you for spending time reading it.
Thank you very much. Have a nice day.
Hi Alex,
Before I make any comments about what to do for next year, I want to ask a question: Have you talked to the university in Japan about your situation?
If it is just a matter of the graduation ceremony and the issuance of the diploma being delayed, then as long as you have completed all of the requirements for your degree before September 30, there might be a workaround for this year. For example, if your university could issue a letter saying that you have completed all of the requirements to graduate, but the ceremony and issuance of documents was delayed.
I would hate to see you have to go through the whole application process again for something that is out of your hands.
If that isn’t possible, then I should say that applying for the Embassy MEXT Scholarship this year while awaiting the results of your University MEXT application from last year is specifically not allowed in the application guidelines. So, if it was discovered by the Embassy, they could reject your application or cancel its processing, even if you withdrew from the University MEXT.
It is also possible that MEXT will connect your current application and your application from last year and cancel the scholarship, but I don’t know for sure. In any case, if you are 100% sure that there is no way to salvage your fall 2022 scholarship and have already talked through the options with the university that recommended you, then I recommend that you process that withdrawal as soon as possible. If you are in MEXT’s records as having withdrawn, then they may not check the dates to make sure there was no overlap.
Unfortunately, there is no way I can say for certain that you’ll be find and have nothing to worry about, but there’s also no harm in trying.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you so much for your prompt reply.
I am sure that I have to withdraw it.
So, you mean that in the MEXT records, when they see I have two applications, even if one is withdrawn and only another one is active, I still have a chance to get rejected?
Thank you.
Hi Alex,
Technically, when you submitted the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship application, you were not eligible. Specifically, by having another ongoing MEXT Scholarship, you fell under non-eligibility criteria 4 in the application guidelines. The “Non-eligibility” section says that if it is discovered later that an applicant is identified as ineligible after selection, they would have to give up the scholarship. So, there is a possibility that they could say that you were ineligible at the time of submitting your application.
I don’t know how strictly they will follow these criteria, since they didn’t discover it when you actually had two active applications. If you no longer have two applications when they realize it, then they may determine that you do not meet the “non-eligibility” criteria at that time and allow your application to go through. But there is always a chance that they could interpret it more strictly.
If they do interpret it strictly (no guarantee this will even happen!), you can try to appeal saying that you were in the process of withdrawing from the previous selection since you became ineligible due to circumstances beyond your control (your graduation date).
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello, Travis.
Thank you once again for your Help and support you are giving to me everytime in this blogs , I owe you a lot sir and I hope you are doing fine.
I want to prepare for Mext exams but I don’t know which books are best to score good marks in especially “English” because I really make mistakes in finding “errors in sentences” where I can lose 20 marks out of 100. if you have any clues or any recommendations for books to prepare for english exam , Please.
I would appreciate your time and effort for your Advice.
Thank you.
Hi Franklin,
Unfortunately, English textbooks are not my area of expertise, so I can’t recommend specific books, but perhaps someone else here can comment with the resources they used.
I recommend that you take the sections that you have been struggling with to an English teacher at your current/former university and ask them for advice on what you should use to study those sections.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello sir..
I want to first appreciate you for taking out time to guide us through this application process.
I want to know how does the embassy contact selected applicants after first documents screening to come for the exam section of the scholarship…
Hi Blaise,
It varies from embassy to embassy, but I think the most common method is email. Make sure you check your email, including your spam folder, every day!
Some embassies will only contact applicants that have passed the document screening and been invited to interviews, too. So, if you can find out when the embassy expects to release results or when they anticipate holding the tests and interviews, then if you haven’t heard back from them by that date (or one week earlier, in the case of the exam date), you can contact them to ask about your status.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis,
I have decided to postpone my application for MEXT until next year in order to better prepare myself. I have some issues with my Research Plan Proposal since I study in music. I know that you mentioned that arts students shouldn’t have to worry about having lower chances because of their field of study (you recommended the RPP of Lars Martinson and I have read it), but being a musician is somewhat different and I have a hard time figuring out what I could research as a performer.
Graduate students that are performers at my current university or in North America in general (and I would safely guess throughout most of the world) do not have to write a thesis or a research during their master degree (or even PhD). Unlike Lars Martinson, I cannot say identify an art style that is exclusive to Japan in the field of music; I cannot really use that as an argument to study there or to build a research plan proposal around.
I have done your exercises to prepare my research plan and I have found several arguments, that I deem convincing, and could help me legitimize my application for the MEXT scholarship but it is rather difficult to shape as a research proposal. These arguments (backed up by statistics) prove that Japan would be the ideal place for me to study music since the country and its culture are renowned internationally for the versatility of the music it produces in general (since it is integrated within popular culture), but especially in the entertainment industry (ex. video games). Since music composition is not done exclusively by studying composition, I want to apply to a performance master degree.
I have already contacted the administration of the universities that I aim for, asking them if I could speak to the teacher that could eventually become my academic advisor to learn more about what research plan in music usually revolves around, but, paradoxically, they ask me for give a research plan proposal first (the administration proves to have some difficulties communicating in English).
Do you think that I should contact my local consulate so that they may tell me more about the application for music performer students? Do you know if the selection committee is somehow more flexible when it comes to judging music students, or whether they treat the application a bit differently (the application form does mention that musicians must send a video of a representative performance to show their skills)? Do they expect a music student research plan to be as elaborate as the one of someone wishing to apply for, let’s say, economics (or a field outside the arts)?
