The vocabulary of large notices and application pages tends to be repeated. There are scholarships, fellowships, grants, and different criteria, ranging from need to merit-based. Got confused? Behind this extensive list of English terms are simple concepts that determine how students obtain financial support at foreign universities.
Scholarships
Scholarships (or, in a more literal translation, scholarships ) offer financial support to students at different educational levels . When applying for a scholarship at a university like Harvard or smaller institutions, the student should assume that financial resources are involved. In practice, this means that an entity will cover expenses that can range from annual fees (tuition) to airline tickets to the destination country.
Another important point when it comes to “scholarship” has to do with how beneficiaries are chosen. There are need-based scholarships , for example, which assess the candidate’s financial needs. For this type of selection process, common in selection for undergraduate studies at foreign universities, the admissions office requests documents that prove the financial condition of the student’s family. Based on this analysis, he makes a scholarship proposal, with a value that, in principle, would allow the student to take the course abroad.
Merit -based , as the name suggests, has to do with the candidate’s merit, without prioritizing the analysis of their financial condition. In these cases, admissions officers are left to check the students’ CVs and determine which one deserves the available scholarship. The decision depends, of course, on several factors: it may have to do with the relevance of the study carried out by a researcher, or considering their professional trajectory until then.
Fellowships – support for higher levels of studies
Fellowships also offer, in most cases, financial support to students at a higher educational level – for example, someone who has just completed a master’s degree or is seeking an MBA . It is common to see fellowships dedicated to specific areas, in which a researcher receives financial support to develop a research project that is of interest to the university or the entity promoting the initiative. A fellow can go to Stanford and carry out fixed-term research on higher education, being linked to the institution or a specific center within it.
Other forms of financial support: grants and loans
In turn, grants also provide financial support to the student, who applies for a certain amount to finance a project. Often, such grants are granted by official bodies, such as research support entities, in the country of origin or destination. At universities, it is also common to see professors writing proposals for grants , which will be passed on to a group of researchers. A university professor who runs, for example, a stem cell research center in the United States, can apply for a grant linked to the National Institute of Health(NIH).
What is commonly called loan in foreign universities can be translated as “loan”. Through them, the student obtains money to finance their course, but must pay it later, following criteria established with the university.
To check which option is most accessible or most interesting to the candidate, the surest way is to keep an eye on university websites and newsletters. This way, the student has access to ways to make their course abroad possible and is able to weigh the different criteria for this decision.