Applying for Letters of Provisional Acceptance is your final active step in the MEXT Scholarship application process!
Congratulations on Passing the Embassy’s Primary Screening!
If you want to learn more about how to choose the best university and professor for you, as well as how to reach out to professors for a Letter of Provisional Acceptance, I go into much more detail in How to Find Your Best Degree Program and Advisor for the MEXT Scholarship.
In fact, almost all applicants who pass the Primary Screening and get at least one Letter of Provisional Acceptance (LoPA) from a university in Japan receive the MEXT Scholarship. The good news is that the screening to get a LoPA is significantly less competitive than the Embassy’s Primary Screening and as long as you avoid the major causes for rejection that I discuss below, you should have no problems at this stage.
Note: The only time I have heard of applicants being rejected for the scholarship after passing the Primary Screening and getting a LoPA was in the 2019/2020 application cycle, when MEXT had a budget crunch and had to reduce the number of scholarships after the primary screening was already in progress or over in some countries. I do not expect that situation to happen again.
So, what do you need to know about getting that letter of acceptance? Let’s get started.
Note: This Article is About the Application Process in 2023
If you are applying in 2023 for the MEXT Scholarship to begin in 2024, then this article is for you. If you are reading in a future year, be aware that the deadlines below will have changed and there could be other changes to the requirements, too, but the general idea should remain the same!
Only applicants for the MEXT Scholarship for Research Students (Graduate Students) are required to obtain Letters of Provisional Acceptance.
Three Ways to FAIL to Get a Letter of Provisional Acceptance
Let’s get this out of the way first: There are three avoidable ways to get rejected by a university. Almost every LoPA rejection I have seen was for one of these causes.
- Missing the Deadline: As of the 2023/2024 Embassy Recommended MEXT Scholarship Application Cycle (applying in 2023), the deadline to apply to universities for a LoPA is Friday, August 25, 2023 (Japan time). If you do not submit your application by that time, they won’t even look at it. Be aware of time differences and don’t wait until the last minute. An application that arrives in the Japanese university’s inbox at 00:05 am on August 26 will be rejected, even if it was still August 25 where you are.
You also want to avoid the possibility that your email doesn’t arrive at all because it is too large or the university’s inbox is full. Submit it as early as you can!
- Not Having the Required Language Ability: Every year I hear about applicants who have zero Japanese language ability applying to programs that are taught only in Japanese. Of course, universities reject all of them! You need to have the requisite language ability as of the time you apply for the LoPA or you don’t have a chance.
While MEXT offers a 1-semester, intensive Japanese language program on arrival for scholarship recipients, it is not supposed to teach you academic Japanese or give you enough ability to study for your degree in the language. It teaches Japanese for surviving day-to-day life. So do not think that you can apply to a Japanese-taught program and brush up on your language skills later.
This is an easily avoidable problem if you followed my advice in my article about how to find universities and professors in Japan.
- Applying to a University Where No Professor Can Supervise Your Research: This was probably the single-most common reason for rejections at my former university. The rejection letters would say something like, “Great student, great research plan, but we don’t have anyone doing research in that field that can supervise you.”
This is mostly avoidable if you follow the advice in the article I listed above and my book, How to Find Your Best Degree Program and Advisor for the MEXT Scholarship. The only part that is beyond your control is retirements and personnel changes. However, if you get in contact with the professors in advance, you can also avoid those personnel problems.
If you can avoid those three pitfalls, you should have no problems securing two Letters of Provisional Acceptance. Here is the process you need to follow to make sure you get everything done.
Choosing Your Universities
By this point, you should already have selected up to three universities and professors that you want to apply to. If not, I have another guide to help you locate universities and professors in your field of study.
If you have already been in contact with the professors for networking, that is to your advantage. But even if you have tried to contact the professors and gotten no response, do not let that stop you from trying again now. Many universities have a policy to not respond to MEXT Scholarship applicants until after they have passed the Primary Screening. It’s nothing personal.
Changing the Universities on your Placement Preference Form
If you have a list of universities and professors but want to change it from the information you entered in the Placement Preference Form before the Primary Screening, that should still be possible. You might want to change the universities on this form if you found a better university/professor after submitting your Placement Preference Form, or if any of the universities on your list rejects your application and you need an alternative.
To check the rules about changing the universities on your list, contact the Japanese embassy or consulate where you applied for more details on their policies. Usually, you will submit the Placement Preference Form again after acquiring the Letters of Provisional Acceptance and when you do, you can only include universities that have offered you a LoPA or, at least, have not rejected your application. Most applicants must change the list based on results from the universities.
Deadlines
Applying to Universities for a Letter of Provisional Acceptance
The deadline to contact universities to request a Letter of Provisional Acceptance for the 2023/2024 scholarship application cycle is Friday, August 25, 2023 Japan Time. MEXT has instructed all universities in Japan that they are to refuse any applicant who contacts them on or after August 26. Keep in mind that Japan is ahead of most countries in terms of time zones. Do not wait until the last day! An emailed application sent on the 25th in your time zone that arrives after midnight in Japan will be rejected.
Email Delivery Problems
If you send your application by email, that message is likely to have several large attachments, so your application email might not be delivered. It could also get filtered as spam, be blocked because it is too large, or it could be rejected because the recipient’s email inbox is too full to accept it. If that happens, you might never know that your application didn’t arrive.
When applying by email, I recommend sending two emails: The first one with no attachments that states your intent to apply and informs the university/professor that you will send a follow-up email immediately with the required documents attached, and the second one with the actual application materials attached. That way, even if the attachment email doesn’t get through, the first message should arrive and they will know that you have tried to apply. Even if your email with the attachments does not arrive, they may be flexible and allow you to resend the documents that were blocked.
Recently, I have seen applicants try to send documents with a Google Drive download link to avoid heavy attachments. If you do so, make sure you set the permissions so that anyone with the link can access the files. Do not limit access to specific email addresses. The receiving email address might be a shared address that automatically distributes to other emails, etc., so if you limit the addresses, the person who needs to process your application might not be able to access it.
How Long Does it Take to Get a Letter of Provisional Acceptance?
August 25, 2023 is your deadline to contact the universities. It is not the deadline for universities to issue the Letter of Provisional Acceptance. MEXT specifically says that applicants must not urge universities to issue letters quickly.
MEXT has instructed universities to reply to applicants with the final results within approximately one month of receiving the request. This is not an immediate process and you should not expect instant results. At most universities, your application will first need to be reviewed by an individual professor in your field, who will determine if they can accept you. Then, it would have to be approved at a committee meeting at the department and/or graduate school level. The problem is that August and most of September are the summer vacation months at most Japanese universities, so some professors are not at the university, may not be reviewing their email as often, and there are no committee meetings until the semester starts up again. So, this naturally causes the process to go slowly.
It it takes a long time to get a response from the university, do not take that as a bad sign. It is not a judgement about your application or the university “ghosting” you. It is just a slow process with a lot of waiting.
Make sure you apply to the university and give them enough time (at least a month) to process it, make their decision, and issue the letter. Do not start insistently contacting the university if they don’t send you a letter right away. That will not get you a positive response. However, if a month has passed since you contacted the university and you have not heard from them, or if your deadline to submit the Letter of Provisional Acceptance to your embassy/consulate is approaching, then it is OK to contact them and politely ask about the status.
Keep in mind that it might take a few days before universities can get to your email. Universities will also be extremely busy processing applications around the deadline, so expect delays in replies. It is also common for universities to not acknowledge receipt of your application and not send any reply until they have made their final decision.
Submitting Letters of Provisional Acceptance to Your Embassy/Consulate
Each embassy or consulate will set the deadline for you to submit your Letters of Acceptance and final Placement Preference Form, so please refer to the embassy or consulate where you applied for their submission deadlines.
How Many Universities to Contact
You may contact a maximum of two universities at one time to request a Letter of Provisional Acceptance. This is a change from the past, when you could have three or more Letters of Acceptance, so if you see any articles (including on this site) saying that three or four letters are OK, that information is out of date!
Even though you will probably have three universities in your Placement Preference Form, you can still only contact two at one time. If one of the two universities you contact rejects your application and it is still before the deadline, then you can contact an alternate, but you should never have more than two active or complete applications and you should not get more than two Letters of Provisional Acceptance.
What Happens if You Get More than Two Letters?
If you paid attention to the instructions, this should never happen. But if you didn’t and you only realize after receiving the letters that you were only allowed to have two, then contact the embassy and tell them what happened. They will give you further instructions.
But it’s actually not in your favor to have more than two. Having more Letters of Provisional Acceptance does not increase your chances of success. As long as you have one from your first-choice university, you should be fine in almost all cases.
Applying for a Letter of Acceptance: How to Apply
MEXT’s instructions say to contact the division of international student affairs at the university where you intend to apply, first. However, I recommend that your first step should be to check the university’s website to see if they have instructions posted for Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship applicants. The best way I have found to do this is to search Google for your university name and the words “Embassy MEXT”. For example, “University of Tokyo Embassy MEXT.” Then, read the web page to find the instruction for applying for a Letter of Provisional Acceptance.
You may find that some universities ask you to contact a faculty member as part of your application. In that case, follow the university’s instructions.
I tried this method for 7 top universities and in almost every case, the top result was the page with the instructions on how to apply for a letter of acceptance.
Despite MEXT’s instructions that applicants should contact the international offices at their target universities, you can see from the list below that the actual practice can vary significantly from university to university.
Just for reference, the universities I tried (June 2023) and their results were:
- University of Tokyo: Contact the administrative office of the graduate school where you want to enroll (not your prospective advisor).
- Tohoku University: Contact the instructor directly. If you cannot find their contact information, then contact the administrative office of their graduate school.
- Kyoto University: Contact the professor directly, or through the administrative office of the graduate school/research institute, or submit an online application to the Admissions Assistance Office.
- Osaka University: Recommended to contact the professor in advance through the International Student Affairs Division to inquire about the possibility of acceptance and consult about the research contents, but you must officially apply by emailing the required documents to the International Student Affairs Division. There are specific instructions for the subject line and contents of the email you need to send.
- Waseda University: Complete their online form and upload the documents directly. It is not necessary to contact your desired supervisor beforehand.
- Keio University: Contact your deisred advisor for informal acceptance, then complete their online form and upload the documents directly.
*This was the only university where I could not find the instructions using the Google method above and had to dig around their website for the information, which is very Keio.
- Ritsumeikan University: Submit application to the International Center by email (including the university’s own survey form).
If the university does not offer specific instructions on their website, your embassy or consulate should have a list of staff members responsible for accepting MEXT scholarship applications at various Japanese universities. If you already know which universities you want to contact (see my article on how to identify the best Japanese universities and professors for your field of study), then the embassy staff may be able to help you.
Applying for a Letter of Provisional Acceptance: How to Send Your Application
The website with the Letter of Provisional Acceptance application procedures for your university should have a list of required documents. Always follow the directions from the university instead of the instructions below or instructions from the embassy. The information I have provided below is from the MEXT guidelines, so it is more general.
You will send all of your application documents by email to the university or upload them directly, depending on the university’s instructions. MEXT also says that you can send the documents by post if you have trouble submitting them electronically, but in that case, make sure that you contact the university first and communicate with them about your submission plan. You will also have to submit your application even earlier in this case, since the mailed documents would need to arrive at the university before the deadline.
When sending your documents by email, I recommend you do not attach them all to your first message. Your application document scans may have a very large file size and many university email accounts in Japan have size limits or attachment size limits. If your attachments exceed the limit, your mail will not be delivered and the university might never know that you tried to apply!
Before sending your documents, reach out to the office or professor you have identified. Let them know you plan to apply and that you will send your application documents in a subsequent email. You do not need to wait for a reply to your first message.