Best regards,
Francis
Hi Francis,
What is the final culminating project for the degree program that you want to enroll in in Japan? Your FSRPP should describe the steps that you will take to prepare for that project. If it is not a thesis, but rather submission of compositions and a performance or something like that, then you would need to prepare for that. I assume you won’t be doing field research, but you should be learning and practicing new techniques or deepening your knowledge in some way.
I do not think the selection committee is going to be more flexible with judging music students. You are going to be in direct competition with the engineering students and social sciences students, etc., for the same limited number of places, so the same standards will apply and you will have to show why you and the output of your research/studies in Japan would bring unique value to benefiting society and the relationship between Japan and your home country.
The contents of your plan are going to be different, but they will be held to the same expectations for a clear plan and benefit to society.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello, Travis.
Thank you once again for your advice and guidance you are giving to me. I hope your doing well
I think I made a blunder mistake in sending the applications forms
To the embassy , on the envolope I wrote “Mext scholarship applications” but the embassy conclude to write “UG scholarship 2023” on the envolope.
I Also kept covering letter inside the envolope.
Does this effect my applications.
I would appreciate your time and effort for your Advice.
Thank you.
Hi Franklin,
I don’t think those things alone are going to hurt your chances by any appreciable amount.
The envelope should still get delivered to the right office and once they take the documents out, they probably won’t be looking at what was written on the envelope, anymore! As for the cover letter, I don’t think that should be a problem at all, either.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
thank you so much for providing all of these amazing resources to us. This has been so much help to me through my application process. I do have one question: Who should we address the Letter of Recommendation to for the Embassy recommendation? I looked up the Consulate-General for my Japanese embassy and I have also emailed with the coordinator of my embassy’s MEXT program. I’m not sure who I’m supposed to address the letter to, or if in this case it is alright to write “To Whom it May Concern” (I saw that for the University recommended you said not to do this, but couldn’t find an article specific to the Embassy recommended). Your response is greatly anticipated as this is the last thing I need to be able to send my application! Woot!
Hi Kar,
For the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, “To Whom it May Concern” is fine. You can also address it to the Consul-General or Ambassador (depending on whether you are applying at a consulate or embassy). In that case, you would address it by title, not by name, so you don’t need to look up the names.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello my name is Kansime
The question that I have is that do i have to download all forms given and fill them with a pen or there is another way?
Hi Kansime,
Where possible, you should download the forms as PDFs and fill them using Adobe Acrobat Reader (free) software, then print them. I do not recommend filling them by hand unless you have no other choice.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Do you have any sample of research proposal topics related to environmental sciences?
Hi Kelebogile,
Unfortunately, I do not have any sample research proposals that I have permission to share. If you are simply looking for topics, though, sometimes you can find a list of past thesis titles on university websites, so I recommend checking the website for the program you are interested in.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello! I’m been trying to fill out my medical certificate for a while now but I’m hung up on the portion about eyesight. My physician and I are a little confused on what is supposed to be placed there. I wear glasses, and so I am wondering if it should be my corrected vision, perfect, in the ‘with glasses’ portion and the grade of my eyes in the ‘without glasses’ portion?
Hi Ki,
It sounds like you have it figured out exactly right!
It should be your vision with glasses in the corrected section and your vision without in the “without glasses”, just as you said.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
First I would like to thank you for your efforts.
I’m applying for as non-regular student and would be conducting research.
I have a question regarding host institutions:
I have some labs that I am interested in their work and would be a good environment for my research such as ATR, RIKEN, CiNet, NIPS…..
so when filling the placement form, can these institutions or centers act like host institutions?
or should I write down a university that has partnership with that center, with the academic advisor being the head of the lab I want to study in?
Hi Nawar Georges,
For the MEXT Scholarship, you need to be enrolled at a university in Japan, so research centers would not count. If you can find a university that works with those research centers, or a professor who is affiliated with the center as well as a university, then applying to that university would probably be the best course of action!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
hello sir and thank you for your great help to us by providing such a useful website. I have a question that has been occupied my mind for so long and I will appreciate if you could help me with it. I wanted to know if it is possible to achieve mext scholarship in the field of international law or other related majors. I have applied to mext scholarship this year and I’ve been majoring in international human rights law for both bachelor and master but I’ve heard no one ever has been accepted to this scholarship in the field of law, which makes me worried.
sincerely, sahar Hassani
Hi Sahar Hassani,
It is possible to study international law and human rights under the MEXT Scholarship from an academic perspective. I have worked with at least one applicant who successfully applied for a MEXT scholarship in that field!
However, if you wanted to apply for a JD program (professional degree) to become a practicing lawyer in Japan, that would be much more challenging. You would need native level fluency, for starters, and I think it would be very hard to get past the screening or show any benefit to your home country with that application.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis ,
Thank you very much for helping me till here, I hope you are doing well .
I have successfully sent all the require documents to the embassy through courier with care.
but I did not got any reply from them since two days. I’m worried
about it.
Is there anything wrong…
What can I do about it. . .
Thank you.
Hi Franklin,
Did you use the courier’s tracking service? The best place to check about the delivery status is with the courier. Do not expect the embassy to confirm receipt or reply until they have the results to release. (Even then, some embassies only contact successful applicants, which can be frustrating). If you know when the embassy is supposed to release results for the document screening, or when they will be holding the tests and interviews, then look for an announcement around that time (two weeks before the tests/interviews if you know that date). If you don’t hear anything around then or you hear that other applicants have their results, you can reach out to the embassy then to ask about your application status.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi, I’m Kit from India!
