How to apply for a scholarship in the Philippines

Who gives out scholarships here

Scholarships in the Philippines come from four kinds of organization, and knowing which one you are dealing with tells you most of what to expect.

Government offices run the largest ones. The Commission on Higher Education funds students in state and private colleges, and the Department of Science and Technology funds students taking science and engineering courses. Both publish their rules openly, and both announce their own dates — which is where to check them, because they move.

Schools give their own. Universities commonly have grants for students with high grades, for athletes, and for families who cannot pay full tuition. These are usually handled by the school office rather than advertised widely, so ask.

Companies and foundations fund the rest. Some are large and well known, many are small and local, and a fair number never appear on any list because they only ever told one school about them.

• How scholarships work, end to end — The same process seen from both sides — the student applying and the office deciding.

What to sort out before you apply to anything

The slowest part of an application is almost never the form. It is waiting on a document somebody else has to issue you.

Two of these take real time. A certified copy of your grades has to be requested from your school registrar, and a certificate of indigency or a statement of income comes from your barangay or from the revenue office. Neither is difficult, and both can take a week or more when you actually need them.

• A recent copy of your grades, stamped by your school.
• Proof of what your household earns, or a certificate from your barangay.
• A birth certificate from the civil registry.
• Proof of where you live — often a barangay certificate.
• One or two recommendation letters from teachers who taught you.

• What documents a scholarship asks for — Each document above, where it comes from, and how long it usually takes.

What the process usually looks like

The order varies, but the stages rarely do.

Check whether you qualify before you write anything

Every scholarship sets rules — a course, a grade average, a household income ceiling, sometimes a region you must live in. Read those first. Writing a full application for something you were never going to qualify for is the most common way students waste a week.

Where a rule is written vaguely, ask. An office that will not answer a question about its own rules before you apply is telling you something useful.

Fill in the form, then leave it and read it again

Forms ask for the same facts in different shapes. Keep your own copy of the answers you write — names of schools, dates, addresses, your parents’ work — because you will be typing them again for the next one.

A file held up at this stage is usually held up for something clerical: a blank field, a mismatched name, a number that does not agree with the document behind it.

Sit the exam, if there is one

Some of the larger government scholarships select partly by written exam; others do not. Whether yours has one, what it covers and when it falls are all things the sponsor announces itself, and its own announcement is the only version worth planning around.

Where there is an exam, the date is normally set well in advance and is not moved for individual candidates, so treat it as fixed once it is published.

The interview

Not every scholarship has one. Where there is an interview, it is rarely a test of cleverness — the panel is trying to work out whether the money will be used for what it was meant for, and whether you will still be enrolled in two years.

Answer plainly. Say what you want to study and why. If your grades dipped one term and there was a reason, say the reason.

Apply to more than one

You are allowed to apply to several at once, and you should. The rules on holding two at the same time differ — some government grants cannot be combined with another government grant, while a private one from a company is often fine alongside them.

Read the terms on that specific point before you accept anything, because accepting one and then withdrawing is a worse position than never having accepted.

After you send it

Results take longer than anyone expects — months, in the case of the national ones. Keep the reference number you were given, and keep the documents, because the next application will ask for the same ones.

Being turned down usually says more about the number of slots than about you. The same file, sent to three more places, is not wasted work.