Applying for a Letter of Provisional Acceptance: What to Send
I recommend you scan all of your documents together in a single pdf file. This is easy enough to do if you have a scanner available and you can even scan documents as a pdf from a smartphone using the free Adobe Scan app. NEVER send your documents as individual jpeg files for each page. That makes it very difficult for the university to process your application and will put them in a bad mood before they even begin to review the contents of your file.
At a minimum, you are required to send the university the documents below. These should be the documents that you submitted to the embassy and had returned to you after the primary screening and should be stamped by the embassy. You cannot replace the contents of these forms between submitting them to the embassy and sending them to universities.
- Application Form
- Field of Study and Research Program Plan
- Academic transcript for all academic year of university attended
- Certificate of graduation or degree certificate of the university attended
- Certificate of graduation or degree certificate of the university attended
- Abstracts of theses (only if submitted to the diplomatic mission)
- Medical Certificate
- Certificate of language proficiency (only if submitted to the diplomatic mission*)
- Recommendation letter from the present employer (only if submitted to the diplomatic mission)
- Photograph(s) showing applicant’s own works of art or a digitally recorded media of musical performance (only if submitted to the diplomatic mission)
- Copy of a passing Certificate of the First Screening issued by the diplomatic mission
*Universities will sometimes require you to submit proof of language proficiency even if you did not submit it to the embassy during the primary screening.
Note that the Placement Preference Form is not on that list! Per the application guidelines, you are not to send that document to the universities. MEXT has instructed Universities they cannot request it from you.
If a university requests that you send the Placement Preference Form, politely tell them that your instructions from MEXT were that you are not to submit it to universities. You can send them a link to the application guidelines in Japanese saying so as well. Here is that link:
https://www.studyinjapan.go.jp/en/_mt/2023/04/2024_Guidelines_Research_J.pdf
The university may also ask you to submit additional documentation. As long as it is not the Placement Preference Form, then you are required to submit it. That includes submitting language proficiency certificates, documents unique to the university, etc., even if you did not submit them to the embassy or consulate. For example, some universities may require you to submit JLPT scores, TOEFL scores, or even GRE scores, even though you did not submit them to the embassy.
For a detailed explanation of the required documents, please see my article about How to Apply for the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship.
Receiving Your Letter of Provisional Acceptance
There are a few things you will want to pay particular attention to in your Letter of Provisional Acceptance once you receive it.
Arrival Date
The first is your date of arrival. In the Application Form, you wrote whether you prefer to arrive in the April or September/October semester. When the university issues your Letter of Provisional Acceptance, it will include their decision about when you should arrive. In principle, it is not possible to change that date from what is written in the Letter of Provisional Acceptance, so make sure the date in that letter works for you.
Enrollment Status
The second thing to check is your status. In your application form, you filled in whether you wanted to arrive as a research student or a degree-seeking student (in the master’s, doctoral, or professional program).
In order for the university to issue you a Letter of Provisional Acceptance as a degree-seeking student, you would have to pass their entrance examination prior to them issuing the letter. Some universities will consider a screening of your application documents to be a sufficient entrance exam. But if they do not, the chances are high that you would not have passed their exam yet. In that case, the university would issue you a letter of an acceptance as a research student.
This can change!
If your Letter of Provisional Acceptance lists you as a “Research Student”, the university will have 2 opportunities later to “upgrade” you to a degree-seeking student before your arrival:
- During the placement phase: After you submit your Letters of Provisional Acceptance and final Placement Preference Form to the Embassy, MEXT will conduct a secondary screening of your application. After that secondary screening, MEXT will contact the universities on your Placement Preference Form one-by-one to ask them to accept you. If you have passed the university’s entrance exam in the meantime, then when the university replies to MEXT to confirm that they will accept you, they can change your status to degree-seeking student.
- Upon arrival in Japan: If the university agrees to accept your placement as a research student, but you then pass their entrance exam prior to arriving in Japan, then the university can send a notice of change of status and change of scholarship payment period to MEXT and you could to start as a degree-seeking student immediately on arrival in Japan.
If you end up arriving in Japan and starting as a research student, there is no problem with that course of action, either. In fact, that’s what I recommend in most cases. You will take the entrance exam while in Japan and apply for an extension of your scholarship to cover the full degree program. Starting as a research student will give you an extra semester (or more) to get used to studying in Japan and to take courses and starting your research.
Japanese Language Preparatory Education
The final thing to check is whether the university plans to assign you to the Japanese language program. Usually, they will send you to that program if you are studying in English and need to learn some basic Japanese to survive daily life. If your Japanese is already good enough that you can study for a degree in Japanese, you will most likely not join the Japanese language program.
If you are starting in the Japanese language preparatory education program, you will be a research student (non-degree student) for the duration of that program, even if you applied to start directly with the degree program.
I recommend you make a copy of each of your Letters of Provisional Acceptance prior to submitting them, so that you can refer to the contents later.
Submitting Your Letters of Provisional Acceptance and Placement Preference Form to the Embassy
When to Submit
MEXT requires that you turn in every Letter of Provisional Acceptance that you receive to the Embassy and that you list those universities in your placement preference form. It used to not be mandatory, so you might see comments from past students that they applied for more Letters than they turned in at the end. That is no longer allowed. Submitting fewer letters would constitute lying on your application and could result in your being disqualified if discovered later.
Each embassy or consulate controls its own deadline for when you should submit Letters of Provisional Acceptance, so be sure to check with them. MEXT has asked universities to return letters of acceptance within one month of the application, so the embassies’ deadlines should not be earlier than that, but there are always miscommunications between the two.
*In the past, MEXT required universities to produce Letters of Acceptance within a month. This is no longer a requirement, but your local embassy might think that it is and set their deadline accordingly. If your embassy has given you a deadline, it is not rude to provide that information to the university, provided you are polite when you address them.
Resubmitting the Placement Preference Form
When you submit your Letters of Provisional Acceptance, you will also likely have to submit an updated Placement Preference Form. You are not allowed to list universities on your final Placement Preference Form that refused to issue you a Letter of Provisional Acceptance. This also applies if one professor/graduate school at a university has rejected your application. You can not list an alternate professor or graduate school at that university!
You are, however, allowed to list universities that have not yet replied to you as well as those that have issued you a Letter of Provisional Acceptance (even if the hard copy of that document has not yet arrived). Even if every university you applied to for a Letter of Provisional Acceptance rejected your application, you can also list universities that you never applied to. But in that case, since you won’t have a chance to contact the university in advance, you should do your research to make sure that they have a matching program and professor who can supervise you!
You should also be able to re-order your university preferences, but that is also something you should confirm with the embassy.
It is mandatory to list all universities that have issued you a Letter of Provisional Acceptance. The old tactic (pre-2020) of acquiring emergency back-up Letters of Acceptance but only submitting the one letter from your first-choice school is no longer allowed.
Since you can only get two Letters of Provisional Acceptance, but can submit up to three university names on your Placement Preference Form, you can include the names of universities that you didn’t apply to for Letters of Provisional Acceptance.
Secondary Screening and University Placement
Once you have submitted the Letters of Provisional Acceptance and the final Placement Preference Form, the application process is essentially over for you. All you have left to do is wait for your placement assignment, sometime between November to February.
Aside from the 2019-2020 cycle, I have never heard of an applicant getting rejected for the scholarship after passing the Primary Screening and submitting at least one Letter of Provisional Acceptance. However, in 2019, it happened to several people. In that year, MEXT reduced the number of places available to each country during the Primary Screening. Some countries seemed to have gotten the information in time and reduced the number of students who passed that screening, but others did not, so applicants from some countries were eliminated during the Secondary Screening to get down to the required number. In those cases, the applicants heard after MEXT’s Secondary Screening process and before the University Placement Process, so they got their replies much earlier than the successful applicants.
One thing that all rejected applicants I heard from had in common was that they had all left the Japanese Language Proficiency Test blank during the Primary Screening!
2019 was the first, and so far only, time I have heard of this happening. I do not expect it to happen again, but I can no longer be sure. This was also the year that Japan made higher education free to students from low-income households, so I suspect that had a major impact on MEXT’s budget and led to the cuts.
It will take a long time for the embassies to confirm that you have passed the Secondary Screening and to announce your university placement, but do not let that bother you. That is just normal, slow bureaucracy, not a reflection on your application. For the 2023/2024 application cycle, the final results and placement information are expected in January-February 2024.
Unofficial Results
Sometimes, you may end up hearing from the universities even before the embassy gives you the final approval. For example, universities might contact you about attending the Japanese language program around October/November. If they do, that usually means that you have passed the Secondary Screening and MEXT has reached out to that university to ask them to accept you.
You might also hear from your professor or housing office at one university on your list, asking about the Japanese language program or informing you that you should apply for housing (in the case of spring semester arrivals). In any of those cases, you can consider the contact from the university to be an unofficial confirmation that you will win the scholarship and be placed at that university.
However, if you do not get unofficial confirmation, don’t worry! Universities are not supposed to contact you at this stage, so the lack of any messages could just be a sign that they’re doing things right.
Once you have your final confirmation, I recommend that you reach out to the other university that issued you a Letter of Provisional Acceptance to let them know you were placed in another university and thank them for their support, particularly if you were in direct contact with the professor there. You never know when you might end up interacting with them after arriving in Japan!
For more about what to expect from the secondary screening and placement, I have another article entirely about that process.
Questions?
Let me know in the comments below!
Special Thanks
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Hi Travis!
Hope this message finds you well. I wrote in this comment section a couple weeks ago asking for tips and suggestions regarding the process of getting LPA. I finally got mine from Kyoto University and Hokkaido University yesterday. They arrived in my mail back to back. I was kind of feeling hopeless as the deadline was about a day away. I just want to thank you for your advice and motivation. It makes me happy to read other people in this thread also received their LPA just in time.
Hopefully this blogpost continues to get updates regarding the process of MEXT or any other experiences and tips of studying abroad in Japan.
Thanks again for your effort in sharing your knowledge and experience with all of us.
Hi MarioFer,
Thank you for your feedback!
I am glad to hear that you got your letters, even if it was a little stressful to wait so close to the deadline. Did either of the universities let you know in advance that the LoPAs would be coming? Or did you have no indication until they arrived?
I plan to continue updating this (and the other) posts each year, based on changes to the system and reader feedback about what you want to know more about. This year, I also ran a survey on applicants’ LoPA experiences, so I plan to incorporate that info, as well!
Now, you have an even longer wait for the final results, but with two LoPAs, you should have nothing to worry about at all!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi! Yeah, the Graduate School of Kyoto university told me by email that the LPA will be delivered by the end of the month due to the graduate school meeting was to be held during the last week of the month. However, rejection was also possible they stated.
As or Hokkaido I was worried that the LPA was to be issued by the deadline as my interview with my proposed supervisor was just 8 days before the deadline. Thankfully it arrived in time.
As for the long wait I am planning to use this time in learning some basic Japanese and studying for entrance exams, finding out where to study from.
Hi MarioFer,
Thank you for the details about your communications with the universities! That is a helpful reference for next year. (I think this article will need a significant revision).
Good plan for how best to use your time!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
Thank you for everything, I finally got my LoPA from Tohoku and they will also send me a physical copy. I’m so relieved, but now will be the longest wait, and I hope I will get the scholarship despite getting only one LoPA.
Again thank you! 🙂
Hi Gabby,
Congratulation on getting the LoPA!
You have an even longer wait coming now, but since you’ve secured an LoPA, I cannot see any reason why you wouldn’t get the scholarship in the end!
(Zero LoPAs would decrease the chances, but in my experience–other than the year of the slot cuts–everyone who gets at least one LoPA ends up getting the scholarship.)
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis, it’s Alex again.