Our Embassy requires for us to fill a Preliminary application form before sending it the actual application form. Could you help in filling that? I meant the form under the How to apply and where to send the completed forms box – https://www.in.emb-japan.go.jp/Education/Research_Student.html
I am a final Year undergraduate student so I have not written a thesis or publications, so do I leave the second page as blank?
Do Master’s students also have to write a Research Proposal?
On that topic, For the Master’s students, do they still have to sit 6months-1year as a research student (and take Japanese classes) then apply for the entrance examination of the desired University? Am I following this correctly? Then what would be the difference if someone filled the form as Research student instead of Masters? If a student applies for the Research course, how long will it take to pursue it to a Master’s Course?
Thanks.
Hi Kit,
If you have any specific questions about the Preliminary Application Form, please let me know and I will try to answer them.
In the meantime, for the second page, if you have no thesis or publications, it seems like there is nothing to fill in there.
Yes, Master’s students must write a Field of Study and Research Program Plan (research proposal).
It is not necessarily required for Master’s students to spend 6 months to a year as a research student. Whether or not you spend 6 months in the language program is up to your accepting university to decide, based on your Japanese language ability. Some universities will be willing to accept you directly as a degree student, without requiring an in-person entrance exam. In that case, you could start directly as a Master’s degree student. But if the university requires an in-person entrance exam, then you would most likely have to go first as a research student (or as a participant in the language program) and take the entrance exam during that time.
So, the difference is whether you prefer to start directly as a degree student or whether you want to deliberately spend time as a research student, first. If you start as a research student, it would usually be for one semester, followed by two years of the Master’s course.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis,
I hope you are well!
I’ve spoken with a few scholars and have been working on my MEXT application for a while. It’s coming along well, but I’m having a hard time trying to get my transcript from Hanyang University authorised with a stamp.
To put the situation into perspective, this transcript was issued by the Dean of Hanyang University in South Korea during a summer school exchange program through my University in the UK. Hanyang have said that my home university needs to authorise it, but the transcript was not issued by them (Birmingham City).
Who would be the ones to authorise this document? And where would I attach this transcript in my application? I’m confused whether it should go together with the Birmingham City University transcripts or separately.
Kind regards,
Hi Kristy Alex,
I think you are talking about certifying a copy as being true to the original, so that you don’t have to submit your only original. Is that correct?
Exchange transcripts can tricky. If you can get another original issued by Hanyang, then that would be the simplest way forward, but I appreciate that might take more time than you have.
If it is just a matter of certifying the transcript copy as being true to the original, you can also have a notary do that. A Certification by a school official is also acceptable, but typically I think that is limited to an official at the school that issued the transcript, so I am not sure MEXT would accept a Birmingham City certification on the Hanyang transcript.
You would attach this transcript with your Birmingham City transcript. The grades won’t be calculated toward your eligibility criteria, unless they are also reflected on your Birminghham City transcript with grades there (as opposed to simply a Pass/Fall or “Credit” designation), so it is just for reference.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis
Thank for Your help for everything you are doing, I hope you are doing
I have a small question.
While sending the applications 1 sets is originals form and another sets do we have to submit colour copy or black and white copy because when I take application as black and white , the photo is somewhat not clear. What should I do about other set..
Hi John,
A black and white copy should be acceptable unless your embassy specifically says otherwise.
If you are worried that the photo is not clear enough in the copies, you could always attach a new, original photo to the copies. You might also try another copy machine that has a higher resolution capability.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis,
Thank you for everything you are helping me, I hope you are doing well .
I have a little problem about the health certificate that my doctor left eyesight blank , is it okay to leave like that and also he left colour blindness as blank. Doctor did not wrote anything in that , is it okay
Pls help me for this thing..
Hi Franklin,
In general, it is never acceptable to leave any part of the form blank, so I recommend that you take it back to him and ask him to complete the missing sections.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello there, I finished reading the books and have kept reading material about the MEXT application process for quite a bit now, I feel I am on a good path and have most of my questions answers but I have a couple questions:
1) when I comes to English certification, although I will soon be taking the IELTS academic exams (and most likely getting it with a decent grade) I won’t have the results by the deadline but I do have an ECPE C2 certification issued by the University of Michigan, acquired through formal in-person examinations, that I can list, will that lower my chances?
2) How do I mark a page as “Attachments” that will contain the timetable and the refferences on the field of study and research plan section in order to maintain the limit of 2 pages?
3) Do the pages of the medical exam results that took place to fill in the Medical form also have to be put in the same folder as the medical form, and have respective copies for each instance required (in my case it says 1 original + 3 copies on every document category)?
4) Do I have to explicitly mention which university I would prefer and the professor I’d like as my advisor in my field of study and research plan? (I’d assume not since that would be very embarrassing if it where to fall into the hands of someone from another university, but you can never be too safe, even with stupid questions)
6) In the website of my embassy it doesn’t mention anything about a grade conversion but lists clearly the grade we must be above (in the local university grading system), which I am above, in order to be eligible but since these documents will reach foreign hands, I assume I still need to include a table of conversion toward the 3 point GPA system of MEXT from an official source?
5) Does following the MEXT recommendation letter sample file have better chances than a free-form recommendation letter?
6) I have been stressing over every single detail so much that I have trouble going to sleep without thinking about something missing or waking up and wanting to review everything again, is that too much?
Thank you for your time and sorry for the long post!
Also, I wish there was an edit function in order to fix those pesky typing mistakes that slip through 😅
Hi George,
I hope you found the books helpful!
I will try to answer your questions below.
1. There is no requirement to submit proof of English language proficiency to the Embassy. You take a language test during the primary screening that is used for your official evaluation. Everything else is just a reference, so it would be fine to submit your EPCE C2 certificate and list that in the application form. (If you attended and graduated from the University of Michigan, then graduating from an English-taught degree program in an English-speaking country is generally considered sufficient proof of language ability, too.)
2. At the top of the page, title it “Attachment 1: Research Timeline”, etc.
3. No, you don’t need to submit the test results as long as the doctor has transcribed all of the relevant results onto the actual form. If the doctor left tests in the form blank and the actual results are needed to fill in those blanks, then you would have to attach them, with the same number of copies. (MEXT requires you to submit 1 original and 2 copies, but I’m assuming “3 copies” is a local embassy requirement.)
4. No. I do not recommend mentioning the specific university and professor in the FSRPP unless you are determined to only apply to that university and not consider alternatives under any circumstances. You have to submit the FSRPP to any universities that you apply to for Letters of Provisional Acceptance later. Mention your universities and professors in the Placement Preference Form only, to be safe, since you do not share that form with universities.
5. Not that I am aware of! Honestly, I don’t think the Recommendation Letter makes that much of a difference, anyway. Having seen hundreds over the years, I have only ever seen a few that stood out, and all of those were in negative ways (e.g. the professor rating the student very poorly)!
6. You probably know this already, but it’s not the tiny details that are going to trip you up. As long as you have the most important items in place – the FSRPP, your GPA, and the essay questions in the application are some the most critical elements – and everything else is in relatively good order, then you should be fine!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis,
Thank you once again for giving advices for every question, I hope you are doing well..
I have one problem that our school does not possess any formats for recommendation forms , so can I give the sample recommendation form to our school and fill it and then can I give that same form to embassy… I appreciate your support for this problem.
Hi Franklin,
In general, Letters of Recommendation are free-form letters and have no format. However, if your school wants to use the recommendation letter template that MEXT offers, that would be perfectly acceptable.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis,
Thank you for everything you are doing for us regarding for the MEXT. So, I would like to ask a doubt about “Sending the application forms”.
Can I staple the Application form given by embassy in our country ?.
Should I make the application on one sided or double sided?
“How Should I Prepare To Send My Application Forms And Other Documents”.
[For Undergraduate] “Embassy Recommandation”
so that,
I could pass my initial screening..
I gladly appreciate your advice very much…
Thank you..
Hi Franklin John Paul,
First, I recommend that you wait for the embassy/consulate to release the application guidelines and forms for this year and make sure that you check their instructions. If anything they say contradicts what I write below, be sure to prioritize the embassy’s guidance!
Staples: I recommend that you never use staples for anything, ever, but especially not for the MEXT application forms and/or photos. Use paperclips, instead, to keep the documents together.
Printing: I recommend single-sided printing.
I also recommend that you put all of your application documents in the package in the order specified by the embassy and make sure to put them in a document protector, as well.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis, what if I am currently in Japan, can I still apply for Embassy Recommendations or is there any other form of MEXT I can apply for.
Don’t know if it’s possible to apply from Japan
Hi Victor,
It is possible to apply if you are currently in Japan, as long as you have a definite plan to finish your residence in Japan and return to your home country prior to the start of the scholarship.
I describe that requirement in my article about eligibility criteria. (The article is from last year, but I am currently working on updating it. The requirement to return to your home country to get a new visa has not changed.)
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis
First of all, thank you for your guidance in MEXT application. I was successful in getting selected in MEXT in 2019 and your blogs were a big asset in my preparation.
However, I had withdrawn from the scholarship back then since I got selected in a government job in my country India. Its very difficult to get such a secured job in my country and I thought by the time I come back to India after my study in Japan,this job will not be waiting for me. It was a hard decision to make but finally I decided to withdraw from the scholarship. Apparently, now I think I had taken a wrong decision and I want to desperately go to Japan for my Phd. Do you think I can apply again or will it be disrespectful towards the Japanese Government if I apply again?
Hi Ananya,
At what point did you withdraw from the scholarship? It makes a difference if it was before you completed the pledge form/traveled to Japan or after that. If you completed the pledge form or accepted any benefits from the MEXT Scholarship, then you would not be allowed to apply to start a new scholarship until 3 full years had finished since you last received a benefit. (That should not be a problem if your last application was in 2019 and you are now looking to apply for 2023, but I mention it just in case).
As long more than three years will have passed, then there is nothing stopping you from applying again. I wouldn’t worry about it being “disrespectful”. (If anything, turning down the scholarship in the first place was, but reapplying is not.) You might face some additional challenges if any of the reviewers remember you or, if you did receive benefits last time before withdrawing, but it should still be possible.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis
Thank you for your reply.That’s a relief. I had not signed the pledge form or taken any benefits from MEXT. I had withdrawn after my supervisor informally informed me that I had been selected in the final screening. The Japanese embassy didn’t not announce the results formally by the time I had withdrawn.
However,I wanted to know if I could submit the same research project that I had submitted during 2019 or do you suggest I should work on a new one.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Ananya,
In that case, you should be able to apply with no problems.
You can reuse your former research plan, but I recommend that you double-check to make sure that it’s still relevant to the field and read up on the most recent related research to see if it needs to be updated at all (e.g. any references to the current research in the field should be up to date).
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you Travis. I had another query. I am currently working under the state government in India. Will that be a hindrance in my MEXT application?