Sorry I think I have multiple comments due to my faulty internet connectivity but I’d like to share that I got the LoPA and the professor met with me online to discuss things too. However, I have not sent to the embassy the copy of the LoPA yet because I wanted to ask something first. The univ that gave me this LoPA was 3rd on the list of my first submitted placement preference form. My first choice uni has rejected last thursday and the 2nd uni was the one who rejected me on the day of the deadline. Thankfully the 3rd uni responded and now I got a LoPA from them. So I’d like to ask, since we are no longer allowed to write the univs that rejected us in the updated placement form, should I still write two other unis that the embassy said even when we never contacted them or can I just write the only uni that accepted me? Because I am really just that thankful that they gave me this chance so I really want to go to this uni. Or should I just write two random unis since MEXT will just usually place students to schools where they got a LoPA? I hope you can advise me. Thanks again, Travis!
Hi Alex,
I saw the multiple comments, but I’m replying to this one, since you didn’t mention the university name in it.
When you resubmit the Placement Preference Form, you could do so with only the university that gave you the LoPA. Under most circumstances, that is what I’d recommend. But since they have this somewhat odd situation with the admissions application being a condition, it might not be a bad idea to have a back-up in your case.
Since your first choice university (now) with the LoPA is a National University, there is no reason that MEXT would skip over that university to place you in one lower down your list, especially considering that they have given you the LoPA! The only reason that you wouldn’t end up there would be if the university changed its mind when MEXT asked it to confirm final acceptance. In that case, MEXT would turn to your second choice.
But I would only recommend putting a 2nd or 3rd choice on the list if you have researched the university and prospective professor thoroughly and determined that is somewhere that you are really willing to study. Again, I don’t think you would end up there unless the first uni decides not to accept you after all, but it’s never a good idea to list a university that you do not want to attend.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thanks for your insights, Travis! The embassy said that it’s indeed just up to us if we will indicate only the one university that gave the LoPA but they still recommend indicating at least one more university just to cover all bases especially if there are other universities and professors that we are interested to work with but have not yet contacted. I will be listing (pls censor univ name) as number 1 in my updated placement preference form since I got the LoPA from them and will follow the advise on having a back up univ, but I will only list one (still a national univ) that I found to have a professor that is in the same field and doing more or less the same research that I intend to pursue. Now I’m preparing for admissions documents and exam. Hoping for the best! Thank you so much, Travis!
By the way, since I am currently processing admission documents for the univ that gave me the LoPA, the professor wants me to submit a research proposal that is aligned to his current research. Now my question is, since there’s a part in the placement form that requires us to give details on our proposed research plan, should I leave this as is (the first research plan I submitted) or should I change this too based on the current research theme that the professor/univ that granted me the LoPA? Thanks again, Travis!
Hi Alex,
For the purposes of the Placement Preference Form, I think you should keep it consistent with what is in your MEXT Field of Study and Research Program Plan, since you can’t change that during the application process.
When you submit your revised research plan to your advisor for the admission process, let him know that the MEXT research plan could not be changed partway through the application, but that you intend to pursue the research that you and he have discussed together.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Alex,
I know your university name by now. You do not need to keep writing it and asking me to delete it 🙂
I’m glad to hear that you found a backup university and solved the issue with how to submit the Placement Preference Form. I wish you the best in the Secondary Screening and Placement!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello, Mr. Travis. I hope this comment finds you well.
I would like to ask you a few questions regarding the process of the LoPa.
I applied to two universities, one national and the other one private. I was rejected in the national one (I kind of messed up the application as I have changed the professor on the last minute) and I am still waiting for the private university’s response. For the latter, I have applied in early August (to be exact, on the 2nd) and I have not contacted the professor yet as it was stated not to on their website. The national uni however just took two weeks to inform me of the rejection,
As the wait is killing me, I was considering contacting the professor of the private uni, but I would like to ask you for your advice first. Should I do it, or should I wait? I am feeling a little bit demoralized and stressed for all this situation.
I applied in August, so I could not apply for other unis, and I followed strictly the rule of contacting only two universities at a time.
If they both reject me, what will most likely happen to my application for MEXT?
Thank you in advance,
-Mina.
Hi Mina,
The wait is completely normal! It does not mean anything negative. Actually, from what I have seen, rejections tend to come quickly, but acceptance comes more slowly.
For the Letter of Provisional Acceptance, each university has their own process, but one common approach I have seen is that the professor must first approve your application, then it needs to be approved at a formal committee. The problem is that there generally aren’t any committee meetings during August or early September, because it’s the summer vacation and most faculty are away from the university. Since most universities start up again in late September or early October, the meetings should be starting up again soon. My best guess is that is the reason for the delay!
I do not think that contacting the professor directly at this point would be particularly helpful, especially if you didn’t contact them directly, before.
If anything, it would be better to contact the office that you submitted the application to, to ask them about the timeline for the results (especially if your deadline to submit the letters to your embassy is coming up).
If you do not get any Letters of Provisional Acceptance, you will resubmit the Placement Preference Form to the Embassy with the name of three universities that you never contacted or applied to. Of course, make sure to research them thoroughly to be sure they are good fits for your studies and research! There is still a chance that your application could pass MEXT’s secondary screening. In that case, MEXT will contact the universities off that last to ask them to accept you.
Your chances of passing the Secondary Screening would certainly decrease if you do not get any Letters of Provisional Acceptance, but it wouldn’t mean that your application was certain to be rejected.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
Thank you for all of the informative articles that you have shared. They have proven extremely useful for me up to this point.
Unfortunately, I’d like to share my failure story. All inquiries were rejected; a grand total of 7 rejections, two of which were after August 25th. The reason for all of the rejections is ‘limited laboratory space.’ At this point, all I can do is hope for a miracle.
One thing I would like to note is that the Indonesian embassy announced the results on August 2nd and candidates were able to receive the documents on August 4th. This happens every year i.e. results announced in early August. I read from the comments some candidates abroad received their results as early as July. Would that possibly be putting Indonesian candidates at a disadvantage? I would also like to add that I tried to contact some of the professors prior to the announcement, one of which goes back to four years ago trying to get an internship (first interaction, not the only interaction).
I have consulted the embassy. They informed me that I should place two universities in the placement preference form to submit on October 2nd.
Out of curiosity, are you planning to release a 2023/2024 guide for the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship? I will most certainly be looking forward to that.
Best,
K
*Apologies for addressing myself with an initial, I would like to maintain anonymity.
Hi K,
I get all kinds of initials and pseudonyms on here and I certainly understand the desire for anonymity!
I am sorry to hear that you have had so much trouble getting the LoPA. Certainly, I have not heard of anyone struggling that much in previous years.
But I do not think that the late release of results in Indonesia would have played a major role. It seems unlikely that a professor’s lab would fill up just from this application process. All things considered, MEXT Scholars make up a small fraction of the number of grad schools in any given university and lab. When I processed these applications, it was rare to have two MEXT Scholarship applicants in any given year who applied for the same professor/lab, even with hundreds of applications. (I do remember one case where it happened, but one was a Master’s student and one was a PhD student. In that case, they were both accepted.)
For the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, the official guidelines usually come out after the application deadline has passed at most universities, so there is really nothing new that I can add to the guide that I published last December (after the 2022 guidelines came out). I recommend referring to that one. By the time the next guidelines come out so that I can update the article, it will be too late to apply.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis, I’ve managed to secure two LOAs from my two preferred universities and I’m currently filling out my Placement Preference Form. As they’re both private universities, will MEXT attempt to place me at a national or public university if I fill it in at third place on my form? Is it acceptable to just list the two universities I’ve chosen for my studies? Thanks again and I hope to hear from you soon!
Hi Bold,
Congratulations on getting two LoPAs!
I am fairly certain that MEXT would favor the universities that gave you LoPAs over one that did not, even if that one was national (MEXT does not have a preference/priority for public universities – they are in the same category with private). However, I do not have any concrete evidence for that, so filling in just two universities or filling the third place with another private or public university would be safer. Of course, if you fill it with a third university, make sure it is one that you would be willing to attend!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
Sorry for bugging you again but my Uni has been taking really a long time to process my LoPA. We had some exchanges last week and my presumption is that they only started doing it really last week. Now they told me it had to go internal process but I learned that some of the applicants from the same graduate school already received their LoPA. This had me really worried since there is a possibility that the Graduate school slots will be full and that I will lose my slot because of the slow action of the lab. Next week will mark the 2nd month since I requested for LoPA and I think it’s way overboard already on my end to wait more than 2 mos for LoPA whilst my colleagues who just accepted recently got theirs.
Not only that but if they end up not giving me one, I think there is a fault on their end because of slow action. I should have used that time to have applied to another Uni and I fear that because of this I will lose the scholarship.
Thank you!
Hi Gabby,
Based on what you’ve told me, you have had more positive indications that you will get an LoPA than almost any other applicant I have heard from in the past. I don’t see any reason or indication that they would change their mind.
Comparing yourself to others’ progress isn’t helpful or relevant. I encourage you to be patient (especially in your dealings with the university!)
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
I learned that I am not the only one, had a colleague and some from our GC in Discord who got accepted at Tohoku even way back in July and have yet to receive their LoPA. It seems that the issue at Tohoku sending LoA late is not isolated to me, someone mentioned they will give it by Sept 27 which is too tight as this is 2 days away from the deadline given to us by the embassy. In my case they did not mention exact date they just keep saying it still on process.
Thanks
Hi Gabby,
Thank you for the update. That makes perfect sense. It’s bureaucratic and there is a lengthy formal approval process for almost anything in Japan, even when everyone agrees that it should be done.
MEXT asked universities to provide LoPAs within approximately a month of the application deadline, so Sep 27 is about right for that timeline.
Good Luck!
– Travis from Transenz
Hi travis,
Thanks, I had official confirmation they will release my LOA next week. Anyway, it’s just sad this year that many got rejected and did not get any LOA at all. Some of the posts here are actually from Reddit and Discord members as well. The amount of rejections this year is insane, some got 7 rejections or so, while others got rejections very late like a month after they applied. Now most lost their hope of obtaining the scholarship. Other members though got a LOA got many rejections too, more than their acceptance. We fear that MEXT is cutting down the slot again but this time directly thru the Universities by reducing their slot. I hope the second screening won’t be bad either.
Hi Gabby,
I am glad to hear that you got the confirmation.
I appreciate that a larger than usual number of applicants have struggled to get an LoPA this year. I am still collecting responses to my survey about the process and will analyze that to see if I can find any trends and future advice, but I have a few thoughts on what might be contributing to the problem:
1. It is definitely not MEXT reducing the slots. They would not be able to do that through the universities (they have no control there). If it was MEXT, it would be done at the Embassy level, by reducing the number of nominees possible in each country, or during the Secondary Screening. Those are the only possible times.
2. Since many of the comments I have seen are about “full labs”, I suspect there are two factors that contribute to that. The first is that more Japanese university graduates went on to graduate school during the pandemic than in the past, due to uncertainty in the job market, etc., so you might be experiencing the overburdening of some grad schools based on that higher number of students. If that is the case, it should ease up in future years as that group graduates.
3. Another longer-term issue might be the results of the Great Retirement. Starting a few years ago, there was a period of much higher retirement rates by Japanese professors as a large group (perhaps all hired at once during an era of university expansion) all reached mandatory retirement age at once. I saw this in the LoPA article comments over the last couple of years as applicants reported their desired professors couldn’t advise them because of imminent retirement. Most of those professors were not replaced one-for-one, so the overall availability of advising in many subject areas is down. Since the Japanese population is shrinking, I do not expect this number to rebound.