Hi Ananya,
It will only be a hinderance if you are working for the military or if your government employer is unwilling to let you resign to go to Japan to study!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
First and foremost, I want to express my gratitude for your assistance.
I hope everything is going well for you.
I’d like to apply for the MEXtT scholarship for the years 2022–2023, and I’m really excited and curious about getting this year through your valuable experience and expertise.
I’d like to know how I may get my hands on your newest edition to the field research studies book.? Could I have an opportunity to learn from you?
Hi Ahmed Sh Ibrahim,
Thank you very much for your kind words! Things are well for me, and I hope the same is true for you, too!
The MEXT scholarship application begins about a year in advance, so the next opportunity to apply will start this month or next month and will be for the scholarship starting in April or September 2023.
You can find my book about how to write your Field of Study and Research Program Plan here, including links to buy it from me directly, from other online booksellers, or the information that you need if you want to ask your local library to order it for you, so that you can read it for free!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you very much for your rapid answer and the useful information.
If you could place an order for it to be read in my local library, it would be a fantastic opportunity for me to gain a thorough grasp of how to draft a winning field research study proposal
Good Luck
-Ahmed sh ibrahim
Hi Ahmed Sh Ibrahim,
I cannot submit an order on behalf of your library, they need to make the order themselves. The link I shared in my last comment has all of the publication information about the book that they should need to order it from their catalog, so you would need to bring that information to them and ask them to submit the order. It should be available in paperback and ebook from all of the usual sources that libraries use to purchase books.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello, Travis.
Thank you for everything you are doing for us. I have a question that I can’t understand what to do for it.. I appreciate your positive advice..
Do I really need to write English qualifications marks in the undergraduate application form or not
The thing is I did not took any qualification exam except, I took regular exam in schooling and collage..
Hi Franklin John Paul,
Thank you for your kind words.
If you have not taken any English language proficiency tests, you can leave the test area blank, but do fill in your self-rating in ability level.
English language proficiency test scores are not required for the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship. You will take a language test later during the Primary Screening once you pass the document review part.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you for the great advice Travis ,with out you no will answer my questions and also I have one more doubt about winning the scholarship.
What if I passed in primary screening with good progress in interview, exam and application strategy ,Is there a chance that I will be selected at final screening of the scholarship in undergraduate and win the scholarship without “WORRYING”.
Hi Franklin John Paul,
I’m glad I could be helpful!
In general, almost all applicants who pass all stages of the Primary Screening ultimately end up being selected for the scholarship. Unlike the graduate scholarship, you do not need to go through the steps of getting a Letter of Provisional Acceptance from universities in Japan, so the Primary Screening is the last competitive step.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Dear TranSenz,
Thank you for the gud answer you have given me last time so, Has I am researching more about mext scholarship “undergraduate. I have some questions about it.. I appreciate your advice and answers you give.
1. How to build up my application rock solid and what are the common mistakes we do while writing the application
2. How should I fill up the recommendation form, If no one recommended me for the mext..
3. How should I prepare for Mext scholarship exam.
4. When should I apply for visa and passport.
This are the questions I got in my mind. I Hope that you will clear my all this doubt….
Thank you..
Hi Franklin John Paul,
I saw that you had asked the same questions on a separate page and answered them there, first.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello I’m Franklin John Paul from India and currently I wanted to apply for mext scholarship and that is only my goal but, one thing is blocking me everything from my goal is that my 12th grade exams was postponed due to covid- 19 in our country and result will be delayed and I can’t get the grade marks till application deadline.. so What can I do for it, How can I break the wall which is blocking me…
and plan futher…
I request , please reply me soon🙏🙏🙏….
Hi Franklin John Paul,
You should be able to apply for the MEXT Scholarship even if you do not have your final results. (Many applicants apply a year before graduating so that they can start their MEXT scholarship right away after their current program.) You should be able to apply by submiting the results that you do have as of the application deadline.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you very for the valuable information Transenz
Hello,
I had a query regarding the GPA calculation for MEXT Scholarship. I intend to study doctoral course(second phase) in a Japanese University. And, my latest academic degree is my master’s degree.
On which course degree will the weightage be given on for GPA calculation whether it’s my Master’s degree or Undergraduate degree? I am a bit confused and concerned regarding this.
Hi Basu,
Only your Master’s Degree grades would be counted for the GPA calculation, although you will have to submit both transcripts.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis, I hope you’ve been well! I am Michael. I would like to ask a few questions about MEXT Scholarship for master’s degree (University Recommended).
So far, I have applied a university recommended scholarship and passed through the preliminary screening, and now I am moving to admission process. Most probably I will get the scholarship eventually.
At this point, I also saw another university call for MEXT Scholarship (University Recommended) applicants. This university is also attractive to me.
I do understand that a applicant cannot apply more than one at the same time. But how they know a student is applying for more than one? To my understanding, they will only know when two same documents with same name passed to MEXT, am I right?
If this is the case, essentially, we could apply more than one, but need to “BRAKE” ourselves before the universities sends two exactly the same documents to MEXT, am I right?
If it is true, may I know at which stage the university will send the finalized name list to the MEXT? Each university sends the document to the MEXT at the same time or at their own timing?
Are you recommend student to apply for more than one university if student really want to secure the chance to get scholarship?
Thank you so much!
Hi Michael,
I absolutely do NOT recommend that you apply to multiple universities for the MEXT Scholarship in the same year. That would be a violation of the rules and I would never encourage it. I think you should drop that thought immediately.