Those are just a couple of thoughts, not that they would be very helpful to you, I’m afraid.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello. I don’t know if this is a sensitive situation so I would like to ask for your opinion. I got informal acceptance from 2 professors in the same university, so I can apply for one LoA with the name of one supervisor. Both of them seemed supportive. I decided to go for a professor, and mailed the other that I have applied to another lab but want to learn some specific things with him. But the professor I didn’t choose as my main supervisor hasn’t responded yet, even though previously he replied to me positively. I’m worried that I disappointed him and burned the bridge.
Hi Kiki,
I can imagine that the professor would not have been happy (to put it mildly). Contacting two professors at the same university is not a good idea.
But what’s done is done.
I would not expect any more communication or reply from the professor that you rejected by email (after all, what would he have to say to you at this point?), but once you arrive there in person, you might be able to restore the relationship.
If you end up assigned to that university, it might be a good idea to bring a gift from your home country (usually edible gifts are preferred) for your assigned advisor and for the one you turned down as a way to say thanks for the effort he put into your application in the first place. That kind of gesture could make a difference in rebuilding your relationship.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Yes I know it’s not a good idea to ask professors to supervise us and then turn them down, and I tried to avoid that by contacting one by one, but after some no response professors I was so nervous that I continued to mail several professors as I couldn’t know if I would be replied, and unexpectedly 2 from the same university gave me positive responses (only 2 of them). Honestly I really appreciate both of them since they agreed while I’m not an excellent student, so I feel quite bad if I turn either down.
Anw, thanks for your recommendation! I think I will go to this university (as I only applied to this university by Aug 25) if no problem happens in the second screening, if so I will definitely do that. But do you think it’s better to mail the second professor before I visit him or just drop by his office to say hello?
Hi Kiki,
I’m sure you know, but when I answer these questions, I always think about other readers who will find the question and answer in the future, so that was why I added those comments.
I think it would be best to just visit in person (find out the professor’s office hours, if you can.)
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Yes, hope no one will have similar problems.
Thank you, Travis.
Hi Travis,
It’s Alex again. Thank you so much for your insights! I have emailed the International/Admissions Office in the graduate school just this morning since this was the contact detail in the univ website and also in the MEXT Embassy University Contact List. I have CC’ed the Prof because he did not respond to me since Wednesday last week when I said I gladly accept the condition and I want to lowkey inform him of my undertakings too. Unfortunately, I did not get a reply yet and the waiting makes me even more anxious especially because I have further read the guidelines (a PDF is available in their grad school website) and apparently the new set of documents is required to be sent via mail/parcel delivery (so this means from Phils to Japan). I have not read anything in their guidelines about sending all requirements via email and this makes me worry especially since it’s due on Sept. 22 and the LOPA deadline is on Sept. 27 and I have not heard from anyone from the univ since.
My 2nd univ said the prof will give his decision to the international affairs office by end of August and it will take a week or more as per the contact person before the issuance of LOPA results so I have not made a follow up with them yet too. I really hope I’ll have brighter days ahead before the deadline. Appreciate all that you do in this platform. Thanks!
Hi Alex,
Thank you for the update.
Hopefully, they’ll be able to prepare and issue your LoPA based on your agreement to apply for admission and won’t actually require submission by then, since the deadline is rather tight!
CCing the professor was a good idea. That should help the internal coordination. Have you heard back yet?
I hope you hear from both unis with good news soon! Please let me know how it goes.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
I’ve been an avid follower of your blog since the start of this year and always appreciate the insights you offer.
I’m reaching out for guidance concerning the Letter of Provisional Acceptance. ( Please remove or hide the university name thank you.)
I’ve applied to both A and B Universities for the Letter of PA. However, after some reflection, I’ve come to understand that B doesn’t align with my academic and personal aspirations, and I genuinely do not wish to study there. A is my top choice, and I hope to receive a positive response from them and subsequently withdraw my application from APU.
This brings me to my main concern: would it be appropriate to proactively reach out to my desired professor at A to express my keen interest? Or should I patiently await their decision? I’m apprehensive about the possibility of not being accepted by A and ending up without any provisional acceptance letter.
I would greatly value any advice or suggestions you have for my situation.
Thank you immensely for your time. I’m eagerly looking forward to studying in Japan—fingers crossed!
Warm regards,
Lucy
Hi Lucy,
Thank you for your kind feedback.
I don’t think that reaching out to university A to express “keen interest” is going to make a difference. Your level of interest isn’t really a factor in the professor’s/university’s decision. It’s more a matter of your qualifications, how well your research appeals to that professor, and what their current situation is with advisees.
I think it would be dangerous to withdraw your application to B university without knowing the final results from A, and if the results from B come in before A, you would not be able to withdraw and would have to submit your LoPA from B, as well. Since they are both private universities, as long as you receive a positive result from both and put A as your first choice (you could even put B as your third and find a university that you haven’t applied to to go as your second), I don’t see a reason MEXT would prioritize B over A.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you. Can I change schools after arriving in japan? Was there cases like that?
Hi Lucy,
You can only change schools when applying to Extend your MEXT Scholarship to advance to the next level of studies. Typically, it is only possible when extending from Master’s to Doctorate (not from Research Student to Degree Student).
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis, can you please tell me will the embassy take action/disqualify us if we have procured more than two letters and we tell them about it?
Hi Mercy,
I have deleted the specific details of your question, per your request.
In your situation, the best thing to do would be to contact the first university (the one that has not yet responded) and tell them that you would like to withdraw your application for an LoPA. (You should have done that before applying to the third university – a long silence/absence of response is not a rejection, so that would still be an active application.) If you withdraw your application and ensure that you will only receive a maximum of 2, that will avoid any issues!
I don’t know what action the embassy would take about disqualifying applicants with more than the allowed number of letters. I have heard of a few examples where applicants got three or more letters in past years (specifically, the year or two after MEXT reduced the maximum number of letters to 2 and applicants were referring to old information!) In those cases, at least the people who told me their stories did not face any adverse action, but I only have those few examples, so I can’t say for sure. I’m sorry.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis, thank you so much for your reply. I was planning to do that, but what is stopping me is that that first university has been my first choice university for so long. I thought that since i applied so late to the third choice, i would have time to withdraw. It was just out of anxiety of not getting selected in the first two that I applied. I am really confused what to do. But thank you so much for your advice.
Hi Travis,
I hope you are doing good. I would like to ask for some advise. I was rejected on the last day of filing for LoPA with my 2nd univ and so I decided to contact a third univ on August 25 thru the contact email to the international affairs office provided my the embassy document sent to first screening passers in MEXT Embassy track. Now today, I got an email reply but not from the international affairs office but from the professor himself, the one I indicated to be my supervisor and he says he is willing to accept me if I accept the condition that I take the entrance exam online by november this year and join the intake in april 2024. I replied that I am to accept the condition and willing to take the entrance exam then told him I will contact the International affairs office for the process of taking the exam because I was not sure if it was right to ask for the process and details from the professor himself.
Now my question is, should I wait for the professor’s reply or should I email the International Affairs office that the professor has accepted me if I can accept his condition then inform them too that I accept the condition and inquire about my request LoPA? Because the entrance exam mentioned by the professor is on november while the deadline for the LoPA submission is on sept 27, I did not ask this one from the professor because I did not feel it was to inquire RE the LoPA from him. I really hope you can enlighten my mind and give me advise. I really don’t want to miss out this opportunity.
Thanks a lot!
Sorry for the typos, I did not ask regarding the issuance of LoPA from the professor because I think it was not right or he might feel that I want to be spoonfed with the info. Although I did say I will contact the internation affairs office (which I really meant to, the one I sent my application for LoPA from their univ) so I would know the progress on my request too esp since the deadline is sept 27 and the entrance exam although online is on november.
Also, would it be right to ask the professor on what the entrance exam will be? I would really like to know details but I am afraid to ask him directly because he might say I don’t have the initiative to gather information on my own. But I did check their university website and there was nothing on entrance exam guidelines and where to pay the exam fee.
Hi Alex,
Do you mind sharing with me what university this was and which graduate school you are interested in there? (If you prefer, I won’t publish that part of your comment, so that it can stay confidential). Since each university has different practices for handling LoPAs, I want to check what the usual process is for your specific university. In some cases, the professor issues LoPAs directly, but in others, it is done through the international office, so I need to know what is usual for your university in order to give advice about how to follow up. In some cases, it might be more appropriate to follow up with the professor about the LoPA.
I could also look for info on the application guidelines for your intended graduate school. It would surprise me if the university had no information at all! Usually, graduate school admissions are handled by each individual grad school office, not by the International Office, so you may want to check the web pages for that specific graduate school and follow up with their admin office. In general, I think it would be more appropriate to ask the administrative office of the graduate school about the application guidelines and what the application process is like.
Once you find out whether it is better to follow up with the Prof or the International Office about the LoPA, then it would be appropriate to tell them that your embassy has set a deadline of Sep 27 to submit it and ask if it will be possible to get the LoPA by then, since the professor’s acceptance was conditional on you taking the entrance exam in November.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis, thank you so much for responding! The university is [deleted] University and I want to enroll in the Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine. I was really not expecting this at all especially because it was a last minute application and I am a licensed veterinarian here in our country, who finished a doctor of veterinary medicine degree but no masters yet, so I tried if I might be considered for the PhD in their graduate school because japanese univs have typically no masters for this field. That’s why I really don’t want to mess up this opportunity that opened. I have sent my application for LoPA including my MEXT documents to the Academic Affairs Section of the Administration Office for Veterinary Medicine in [deleted] University because it was the contact info in the excel file provided by our embassy. I have not received an email response from them, but the professor I mentioned emailed me himself so I was confused and did not want to be pushy by asking about the LoPA yet. However, I really replied asap to tell him that I am gladly accepting the condition. What do you think would be my next course of action? So far, I have not received a reply yet from the Professor and I also did not receive an email from the Academic Affairs Section but I did not email them yet also about the Professor reaching out to me because I was hoping to get your advise. Thank you, Travis!
Hi Alex,
Per your request, I have censored the university name.
I checked their website for the Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship and it only says that you should contact the division of international student affairs in the admin office of the grad school, which is what I think you did already. It does not say if the admin office handles your application from that point forward or if they pass it to the professor for follow-up. So, I think you should continue to follow-up with the professor for now, unless he tells you otherwise.
It took me less than a minute to find the application guidelines on the website. If you visit the graduate school’s website, there are two links in the menu, one for “Application Guidelines (Regular Selection)” and one for “Entrance Examination for International Students”, but the Regular Selection period appears to be over for April 2024 submission, so I assume you have to apply for the International Students one. The application deadline is September 22 and you will need to submit a completely new set of application documents, as required for that program.
(I would send you the links, but that would reveal the name of the university!)
To summarize, I recommend that you confirm to the professor that you will apply for the “Entrance Examination for International Students” for April 2024 and ask them if there is anything else they need from you to process the Letter of Provisional Acceptance for the MEXT Scholarship, and also prepare your application documents to submit by the deadline.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis, went to the university’s website but I’m having a hard time finding those you mentioned. May I please ask the links? I think it’s okay if it generally reveals the university’s name, I would just really appreciate the help.
Also, in my previous reply to the professor who emailed last Wednesday, I mentioned that I will reach out to the international affairs office but I have not done it yet because I was assuming he would reply by Friday to perhaps give me some info. Would it be wrong to email the international office of the graduate school and ask about details/process of the entrance exam explaining what the professor has said in the email and how I agree to it? I will CC in that email the professor too. Would that be wise? or should I just wait if the professor replies to my email response last Wednesday and communicate everything to him?
I really appreciate all the help and advise, Travis. I hope you don’t mind my additional questions. Thank you.
Hi Alex,
From your follow-up comment, it sounds like you found the links.