In the MEXT Scholarship application form, there is a question that asks if you are applying to other universities for the MEXT Scholarship that year and you are required to answer honestly. Any deliberate lies on the application form can result in you being disqualified from the scholarship (as would be deserved!), so you would have to tell the truth in that question, and in that case, the university would have to reject your application.
Do not apply to more than one university for the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Alright, thank you so much!
Hello there, Travis! Thanks for the hard work as always! Much appreciated!!
Knowing that MEXT scholarship for postgraduate requires applying for the same major I got my Bachelor’s degree in, or majors closely related to it, I am currently doing a 1 year Postgraduate Diploma program in order to change majors so I can apply for a Master’s degree in the new major (at least how it works in my country lol).
My question is: Can I apply for a MEXT Master’s degree scholarship using this Postgraduate Diploma (or it along with my old Bachelor’s degree)?
Thanks again!
Hi Muhand,
No, unfortunately a postgraduate diploma won’t “count” for determining your previous major. Your major under the MEXT scholarship has to be related to your previous major in a degree program.
I hope you can find some way to link your study field in Japan to your bachelor’s degree.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Aha, I see. I guess I will aim for the PhD scholarship in a few years then lol.
Though a question about that as well. From what I am understanding, to apply for the PhD scholarship I need to present both my Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees. But since both of those will be in two different fields, can I also attach my Postgraduate Diploma as an “explanation” to the difference between the two? Or am I misunderstanding the whole thing and a Master’s Degree by its own is sufficient for the application?
Thanks again!
Hi Muhand,
If you can explain a relationship between your bachelor’s field and the master’s field you are interested in, then you can still apply now. Be creative! If you have a justification, there’s always a chance.
If you decide to wait until your PhD, though, then as long as it is in the same field that you majored in during your Master’s degree, it will not be a problem that your bachelor’s degree was in a different field. As far as the field of studies requirement goes, as long as the field matches any previous degree, it’s fine. They don’t all have to match.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis, I hope you’ve been well! I am Alex. I am asking the question about MEXT Scholarship for master’s degree, regarding how to approach the professor.
In your blogs, For Embassy Recommendation, you mentioned we should refrain from mentioning the MEXT application or a letter of acceptance until we have established a bit of a relationship or we have passed the primary screening.
My question is, for University-Recommendation, shall we straight to the point, mentioning we came for MEXT at the beginning? I am worrying if we start from exchanging knowledge, going deeper and deeper, then only mention the MEXT, and due to some reasons the professor does not want to accept me (e.g. he/she doesn’t hold the MEXT slots, or the slots already filled by another student, so he/she would not have continued to keep in touch with me if know I am aiming for MEXT at the beginning). Therefore, if I mention MEXT at halfway and the professor does not want to accept me, aren’t we are wasting each other time?
Besides, I wonder is it possible to check if a professor is holding the scholarship slots,.
And, are we encouraged to send our research proposal in the first email?
Thank you for all your help!
Hi Alex,
I saw that you left multiple questions, but this one seems to have all of the previous questions included, so I am going to respond here. If I have missed anything, please let me know.
My recommendation about avoiding mentioning MEXT at the outset depends on when in the process you start contacting professors. Ideally, you would start months before the application and, in that case, I recommend avoiding mentioning MEXT until you have established a relationship. However, if the application process is already ongoing and you need a response soon, then you are going to have to get to the point quickly.
If you are really interested in studying with that professor, then you should be trying every way possible to get admission to the program (and a scholarship, as necessary). So, even if you were to miss the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship this time, I assume you would try again for the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship next year. Hopefully, the professor is going to be willing to stay in touch with you as make multiple attempts, if necessary.
Professors do not hold MEXT Scholarship slots. The university has a specific number of slots to distribute among all applicants. An individual professor cannot decide to award you a scholarship. In most cases, what you are seeking from the professor is an agreement to supervise your research if your scholarship application is successful. You are going to have to do all of the work to make that successful, not the professor.
Regarding sending the Research Proposal in the first email, this depends on how much time you have for communication with the professor before the application deadline/before you need to know whether or not they would be willing to supervise you if accepted. If you have over a month and can afford to wait for a few back-and-forth messages, I do not recommend sending it in the first message. But if you have no time and need to get to the point, then by all means, include it.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi, Travis, Thank you so much for answering all my questions with detailed explanations!
So the whole story is, a university has a specific number of slots to distribute among all applicants, and the professors can decide if they want to “nominate” a student for MEXT Scholarship: If professors like the research plan, they will ask students to fill the formal scholarship application form and submit it, supervising the research if the application is successful; if not, they don’t. Professor cannot directly award a student MEXT Scholarship, but can ‘nominate’ students to get the scholarship, am I right?
So, only when we have an agreement from a professor to supervise our research, then we can formally apply for the University-Recommendation MEXT Scholarship. And the agreement doesn’t necessarily mean we are successfully getting the scholarship, am I right?
If my thoughts are correct, basically we have two lines to pass, the first line is professor, we need to get an agreement for supervision; the second line is “higher management”, we need to pass all the interviews (or any other else) to get the scholarship. May I know most of the applications are rejected on the first line or second line?
I am so sorry for my long questions.
Thank you for all your help!
Hi Alex,
For the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, each university sets their own application process, so there is no single way of conducting the screening (some universities don’t even have applicants contact professors directly at any point). I have never heard of a system like the one you described, though. It doesn’t mean that’s impossible, but I do find it a little unlikely.
The most common/similar system I have seen is this:
– Applicants contact professors to get their agreement to supervise them if they pass. The purpose of this step is not necessarily for the professor to nominate the student, but to confirm that if the applicant does pass the administrative screening, then there will be a professor able to supervise their research.