I think emailing the international office of the graduate school sounds like a good idea. Admin offices are usually much more prompt about responding to emails than professors. They should be able to give you advice on how to move forward with the application.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
Sorry, found that part of the graduate school’s website that you were talking about. I am really confused because it is indeed an entire new screening, with a first and second screening process which ends in December and results in January. Is the professor perhaps saying he is willing to accept me as a PhD candidate for MEXT Scholarship for the University track?? Because I really indicated that I am applying via the embassy track and all my documents were embassy stamped so I am really confused now. I was hoping I can get a letter of provisional acceptance from the university if I agreed to take the entrance exam this November. Does this mean I am not getting the LoPA before the deadline because I am to screen again for admission to the graduate school following the guidelines/scheds for entrance exam for international students? Really sorry with all these questions, Travis, I am really confused. Appreciate your time and guidance!
Hi Alex,
The application I found for International Students did not look like the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship, to me. It looked like a university-specific scholarship program. (If I’m not mistaken, the monthly stipend was higher than the MEXT Scholarship.)
But in any case, I do think you will need to apply for it. You have applied for the MEXT Scholarship through the embassy, but this is to apply for admission to the university, which is an entirely separate process. Usually, I assume you would apply via the normal process for fee-paying students, but since that application period has ended for April 2024 admissions, this may be the only way for them to process you for admission in time for April. At least, that seems the most logical to me, but logic and university administration don’t always agree!
I don’t think that the university would be able to make your LoPA conditional on passing that exam, since it is so far in the future. They should be able to issue it to you anyway in the meantime, with the understanding that you will apply. (They may want you to actually submit the application first, though, to confirm your intent. That should be possible, since the application period is open now.)
In your last comment, you mentioned contacting the international office of the graduate school for more guidance. I think that is probably the best solution to figure out what your next step needs to be.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Traviz,
Want to share our group experience regarding this. We actually have a GC and I can say that out of the 9 members who passed the screening, only 3 were able to secure a LoPA, another 3 (including me) were able to get acceptance while the remaining have no acceptance and LoPA at all. This shows that it is really not that easy at all as compared to the previous years. In fact, many of us got a lot of rejections way more than the acceptance. I myself got 4 rejections already. The other one in our group got 2 with no acceptance atll. I also saw on Reddit that someone got 7 rejections and no acceptance at all.
Any comments on this?
Hi Gabby,
Since I don’t know the reasons why each of the application were rejected, I can’t really comment on the success rate. I know your situation from your past comments, but you got a positive response from your first choice university, so I don’t really see a problem there. If I know more about the reasons for the rejections, then maybe I could offer more advice and help future applicants avoid the same problem.
When I say that getting the LoPA should be relatively easy compared to passing the Primary Screening, I am also assuming in there that the applicants have thoroughly researched their target universities and professors and have written their FSRPPs specifically to appeal to those professors. I did not mean to imply that it is “easy” to get an LoPA if you don’t prepare and put the same amount of energy into it as the Primary Screening. I am not saying that you did this, but I know that some applicants just send out their application to famous universities that offers their field of study in English (or sometimes, even ones that don’t!) without much more planning. Of course in that case they would be more likely to be rejected.
One thing I will repeat from our previous conversations is that in the past it was rare to have any sort of response at all to the LoPA application prior to the Aug 25 deadline. It has surprised me to see how many applicants actually got feedback in time to apply to an alternate university. I think it may be because Embassies are getting their Primary Screening results out earlier, thus giving applicants an earlier start, where they may catch professors before they leave for summer. In past years, it has been more common for applicants to not get responses until well after the deadline.
So, if I knew the reasons for the rejections, I could possibly offer more advice, but for now there isn’t really anything I can say.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Actually, this is more concerning considering we got our results on July 7 and we immediately contacted Universities. That means we have almost 2 mos on our side to get a single LOA as compared to those with late releases and yet only a few of us secured one. In my case, I was able to make it to the last application yesterday at Hokudai after getting a rejection from Osaka on the same day. I saw on Reddit that even if the adviser approves you he ends up not getting LOA since the Uni said they have a slot and they are full. He was only notified about it 3 weeks after getting accepted which is quite alarming. This made us all worry and thus I pursued another Uni due to this.
Turned to worse. I got also rejected at Hokudai. Now I got 5 rejections and Tohoku still not issuing my LoPA which is more than a month now so I made a follow up waiting for their response. If they do not issue me one then its over for me I guess.
Hi Gabby,
I’m sorry to hear that, but hopefully you will hear back from Tohoku soon. Japanese universities are extremely bureaucratic, so these letters take time to prepare and process!
I am going to try to gather some more information about what happened with Letters of Provisional Acceptance in a survey of readers, soon. (If you’re on my mailing list, you will see it in a few days). Hopefully, that will help me improve my advice on the process for the next round.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
Got an email from my Lab that they are doing still my LOA so I am relieved. Anyways I still ended up getting on my first choice Uni so for me that will be fine as soon as Tohoku issues me a LOA. But the amount of rejections this year is unbelievable. I am on a GC for MEXT all over the world and someone said that this year there were many rejections. In my case, it is not just 5 but 6 since Hokudai will ask you to write two names and 2 labs and both rejected me. But there is a gut feeling in me that my adviser at Tohoku told their colleagues that they’ve taken me in so they probably don’t want to go to lengths issuing me LOA since they knew my top choice is Tohoku.
Now the wait for 2nd screening begins. Hoping for best since the last year I did not even make it to the document screening. So this is my second time.
Thanks again.
Hi Gabby,
I’m glad to hear things seem to be on track with Tohoku. Thank you for sharing that news!
I remember you mentioning earlier that your field was relatively small, so in your case, I think there’s a good chance that your suspicion of the Tohoku prof telling colleagues that they planned to accept you could be accurate. If it’s a small field, the top researchers probably all know one another (they may well have studied together), and may well have noticed over the years that they get the same applicants and worked it out between themselves to share info and avoid extra work if they know an applicant is already headed to a colleague’s lab.
In any case, it sounds like this year’s result is going much better than last!
By the way, you should see my survey about Letters of Provisional Acceptance tomorrow. I hope that will help me get a better understanding of the situation.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Yes, If I got formally accepted at Tohoku with a scholarship this is way better than I expected since Tohoku is no. 1 in the ranking right now. Originally I was just planning to take my Ph.D. not even on top Uni since there is no Ph.D. in aeronautics in my country. Well, it is historic in my field here since no Aeronautics Engineer graduate in my country ever landed this scholarship let alone getting at Japan’s top university. I did not even graduate from the top 100 Uni in my country but my Uni and where I work I guess is the Top in that field in my country. That is why I was really worried at first because initially, they were looking down on my application saying you would have issues making it. That is why I really worked hard to prove them wrong.
Dear mr. Travis,
Thank you so much for your incredible website, it has helped me a lot already!
I have passed the first embassy screening and have also obtained a letter of provisional acceptance as a non-regular research student from one university – so far so good.
Upon providing my letter of provisional acceptance to the embassy, they seemed a little bit confused that the university had filled in nothing in the field after the tickbox Non-regular student (the field that says “after passing the entrance screening … (…course)”. The embassy suggests that maybe I should fill in a PhD course in that section.
However, I believe that at the moment this is not yet needed for me as I want to just start as a non-regular research student and then, in consultation with my Advisor, decide to enroll further in a regular Masters or PhD course (by requesting an extension).
I therefore believe that the university has provided me with a correct letter of provisional acceptance, accepting me as just a non-regular research student (with of course mention of the graduate school and major).
Am I correct in this reasoning that the field “after passing the entrance screening … (…course)” can be left empty by the university, as they did, or does it absolutely have to be filled in? If it does need to be filled in, should I again contact the university to discuss this, and how to decide if this choice is not yet final? I don’t want to bother the university and professor again if it is not really necessary, as they already have been very nice in quickly providing the letter of provisional acceptance.
thank you so much for taking the time to look at my question.
kind regards
Hi Innah,
Thank you very much for your kind feedback!
I have not encountered this situation before, but I think that the university does need to fill in this section to indicate whether they are accepting you as a Master’s level research student or a PhD level research student. There should never be a situation where this is unclear and you may decide later whether to apply for the Master’s degree or PhD degree. By filling in this section, the university would be indicating to MEXT what degree level you will be able to proceed to.
I think you should contact the university again and tell them that you have received that question from the embassy. If the university replies to say that they have issued letters that way in the past and it was never a problem, you can report that to the embassy, but I do not think it is a good idea for you to fill in any part of the form yourself!
In this case, “you” are not bothering the university again, you are just relaying a question from the embassy and asking the university for their response/guidance. As long as you keep the message polite, I do not think it will be a problem.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis,
Thank you again for your clear and super-quick answer!
Your reply makes a lot of sense to me, I have contacted the university again in this matter.
I have one further question on this if I may. As mentioned I have now been accepted as a non-regular research student by the university (letter of provisional acceptance). I understand that in order to later enroll as a regular student, I will have to take entrance examinations. Is this something that is typically done in the period that you have arrived in Japan as a non-regular student, under the guidance of your advisor, after the Japanese language preparatory education (and thus after you have been fully approved by MEXT)? Or do I need to initiate this entrance exam process already now (even though the final MEXT decision to accept me as a non-regular student will only follow in early 2024)?
My worry is that if I start the entrance exam process now, but if for some reason I do not pass the (doctoral) entrance exam immediately, this may negatively impact the final decision (second-round screening) by MEXT to accept me as a non-regular research student (for which the results will come out only early 2024).
I hope this question made some sense to you and again, thank you for the amazing work you do on this website, it really is an invaluable resource for MEXT-applicants.
Hi Innah,
The timing to start the application for the doctoral program is going to depend on the university and their schedule for entrance exams, so it is going to be different for each applicant. However, it is most common to apply for admission to the degree program after arrival in Japan. Depending on when you arrive and the application timeline, you could apply during your language semester or you could wait until you become a research student at the university and apply then.
My best recommendation to you would be to contact the university again to ask them when the best time would be.
Since you have passed the Primary Screening and received a Letter of Provisional Acceptance, I think it is all but certain that you will be selected for the scholarship in the end. If you end up getting a second LoPA, though, you might not end up being placed at that university. So, I think it is best to wait for the official confirmation from MEXT to make sure you will be placed there. (If you take the entrance exam in the meantime, but end up placed at a different university, it will have been a waste of your time and money.)
On the other hand, taking the entrance exam now, if that is recommended by the university, should not affect your application for the scholarship, even if you do not pass the exam. The university would not be required to report a failed exam to MEXT, so they shouldn’t even know about it.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
I hope you’re doing good, I would like to ask if I had blown my chances to a university that I have inquired about the LoPA procedure around 11 days ago and told them I will follow through my application asap but I had my hesitations because I was contemplating whether there is really a professor that is interested in my research plan? I tried to research for other universities but there are only very few ones that offer my field of specialization, I was planning on contacting the university that I contacted 11 days ago but I am not sure if they will still entertain me given that I have not reached out again the past days? But my current university (where I am a faculty member) actually has a MOU/MOA of some sorts with this japanese university, is it still okay if I contact them? or should I just look for other universities instead because I’ve blown off my chances? Sorry I wanted to hear any advice because I have been anxious for the past weeks that is also another reason why I couldn’t bring myself to contact them. Thanks
Hi Tony,
It’s not an ideal situation, but I don’t think you’ve blown your chances by not following up right away. You can still contact that university. (Aug 11-15 was a series of holidays in Japan, anyway, so they wouldn’t have been able to process your application during that time.)
Good Luck!
-Travis from TranSenz
Hello Mr. Travis
May I have a question for research student? How many schools we student can apply to request LOA? I am not quite sure there are 3 universities in the placement form, from 1-3rd choices, only 2 universities at the same time. But in total how many schools the student can request? Example if the students fail from 3 universities, can the students request another university?
Hi Ling Xueai,
You can only apply to two universities at a time for an LoPA (including active applications and successful applications), but if one rejects your application before the deadline, then you could apply to a third as a replacement (and so on).
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Mr. Travis,
First of all, I wanted to thank you for your blog and for the help you already provided me on a previous question. I’ve successfully passed the initial screening at the embassy and I’m in the process of obtaining the LoPA. On another note, out of the three universities I contacted, I’ve received a letter from just one. Unfortunately, the professors from the other two institutions mentioned they’re currently unable to accommodate more students in their laboratories.
Unfortunately, I don’t have other options that I could contact since I couldn’t find any other professor that aligns with my research proposal (I’m applying for a doctoral course so research alignment is fundamental). Thus, I’m considering submitting only one LoPA and writing only the name of the university that accepted me in the placement form. I’m curious to know if you happen to know of similar cases and if this might impact my chances in the subsequent screening phases and my eligibility for the scholarship. If yes to which extent?
Sorry for bothering you and thank you in advance for your time and assistance.
I forgot to mention that the university that sent me the LoPA is a national university. Just to add context to my inquiry.
Thank you again for your kindness,
Clelia
Hi Celia,
Thank you for your kind feedback.
I’m sorry to hear that you have been running into so many challenges with finding a professor. Full labs (along with pending professor retirements) is one of those factors that is completely out of your control and unpredictable.
As long as you have at least one LoPA, you should not encounter any difficulties in the Secondary Screening. I have heard from many applicants in the past who submitted the Placement Preference Form with only one university on it (and the one LoPA), and as far as I know, all of them won the scholarship and were placed in the university that was on the list! (Many of those were applicants to private universities, but your case should be even stronger, since it is a national one!)
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
Thank you for keep updating the information about MEXT. I’ve pass the interview, and I was asked to apply for the LPA. My university selection are Tokyo University and Osaka University. From this passage, for Tokyo University, I know that I should email the graduate school. But is it okay to email the potential supervisor first, and if the supervisor is okay, then I email the graduate school and submit the documents? Or I should email the graduate school asking whether the supervisor will accept me? Same case for Osaka University, should I send the email to the international student affair division to ask for the supervisor approval or I can email directly the supervisor?
So sorry for long passage and quite stupid questions. Thank you!
Hi Wendy,
I recommend that you apply exactly as stated in the instructions on each of the universities’ websites.
Tokyo specifically directs you to contact the department, not the professor. There are also specific instructions for each department on their website.
Osaka recommends contacting the professor first.
Please be sure to read the specific instructions from each of the universities carefully and submit it exactly as they say!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Greetings from Honduras!
First of all, let me thank you for the dedication you have had writing this blog throughout the years. I have been lurking through the comments section of different years to understand more of the experience other applicats have been through. As for me, I passed the First Screening in early July and about mid July was notified to start contacting universities in order to get LoPA. I was with the idea that the stressful part of the process was already over after the interview, but for me, these last couple of weeks have been the most stressful yet. I first applied to Hokkaido and Tohoku. Hokkaido responded promptly stating that my interest did not quite match the research the professors were doing and thus could not offered me a LoPA. I was grateful at least of how quick they responded. I sent my documents to Osaka University amd they forwarded to the professor and stated that the process would take about a month to hear any kind of response. As for Tohoku I was told to contact directly the professor and I did, but after three weeks and a half of not hearing any kind of response I decided to withdraw my application (which I stated politely in another email).
I sent my application to Kyushu University now a couple of days ago and have Nagoya University as a backup plan whenever I have a response for any of the other two. I am feeling pretty anxious, thinking I will fail in getting any LoPA at all and losing the opportunity of getting the MEXT Scolarship. I am aware of summer break, the amount of applications professors have to check, etc. I am just feeling anxious during the night and early hours of the morning (as due to time differences it is when I have received emails from Japan). So I am now thinking in the worst case scenario,
1. Do you know how likely it is to get a LPA before the deadline?
2. Do you know of anyone or have heard of anyone who has had the opportunity of getting to study in Japan even though failing to get a LPA?
Hi MarioFer,
Thank you for your kind feedback.
Although it’s stressful, the process you described sounds quite normal to me. At least Osaka confirmed receipt. Has Kyushu acknowledged your application?
(Not that every university does acknowledge it. I have heard stories in the past of applicants who heard nothing at all from the university until the LoPA suddenly showed up in the post. Waseda was infamous for that treatment.)
1. I assume you mean the deadline to apply. It is unlikely to get an LoPA that quickly. Honestly, I think you were fortunate to get the reply from Hokkaido so quickly. In many cases, there’s an official approval process that needs to happen, even if the professor you apply to completely supports your application. For example, it might need to be approved at a department- or faculty-level committee meeting. But those meetings almost never occur in August. At my former university, for example, there were no meetings between late July and late September, so it we got an application after the last July meeting, it would be about 2 months before we could reply to the applicant.
But a long delay does not mean a negative response. (If anything, usually negative responses can be faster, since they don’t need approval!)
2. Yes. It isn’t that common–I have only heard of a handful of applicants over the past decade-plus who did not get a single LoPA, so that situation itself is uncommon–but I have heard of it happening, including once at my former university.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thanks for your response!
So the day after telling you about Osaka I was informed that the supervisor head of the laboratory I was intrested has a full/packed laboratory, so they are not taking any more applications. I decided to contact Kyoto University AAO and their response was the same day, informing me that the professor at that laboratory was retiring during my research period. I guess it is just my bad luck. Im still looking for any other supervisors and universities.
We still have a couple weeks before deadline. Do you consider appropriate contacting my country embassy stating my situation? If so, when should I do it? I know there is a spreadsheet with universities and contact infomation some embassies give out to their applicants. I did not receive such document.. Should I contact them asking for the existence of such document and stating that I may use that spreadsheet to look through other universities info I have not yet contacted? Perhaps explaining I am going to use these couple of days to look through the universities and gather information?
As for Kyushu, I have not received and receipt. As stated in their website, I contacted the professor, directly. I am holding off asking of a follow up until the O-bon holiday is over.
Hi MarioFer,
I think that’s a good idea. At this point, I would not expect any response out of a Japanese university before Aug 16, at the earliest.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi MarioFer,
It does sound like you’ve had a run of bad luck. While it might be possible to guess at a pending retirement based on the professor’s age, there’s really no way to know about a full lab without contacting them in the first place.
I assume that in the retirement case, there are no other professors with similar research at Kyoto and nobody in line to take over that lab?
I think it’s fine to contact your embassy to ask for the list. You can tell them that the professors you tried to contact on your own through the universities’ websites have full labs or are set to retire, but that won’t give you an extension or anything, it would just be an explanation as to why you are requesting the list at this relatively late date instead of right away.
I think the Japanese embassy in your country will likely observe Japanese national holidays, as well as the local ones, so there is a good chance that they are closed today through Aug 15. But even if they are, you do not need their list to research alternative universities. As far as I know, all the list shows is the contact information for the universities’ international centers. It won’t tell you which universities have which fields of study available. (I have an article with links to resources for that information, if you haven’t seen it already.)
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis!
I just want to share some updates with you. I just received notification from Kyoto University AAO that the professor I am intrested supervising my research is interested in communicating with me and I have schedueled a Zoom meeting with him on Monday morning. Soon after I replied confirming this meeting I received an email from the professor at Kyushu University stating that he would like to have a Zoom meeting, too.
Hopefully my luck is turning around. It makes me glad that they are even considering my application. I know this does not mean a 100% chance of acceptance but it is a step closer.
I am now wondering how could this Zoom meeting go. Previous online interviews to other universities abroad required me to read an academic article and discuss it with the interviewes to assess my knowledge in my fied of interest. This is not the case this time. By any chance do you know what can I expect from these interviews?
Thanks in advance!
Hi MarioFer,
I would expect the interview to focus on your research proposal, your research ability (past experience), and possibly on your willingness to modify your research plan to fit into the professor’s ongoing research in their lab.
My article about preparing for the interview for the University-Recommended MEXT Scholarship might provide some other useful hints, since that interview would also come from a similar angle.
Since you will be meeting one-on-one with the professors, I also recommend that you familiarize yourself with both of their works and most recent research topics (including the ongoing research in their labs) as much as possible in advance so that you can show your seriousness and appeal to their research interestes.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis!
I would like to share some updates and concern I have with this process. I had an interview with a professor from Kyoto University in late August. He was quite friendly and nice. He told me to change my research proposal due to changes in the organization of the laboratory. I accepted without hesitation and was notified that in case a LPA was to be issued it would be delivered exactly on Sept 27th. I was not aware of internal screening at Graduate School and do not want to get all excited to finally receive a rejection on the date of the deadline.
I also had an interview today with a professor from other university and he wishes to have a follow uo meeting to discuss more about my research plan and interests. He told me he was quite busy for the day and wished to discuss more in Sept 19th. I am just wondering, in case I am accepted into his laboratory would it be enough time to issue a LPA beore the deadline of Sept 27th?
Hi MarioFer,
It sounds like you’ve had some good progress with the professors in Japan!
Each university has its own process for issuing these letters, so I can’t say anything certain about the timeline. From what I understand, if you have a professor’s support for your proposal and they are willing to take you into their lab, then it is likely that your LoPA would not face any issues at further screenings within the school. There is no limit on the number of Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholars that a university or school can accept, so I don’t see why there would be any administrative reason to deny the application.
For the second professor, it is difficult to say whether or not you would be able to get a letter within 8 days after the interview, but I recommend that you mention that deadline during your conversation. Since embassies set their deadlines on their own, the professor/university would not be aware of it unless you told them.
In the meantime, I also recommend that you check with the embassy about what would happen if you receive a LoPA after the deadline. Tell them about the timeline for the online interview and that you are concerned about the letter not arriving in time. I’m sure that in that case, you can keep that university on your Placement Preference Form, but I don’t know if they will tell you to submit the letter once it arrives or not.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Have the same experience as you. In fact, the LoPA part for me is the most stressful. In fact, we applied to almost the same Universities. Here is the timeline for me:
Tohoku University – Emailed the international office and forwarded my documents to the respective department and lab. Received an email from the lab in less than 1 week that they accepted me and will issue a LoPA. Still waiting until now.
Nagoya University – waited 1 week for a reply but is hesitant to accept me questioning my credentials. Will probably withdraw since there was no reply again for a week now since I replied to his query. He seem disinterested in me.
Tokyo Metropolitan University – rejected after almost two weeks with no reason
Kyushu University – got a reply after 3 days but was declined as they learned that I applied at Tohoku from a colleague.
Regarding this, I was informed by my co-applicants that it is best to email the embassy about this and they will help you find a University, I actually emailed them that I am having problems getting a second LOA, and gave me some advice, and recommended two universities (Hokkaido & Tokyo U) that I should contact which I will do on Monday if I still don’t get a reply from the Prof.
Hi Travis,
I managed to secure an LOPA from a private university and I’m currently waiting for a second LOPA from a national university. However, I’d much prefer to go to the private university. Would it be acceptable to:
(1) Withdraw my LOPA request from the second university: and
(2) Only submit the LOPA from the private university when I send my Placement Form?
In addition, will doing so affect my chances of being placed at the private university?
Thank you!
Hi Bold,
Of the two options you proposed, withdrawing your application (1) could work. You’ll burn some bridges with that university, though, so I would not recommend that you put them on your final list.
For (2), you are required to submit every LoPA you receive to the embassy, so if you fail to submit one, it could be considered lying on your application and result in disqualification.
If you only submit the LoPA from the private university (because you withdraw the LoPA application to the national before receiving it), that should certainly increase your chances of being placed at the private, as long as you pass the Primary Screening. If you submit both, then there is a fair chance that MEXT would prioritize placing you at the national, even if it was not your first choice.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
I now have serious doubts that getting LOA is easy. I have applied on 4 and got declined or rejected on 3 of them. Thus, I think this is on a case-to-case basis. I heard there are cases that he/she got 4 rejections. Imagine if your results for the interview came out late and you have only 2 weeks to request for LOA and all you got are rejections. Any comments on this Travis?