– Applicants then submit the application through the administrative office (or professors might forward it, in some cases). The administrative screening is where most applicants are eliminated, since they are looking at the objective criteria like GPA, language proficiency, etc. In general, only the top applicants are going to get through this stage. (I have seen cases where about 200 applicants were competing for five or fewer slots).
– Once the admin screening is done, the applications go back to the faculty. At this point, the professor’s level of investment in supporting your application is probably a more significant factor as the faculty members determine the final selectees from among the top remaining candidates.
Under this system, when you first contact the professor, they are not going to even know if you are eligible or not (universities would not ask professors to do that check), so at that point they can tentatively agree to take on multiple applicants, under the assumption that most will not pass the admin screening.
It is still important to get the professor engaged in your research at the early stage, but at that point, they should be able to support multiple students.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
I finally get the whole picture.
Travis, thank you for the detailed explanation!
Hello!
My school follows the grading system of Pakistan.
In this system:
80-100% = A += 4 70-79% = A = 4
60-69% = B = 3 50-59% = C = 2
My score for my latest academic (Grade 11) year is:
Subject (1)= 66% Subject (2)=78% Subject (3)=64% Subject (4)=72% Subject (5)=72
Subject (6)=72%
Mext GPA is:
80-100% = 3 70-79% = 2 60-69 = 1
Then, my GPA on a 3 scale will be:
Subject (1) = 1 Subject (2) = 2 Subject (3) = 1 Subject (4) = 2 Subject (5) = 2 Subject (6) = 2
GPA = 1+1+2+2+2+2/6 = 10/6 = 1.6 (So I don’t qualify for mext, am I right?)
One more question regarding the mext GPA requirement
Is the GPA of the latest year required or of all high school years.
My GPA for grade 9 = 2.75/3
Subject (1)= 68% Subject (2)=95% Subject (3) = 100% Subject (4) = 92% Subject (5) = 89% Subject (6) = 87% Subject (7) = 86% Subject (8) = 92%
and grade 10 = 2.87/3
Subject (1)= 70% Subject (2)=97% Subject (3) = 100% Subject (4) = 94% Subject (5) = 92% Subject (6) = 89% Subject (7) = 90% Subject (8) = 94%
Kindly let me know if I qualify to apply for mext undergraduate scholarship or not.
Regards,
Isabella
Hi Isabella Shahid,
I saw that you had asked the same question on another post and answered it there first.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis. I hope you’ve been well! I am asking a question about MEXT Scholarship for master’s degree regarding the “Application Form” and “Field of Study and Research Program Plan Form”.
Both of them have a similar problem to each other, which is “Field of specialization studied in the past, under Application Form”, or “Present field of study, under Field of Study and Research Program Plan Form”. May I know what are the differences between them?
If I may, could you give some brief answer examples to clearly show the distinctions between them?
Thank you for all your help!
Hi Bernard Tiong,
I have covered how to answer each of those questions in my articles about the application form (University version / Embassy Version) and about the Field of Study and Research Program Plan (University version / Embassy Version), so I would suggest reading those articles. For the former, I do have an example answer, since it is relatively short, but for the question on the FSRPP, I have an explanation of what you should write and how. I hope that helps!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Alright, Thank you so much!
Hi Travis, I hope you’ve been well! I am Bernard Tiong. I am asking the question about MEXT Scholarship for master’s degree.
May I ask if I can apply for University Recommended and Embassy Recommended MEXT Scholarship simultaneously?
As you mentioned in your article, the correct way is to apply for Embassy Recommended first, then University Recommended, but I will be graduating in September 2022, so now I am planning to apply for University Recommended so I no need to wait to enter my master study if I successfully get the scholarship.
However, University Recommended is extremely challenging, so actually I am putting my hope on Embassy Recommended one (In my country, Embassy Recommended application opens around March or April 2022), but I also wanna try for University Recommended.
Therefore, I am wondering if I can apply these two simultaneously (University Recommended first and then Embassy Recommended)? May I know for the University Recommended, around when I can unofficially know if I get accepted, based on your extensive experience? If I can unofficially know my University Recomeneded final application status before the application of Embassy Recommended, then I have no concern and worries for applying Embassy Recommended, either not to apply because already get accepted in University Recommended, or apply because not accepted in University Recommended, am I right?
Hope you can answer my inquires because I saw some online articles saying students shall not apply both at the same time. If cannot apply both at the same time, I definitely will go for Embassy Recommended because I don’t want be disqualified from applying Embassy Recommended because of already applied for University Recommended because the chance to get accepted in Embassy Recommendation is much higher than University Recomended
Lastly, I will be appreciated if you can send me an email after addressing my question so I know my question is answered.
Thank you so much!
Hi Bernard Tiong,
You are not allowed to have multiple active applications open for the MEXT Scholarship at any time. That means that you can’t apply to multiple universities for the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship in the same year and you can’t have an open application for the University- and Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarships at the same time. It is specifically forbidden in the eligibility criteria.
However, there should be no need to have an open application for both. Whether you start with the Embassy or the University application, the Primary Screening should be over before the other application type begins. You will receive a notification if you pass that Primary Screening.
For the Embassy, the Primary Screening runs from approximately May-August and for the University, it is usually some time between September to January at the latest. If you do not pass the Primary Screening, then your application is over and you are free to apply again. If you do pass the Primary Screening, then in most cases, you are practically sure to get the scholarship (in the case of the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, it is more certain after you have received at least one Letter of Provisional Acceptance from a university). So, if you pass the Primary Screening, then there should be no need to apply for the other scholarship type.