Hi Gabby,
I don’t really have enough information to comment, since I don’t know which universities you have applied to or how you researched and approached them. Have they given you any feedback on why they did not accept your application?
The only thing I have to go on is the messages and comments other applicants have sent me in the past, but aside from one or two other cases over the years, I have not it being that challenging to get an LoPA, so I would like to figure out what might be the cause.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
The other one Tokyo Metropolitan University after almost 2 weeks and a follow up told me that they rejected my application. The other one I mentioned Kyushu replied that I should continue with my application with Tohoku. The last one Nagoya University have doubts on my research capability and was asking for publications. Although I was accepted at Tohoku, the Department mentioned it may take 1 month for LOA to be released and mentioned wait for the lab where I was accepted to give me the LOA but never heard from them despite a follow up for 2 weeks now.
Hi Gabby,
You have the positive response from Tohoku, so I really don’t think you have anything to worry about!
It is perfectly normal for it to take several weeks to a month (or more) to issue the LoPA, so don’t think that the delay automatically means something unfavorable.
Japanese universities are very bureaucratic. There are checks and approvals that mean that everything takes a long time to get done. It’s also summer vacation now and (especially this week and next), many people are away from the university. If just one person in the approval chain is away, all work is going to grind to a halt. Sending repeated emails is not going to help.
You seem to be really worried, but I don’t think there is any reason for concern, especially after Tohoku gave you the favorable response and the Kyushu professor confirmed it. That is much more confirmation than almost any other applicant I have ever heard of!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
Thank you for your great article.
I have a question regarding the deadline for requesting a LOPA. For example, if I request LOPA from 2 universities and one of them accept me, but the other reject me after the deadline 25/8. What should I do in this case?
Thank you for your time
Regards,
Hieu
Hi Hieu,
In that case, you would submit the Letter of Provisional Acceptance from the university that accepted you and fill in the names of two other universities on your Placement Preference Form (you cannot include the name of any universities that reject your application), even though you cannot contact them yourself to request an LoPA. There’s a very high chance that you would ultimately be placed at the university that gave you the Letter of Provisional Acceptance!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
Thank you for your reply. I have 1 addional question.
Can I request only 1 LoPA from 1 university?
Hi Hieu,
You can request s total of 2 LoPAs from 2 universities, but you can only request 1 from each university, even if they are from different graduate schools and/or different professors.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
I am from the older post, I am a bit worried now about my applications since one was rejected and the other is now unresponsive, and worrying that they will revoke their initial statement. Now my question is it ok to start contacting another professor without directly requesting LoPA? If one of them agrees then that is the only time I ask them for a LoPA?
Thank you
Hi Gabby,
As mentioned in the other post a couple of seconds ago, since one university has rejected your application, you can contact an additional university to officially apply for an LoPA as a replacement for the first.
I think that if you were to contact a 4th, without “officially” requesting an LoPA, that would be violating the spirit of the law, if not the letter, so I really cannot recommend it.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
I actually received a reply today at 4 AM from the professor at Kyushu University and was shocked that he knows I applied for Tohoku from a colleague who happen to be my adviser and advised me to stick there. However, my problem is I need to secure two LOA. And my options are running out considering I only have 9 schools that offer such graduate degree (Aeronautics) and out of the 9, I already applied for 3 (1 rejected, 1 declined, and one pending LOA), the remaining 3 are private Uni, and would not want to take a risk there thus leaving me two universities Osaka Metropolitan, Nagoya University, and Kyoto University. However, Kyodai is also out since they don’t have any professors who have the same field of study as me.
My question here is regarding the response from the professor, My assumption here is that they talked it out and the Tohoku Prof wanted me to stick with them. Anyways Tohoku is actually my first choice.
Any take on this, what if Tohoku ended up not giving me a LOA?
Hi Gabby,
If the professor at Kyushu already knows that you applied to Tohoku and “advised you to stick there”, then it’s likely that he confirmed that Tohoku is going to give you an LoPA, so this seems like good news to me, even if a bit of a surprise that they were talking about you! I guess that if the field is that small, there might be some information sharing between faculty.
You do not “need” to obtain 2 LoPA. You may obtain up to 2. Having at least 1 is an important factor in passing the Secondary Screening. But I have known applicants in the past who deliberately only acquired one in order to tilt the odds in favor of being placed at their top choice university. I never heard of any of them being rejected by MEXT over that!
So, you could just submit your Placement Preference Form with the Tohoku LOPA and two other universities (including Kyushu! The professor’s reply does not sound like a formal rejection.) on your list. Based on our past conversation, it sounds like you should hear back from Tohoku before the Aug 25 deadline, anyway. If they do reject you (unlikely, based on the Kyushu professor’s comments), then you can follow up with the Kyushu professor then.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you,
Do you have any idea, how long this LOA takes to be issued? Also, do they send an actual document? Anyways I will stick with Tohoku but will still look for other Universities to be sure.
Hi Gabby,
MEXT asks universities to process and send the LoPAs within about a month. However, it isn’t specified it that means a month from your application or a month from the Aug 25 application deadline.
I know that in the past, they issued original LoPAs by post, but I think that changed during the pandemic, as some postal services were disrupted. I think they are still issuing digital versions now, but I cannot be entirely sure.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
I got confirmation just now that it will take 1 month to process. I think I can relax a bit but will still apply to other Universities just to be sure. For now, I am really looking forward to getting into Tohoku since it is really my University of choice.
Dear Travis,
First of all, thank you for your content, I am very grateful for your guidance in the MEXT Scholarship application.
I am writing to seek some clarification from you regarding the sequence of this process: Does the request of LPA from the universities immediately happen after receiving an reply from the professors saying that they are willing to accept me as a research students but without the passing certificate of first screening from the Embassy?
Thank you for you time and attention on this matter.
Regards,
Yu
Hi Yu,
You must submit the “Passing Certificate of the Primary Screening” as part of your application for the LoPA, so you cannot apply for it until after you pass the Primary Screening and get your documents back from the embassy.
Good Luck
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis,
I am applying for MEXT Embassy (Research Category) for the first time, and I am actually in the requesting for LoPA stage because I have passed the first screening. However, as I have reached out to my first-choice university, their International Student Affairs Office has sent me 3 PDFs detailing their graduate programs. To give further context, I do not have a master’s degree yet, I did finish my undergrad Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and already licensed here in our country. Now when I was applying for MEXT, I filled out the application form ticking the “Master’s degree program” and “upto the completion of Masters”, but when I read thru the PDFs sent to me, they offer a Doctoral Program for Veterinary Science (4yrs) and someone with a bachelor’s in veterinary science is qualified to apply based on the admissions policy, this information was not in their website and I had no idea but now I really wanted to try my luck and indicate this program when I apply for the LoPA to the university. So, my question is, will this affect my application in MEXT? Because I wrote master’s level and upto the completion of the master’s level but now I want to enroll to that doctoral program? What are my chances of getting the scholarship if I get issued with a LoPA by this university? I would appreciate any advice, thank you so much!
FF up on this, or will indicating that I want to enroll in the Doctoral Program (both in my placement form) and my application for LoPA to the University (because they let us fill in what program do we intend to pursue aside from the study plan) hurt my chances in actually getting the LoPA? Because they will see in my application form that I wrote upto the master’s level? Thank you again, I hope you can give me your insights.
Hi Cris,
It should not hurt your chances of getting the LoPA, assuming that you are qualified for the doctoral program. You can simply explain to them that you filled in the degree goal thinking about the degree levels in your own country, not the Japanese system, where there typically isn’t a master’s in veterinary medicine.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Cris,
In Japan, veterinary education typically goes from a 6-year undergraduate degree directly into a 4-year doctorate. If you have completed a DVM overseas, you may be considered equivalent to a graduate of a Japanese bachelor’s in veterinary medicine and therefore qualified for the doctorate.
Even if you application form indicated that you plan to apply for a Master’s ultimately, it is the status on the Letter of Provisional Acceptance that determines your actual student status once you start the scholarship program. If the university is willing to accept you into the doctoral program, or as a research student leading into the doctoral program, that should not negatively affect your application and you should still have the same chances to earn the scholarship in the end!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Travis, so glad to have found you here in the worldwide web!! Appreciate all that you do. Thank you very much and all the best!
Hi, Travis, I hope you’re doing well!
I passed the primary screening, thankfully after loads of tears of fear that I won’t be accepted. It is my first time applying for MEXT post-graduate scholarship, and I’m really scared and confused. about lots of things.
I have a couple of university-prof pairs in mind, but I still didn’t get my documents back from the embassy, so still didn’t contact any universities.
I would like to ask about the email to request a LoPA; I looked up a bit on what to include and this is what I found: self-intro -> notify about passing of primary screening -> request LoPA under (prof name) in (grad school name). [[ Is the order alright? ]]
I read your reply to one of the comments here about making the email short and easy to reply to, so of course. Is there something else to include or to be mindful of?
Hi Miracle,
Congratulations on Passing the Primary Screening!
The first thing to consider when applying for a Letter of Provisional Acceptance is whether or not the university has specific instruction for how to do so. In the article, I described how to search for their instructions. If you email them to apply when they have different instruction on their website, then you are starting with a poor impression.
Other than that, the contents you described should be fine. I would keep the self introduction down to your name, home country, and current university, if you are enrolled. At the end, thank them for their consideration and ask if there is anything else they would like from you.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you loads!
Yes, I read the part about each uni having their own instructions. but since there are unis I’m applying to that take emails rather than forms, just wondered about what to include in my email.
Again, Thank you a lot Travis!
Hello Travis,
I really need help in my situation because I think I just made a mistake on contacting a second choice University/well inquiring about their procedure on requesting for a LoPA hence, expressing my interest on studying in their university. However, I found out today from your other article on choosing a university in the excel of Universities with programs that are taught in English and unfortunately, the University that I have approached does not teach the program I want in English. Was my email considered an active application? I sent it yesterday and I have not responded yet to them, they just follow the general guidelines for the request of LoPA as provided by the MEXT/Embassy guidelines. How do I resolve this problem? I have already contacted my first-choice university, and we are only allowed to contact two universities at a time, until August 25. Will this hurt my chances? I am worried that my 2nd choice university will reject me a bit late, and I won’t have enough time to message my 3rd choice university. I hope you can help me. Thank you so much!
Hi HU,
If you just asked about the process and expressed interest, but did not submit any documents yet, then I do not think that would count as an official application. However, if you want to be sure, you can send them an email saying that after further research, you realized their program is only offered in Japanese and since you do not have the required language ability, you would like to withdraw your application.
If you contact them to withdraw the application, then it certainly would not be considered active, so there would be no problem contacting an alternate university.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you for the advice, Travis! Will definitely follow this. I hope you don’t mind me asking, I have a 3rd university but I am still not sure with this one so I will try to research on univs over the weekend, is there a proper email etiquette to follow in Japan? Like are they strict in no emails on weekends? or after work hours? So, if I would send an email on friday night or weekend, should I just wait to send it on Monday morning?
Hi HJ,
It isn’t a problem to email universities after hours or on weekends. Because of time differences, most universities are quite used to it from international applicants. But don’t expect a reply on weekends!
If you are emailing an admin office, then emailing them as early as possible makes the most sense. They are likely to answer all of their emails in the order they were received.
If emailing a professor, however, I recommend that you use the “schedule send” feature to set your email to be sent at a specific time (gmail lets you do this), then choose a time that will be during the workday in Japan. Professors are less likely to read and respond to all of their emails, so you want yours to arrive at a time when there’s a chance that they’re looking at their computer and will see it near the top of their list.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis,
I really appreciate your blog/articles, they have been very helpful and informative! I have received already my stamped documents which includes the certificate of first screening passing. However, I am quite overwhelmed with the make it or break it stage of requesting for a LOA so I would like to hear from you. Aug 25 is the deadline for requesting the LOA, I have not sent an email yet, but I have finalized my top two universities and the professors/grad school that I will be applying to. Now my question is, in emailing the international affairs office, will we write in the body of the email our letter of intent to request for LOA or should we attach a document that contains the letter, including my status as a first screening passer, the grad school/department and professor I wish to be supervised and details on my research plan? Or should I state that all in the email and attach only the stamped documents?
Next question would be, I have followed your advice to search the Univ name + MEXT Embassy, my firat choice Univ is Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, I looked into their website and the posted ones are very general, but the embassy said to inquire on the specific instructions from the university, would it be advisable to email first the univ personnel in the contact list and ask for their specific instructions or requirements? Or can I just send them my application email for request of LOA along with the stamped documents? I am kind of thinking of the waiting period if I inquire first and not send my documents right away because they might not reply or follow the 1-month reply period but at the same time I am thinking if whether or not I will not be compromising my chances to get the LOA if I send my documents and apply immediately without a prior inquiry email. Really sorry, I am quite nervous, so I just had to ask these questions. Thank you so much!
Hi Joy,
I checked the OUAVM website, too, and wasn’t able to find anything more specific than what you mentioned. I think you will find that universities that do not often get MEXT Scholarship applications that they may have less information available than the more “common” universities for applicants.
Since they do not have instructions on their website, I think you need to email their international office (contact information from the embassy’s list) and ask them how you should submit the application. There should not be much of a delay in getting back to you. In my experience, faculty can take a while to respond, but staff offices generally reply right away. Unlike professors, admin staff’s job usually involves being in front of their computer with their inbox open all day.
In general, getting an LoPA should be less difficult than passing the Primary Screening, so you’re already through the most challenging screening!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you for responding, Travis! So, I have to send an inquiry email first on the specifics instructions to apply/request for LoPA from the OUAVM. Do you think there is still time given that the deadline is August 25 in contacting the universities?
Second question would be, my 2nd university is University of Miyazaki and the same goes, in their website they just write “Contact the Japanese Embassy nearest to you”. Should I also just email an inquiry on the instructions/process of applying for LoPA in their university?
Third question would be, in applying for the LoPA, should I just email and expound my intent, desired program/graduate school and supervisor including our research plan? or should I prepare a cover letter for this and attach them altogether with my stamped documents and passing certificate?
Would appreciate your response again. Thank you!
Also I hope you don’t mind me asking numerous questions, I am quite not sure yet with the 2nd university that I am to apply for LoPA, since most of the national universities in Japan offer undergraduate and PhD programs only for Veterinary Medicine, which is my field/area. I have a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the Philippines and I would like to pursue a Master’s degree however, there are only two national univ that offer a master’s course (OUAVM and University of Miyazaki -which is my 2nd choice) but I would also like to try TUAT, however, it does not say if this PhD covers a Master’s during the first year or so. I heard that Japanese universities have “direct PhD courses” wherein part of the degree is the Master’s and the other half is for the PhD degree. Do you perhaps know anything about this? Would appreciate any advise. Thank you.
Hi Joy,
For Medicine, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine, and some Pharmacy degrees that are professional degrees, the usual path in Japan is a 6-year undergraduate degree (total of 18 years of education) that is considered equivalent to a bachelor/master followed by a 3-4 year Doctoral degree.
Note that these are typically not academic/research PhD degrees, they are practitioner degrees (MD, MDDS, DVM, etc). Most are offered only in Japanese.
If you are looking for an academic research degree to do research into animal biology, etc., then you might want to consider looking for universities that have Master’s degrees in Life Sciences. That would be the research-side equivalent instead of the professional medical training equivalent.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Joy,
Yes, for Miyazaki, since they do not have instructions on their website, I think you are going to have to contact the office that the embassy has listed in their materials.
When you reach out to the universities, I recommend contacting them first without attaching your documents to let them know that you have passed the Primary Screening at the Embassy and with to apply for a Letter of Provisional Acceptance under Prof. [NAME] in the Graduate School of [SCHOOL] and ask how they would like you to submit the application materials.
Keep the letter short and easy to reply to.
If they do not reply after a week, then you can follow up with them, but you do have time before the deadline, so it should not be a rush yet.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello Travis
I have passed first screening and have already completed the application for LoA from my top-choice university (it’s currently being processed). Now to choose my other university, I inquired about how to get the LoA from Uni#2: I gave them my name and asked how to apply for an LoA. They wrote back and asked to choose my supervisor and send them the embassy documents. Now, I have not yet sent them any documents or my preferred supervisor, but I have decided to apply to Uni#3 to test my chances of getting an LoA from there before applying to Uni#2. Does my inquiry from Uni#2 mean an active application? Am I locked into applying to Uni#2 even though I have sent them nothing except my name and country?
Hi Jack,
If you have only inquired about the process and not submitted any documents, I do not think that counts as an active application.
If you want to be sure, you can write back to Uni #2, thank them for the information, and tell them that you will consider the potential supervisors then follow-through with the application. That would effectively be in indication that you have not yet formally applied while also leaving the option open to apply to them later.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
I see. Thank you very much for your help Travis!
Hello Mr. Travis,
I passed the first screening for research students…I received the news Friday 21st. For research students, only 2 were selected (myself included) in my country.
I have some questions about this issue:
1- I want to start my research (as a non-regular student) at a graduate school, but I want to enroll in a master’s program at another graduate school. So is it possible to change graduate school if I receive the scholarship? Will this be an issue later with the scholarship?
2- Is it possible to first contact advisors and universities that weren’t in the placement preference form to the detriment (even ignoring the form altogether) of those that were in the form?
Thank you for your attention.
Jones Araújo
Hi Jones Araújo,
Congratulations on passing the Primary Screening! Would you mind telling me what country you are from? I won’t make the comment public, I’m just trying to get an idea for how many slots are available in different countries for future reference.
1. In general, MEXT expects you to enroll as a research student at the same university and graduate school where you will go on to be a degree student. So, in general, it is not possible to change without a good reason (you also need your current academic advisor to support the change of schools when you apply for the extension). However, I’m aware that there are some graduate schools that do not accept research students, so your only option to get in is to start as a research student in another graduate school within that university then transfer programs when you apply to extend your scholarship to cover the degree.
In that case, I recommend that you choose an advisor who is also affiliated in some way with the graduate school that you want to earn your degree in, if at all possible.
2. Yes, but you can only contact a maximum of two universities/professors, so if you contact others, you would not be able to contact the ones on your list. You will resubmit the list after acquiring your Letters of Provisional Acceptance.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you for the explanations.
I’m from the Republic of Cabo Verde. I have an aquaitance who is a MEXT Scholar from Cabo Verde, he told me that in his year it was only him and another person.
About my situation, I have a bachelor degree in Law, my research plan theme is about fisheries agreements and, I found an advisor at Kobe University that has affinity with my research. However, he’s at the Graduate School of Maritime Sciences (at a research center there) and this graduate school doesn’t have a program in my field or related to my field (and I think they don’t have a program in english). But at another graduate school they have a program in english that is related to my field and that I’m interested in. Therefore, do you think I should contact the international office to inquiry if I can change graduate schools when I apply for master’s program?
Thank you very much
Best regards
Hi Araujo,
Thank you for your reply and sharing that information!
Typically, you would only be a research student for one semester before starting your degree, so in most cases, the university is going to consider your application based on the assumption that you will go on to a degree program within the same graduate school a semester later. In that case, they would probably not accept you if they do not offer a program taught in English and you are not fluent in Japanese.
I would recommend that you apply directly to the graduate school that has the English-taught program as a research student and continue on to the degree program there. You can certainly consult with the professor from the Graduate School of Marine Sciences throughout your studies, but your coursework and formal thesis advisor would be in the other program.
I think that if you take the approach of trying to start as a research student in the Graduate School of Marine Sciences, you run a high risk of the university not accepting you. I recommend applying to the English-taught program in your field then networking separately with the professor you mentioned after you are accepted.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you. I’ll do it as you advise.
Hello Mr. Travis,
Thank you very much for you detailed explanation.
I have some a questions regarding the Letter of Provisional Acceptance, when I contact the university do I need to send the loPA paper that I got from the embassy along with the the set of the documents ? or do I wait until they replay to me with the acceptance?
About the universities will they till me if I got accepted or not before the deadline ( the 25th of august ) or after ? because every university I am going to apply to they wrote in their website that they will review the documents in one month period so it will be near the deadline, so what if I heard from the two universities which I contact before the deadline that they refused to accept me ?
Also the deadline to submit the Placement preference form and loPA is 25th of august or only re-submitting the placement preference form ? I am a little bit confused with the a lot of information but I really wish if you can help me.
I am really sorry for bothering you with my questions and I really hope to hear from you soon.
thank you very much.
best regards
Hi Kawa,
For the Letter of Provisional Acceptance, you don’t have to send the template to the university unless they ask for it. Universities can access the document on MEXT’s website and most of them have enough experience with this that they’ll already have it.
In general, I would not expect to hear back from the universities before the August 25th application deadline. In some cases, you might hear back that soon, but it’s pretty rare. If you have researched the universities and professors you want to apply to and avoid the mistakes I describe in the article, then you should not need to worry about them rejecting you.
If both universities do reject you after the Aug 25 deadline has passed, then you would need to write the names of three new universities in your Placement Preference Form before resubmitting it to the embassy. In that case, you would not have the chance to contact those three universities to ask for a LoPA, but if you pass the Secondary Screening, MEXT will still contact them to ask them to accept you.
Aug 25th is only the deadline for you to send your applications for an LoPA to the Japanese universities. Nothing else.
The deadline to resubmit your Placement Preference Form along with any LoPAs you have received to the Japanese embassy in your country should have been set by the embassy (it is different in each country), so please check with them.
I hope that helps!
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hi Mr. Travis
Now I’m still waiting for the result of my written exams. However I want to prepare for the next steps, Months before the mext application opened, I already contacted 3 professors from 2 universities and they said they will accept me as their student if I can get the scholarship, but after read this article, I realized I really have to choose 2 out of 3 professors, which is kinda sad for me, cause all of them are amazing person. I wonder, which one will be a better option for LOA hunting, apply to only 1 university with different professors for my 1st and 2nd choices, or apply to 2 different universities? Thank you
Hi Nisa,
You can only submit one application for an LoA to each university, so you have to choose only one of the two professors that work at the same university. It is not possible to apply twice to the same university with different advisors (even if they are in different programs or graduate schools). So, choose the one that is closer to your research topic. You will still be able to work with the other one, too, after you arrive, even if they aren’t your official advisor.
This also means that you can add a third university to your Placement Preference Form, even though you won’t be able to apply there for an LoPA.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Hello, Mr. Travis I currently applied for mext scholarship 2023 and have passed the written exam and interview now do I have to select university as I have not a particular university in my mind or will mext select it for me during secondary screening.
Hi Love,
Did you apply for the Undergraduate Scholarship or the Graduate Scholarship?
If you applied for the undergraduate scholarship, you do not need to (do not get to) select a university. You will start in the intensive Japanese language program then MEXT will choose a university for you later.
If you applied for the scholarship for graduate students, then you would need to apply to universities for Letters of Provisional Acceptance then submit those to the embassy along with the Placement Preference Form by their deadline.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
What about for specialized training?
Hi Emma,
For Specialized Training Colleges you also do not need to select universities or apply for a Letter of Provisional Acceptance.
Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz
Thank you