I’m afraid I cannot email you to let you know about this post, but I hope you get an automatic notification.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Alright. Thank you so much!
Hi I am ABDU from Djibouti and I visited the website of Japan embassy in Djibouti but there was no information there about mext scholarship. So would you give me some information if you can.
Thank you.
Hi ABDU,
Typically, the scholarship application procedures are released in April or May and the application is due in May or June, so they might just not have any information posted since it is not the application cycle now.
I recommend that you check back with them around April. In the meantime, you can find the guidelines from this year on the Study in Japan website for your reference and preparation. I also have articles about how to apply for the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship linked from this page, so please review those for more details!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis.
Following your email, I’m giving you feedback of my Embassy-recommended application. Unfortunately, for the second consecutive year, I didn’t get past the document screening. I truly invested all my time and effort in this application, and followed all the tips from your books. It just wasn’t enough.
I’m aware that last year, my research plan was week. This time, I feel like there was nothing more I could do. Maybe I should have written it sooner and asked a professor to review it, which is the only advise of yours which I didn’t follow due to restrictions in time.
I’m currently writing my thesis in order to complete my Master’s degree. Maybe next year I’ll have more chances, since I’ll have a proper abstract and a complete education. I also want to take the JLPT N5, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to have the certificate in time of the application due to the scheduled dates. It may not make a difference since it’s only the beginner level, but either way… I’ll also make sure to ask you to review my research plan. I know there’s a lot that can be improved, but I’m struggling to understand how I can do better.
After I finish my degree in November, I’ll probably try the University-recommendation route. I’ll have to apply first to the university in order to be considered for the MEXT scholarship, which requires a considerable financial investment, and the chances of being accepted and granted the scholarship are extremely low. Either way, I might ask you to review my research plan sooner than later.
Thank you for all your help.
Hi Rui Pedro Bessa,
I am very sorry to hear about your results, particularly when you were confident that you had done all you could. There can be any number of reasons that might have gone into the result, but when you are ready for your next application, please let me know if you are still interested in a review of your Field of Study and Research Program Plan or full application and I will be happy to work with you then to see what I can figure out!
For the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, the application period starts at different times depending on the university, so if you know where you want to apply, I recommend you check their application timeline as soon as possible.
I have heard of cases where a research proposal/application that was rejected by the embassy was accepted by the (typically more competitive) university application without any changes, since the two application methods have different priorities, particularly regarding the research proposal.
Again, I am sorry to hear about your situation. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help in the future!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis! Thanks for all the help your blogs have given me. Unfortunately, I still made one mistake in the Application Form for the MEXT Embassy Recommendation—I missed including the location of my employment. Can I seek your advice on this? Based on your experiences screening applicants, would this automatically put me in the “no” pile or is there still a way to amend this info to my application say by emailing the embassy etc? At this point, I’ve lost quite a bit of hope I’ll make it past the initial screening despite the effort I put into the Research Plan, but I guess I would like to know if I should just move on and do better next time? Thanks so much!
Hi Jana,
Leaving out one entry in your application form should not be enough to get your application rejected by itself.
I recommend that you contact the embassy and ask them if there is a way that you can correct it or resubmit that page, though.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello
Great job for what you’re doing.. i discovered FAQ then I will be quick as possible. I applied to mext scholarship 2021 by sending scan documents through email but I’m in big trouble.. First set of scan documents with numérotation was in order although I didn’t mentioned title but only in email object ( RS + name)… Then I panicked because I was in hurry and sent an another and another set of application documents (because of the deadline) which I verified later was in disorder.. Since I’m anxious . Sure I got email’embassy notification stating : Dear.. we have received your documents but next time send it in format pdf (we have well received your documents). How is it going..
Hi Fulvio,
It sounds like the embassy confirmed that they have received your documents and that you do not need to resend them, but if they do ask you to resend, take your time to prepare and scan them correctly in the required format.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Please I forgot to ask this:
6. On the “Nationality” answer space provided, are we supposed to write the name of our country or the adjective ?
For example, I’m from CAMEROON. Should I answer with “CAMEROONIAN” or “CAMEROON” ?!
Hi Frank Cabrel,
6. You should write the name of your country (Cameroon, in your case). But it is not a significant problem if you wrote the adjective and already submitted it, they will be able to figure it out and that will not hurt you.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi, I’m Frank Cabrel from Cameroon and I’m currently applying for the MEXT scholarship for Research students.
Travis pls I have the following questions concerning the Application documents and I really need your help
1. Concerning the photograph on the application form, i just stapled all three photos on it, so will i encounter a complication in future or can I print another copy of the application form now and paste the photos with a cello tape?
2. My doctor used a blue pen when filling my Medical certificate so I’m wandering if this is a problem?
3. Concerning the Research thesis I’m to submit, should I submit the whole copy with the total number of pages done or i should submit just an abstract….(By the way I’m not yet done with my research thesis because I’m still carrying out the data analysis)
4. Still for the photos, should I trim them appropriately for them to fit in perfectly in the box on the application form or should I paste it as it is ?
5. When submitting the documents to the Embassy should I put each document in a separate envelope before compiling them in one folder or what should I do Travis…I’m so confused ….and I’m to submit my application file next week
Please Travis reply to me as soon as you get this 🙏🙏
Hi Frank Cabrel,
I saw you had asked the same question on another article and answered it there first.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz