Chevening Scholarship Overview
Chevening scholarships are awarded to students with passion, ideas, and positive influence, fueling their desire to create a better future. These one-year scholarships are fully funded—i.e., the cost of flights, accommodation, and course fees is included. Awardees can easily focus on their professional and academic interests while cultivating relationships with the UK.
The Chevening Scholarship program is a prestigious initiative that supports students worldwide in pursuing higher education in the United Kingdom for one year. These scholarships are funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and partner organizations.
Below is a comprehensive overview of the important aspects of Chevening Scholarships:
6 Themes under which scholarship is offered
Chevening scholarships are awarded to those students who meet their parent themes. These scholarships have different themes to address specific global challenges. By adopting this approach, Chevening allows the program to support areas most needed, align with UK foreign policy objectives, encourage innovation, and build a diverse network of global leaders.
So if you’re serious about elevating your career, Book your FREE profile evaluation session now. Our experts can assess your candidacy and provide a personalized blueprint to maximize your scholarship chances.
The themes taken into account are:
- Leadership and Networking
- Highlight references of your professional experiences that showcase your leadership skills.
- Provide a detailed report on how you maintained the leadership role in your past experiences. Highlight the outcomes that brimmed under your leadership.
- Explain how you will adopt those leadership traits to your study plans and post-study goals.
- Showcase your networking skills by highlighting the networks that you have worked with.
- Academic excellence
- Make sure you highlight and emphasize your consistently high grades
- Highlight any academic achievements.
- If you have any publications available, make sure to highlight those.
- Professional experience
- Work experience is highly preferred.
- You don’t need to provide physical evidence of your work experience but must elaborate on your employment information in your application form.
- Commitment to Home Country
- Relevance to the chosen courses
- It would help if you convinced the authorities that you are best fitted for the Chevening scholarships. Explain how all three chosen courses perfectly align with your qualifications and work experience.
- Delve deeper into the courses so that you can have a proper understanding of the content. This can help you highlight the specific modules and assessments of the course that will help you achieve your goals.
- Career plan:
- Make a detailed blueprint of your career after completing your studies in the UK.
- Explain how your chosen course, the Chevening experience, and the Chevening network can help you reach your goal
Students need to highlight these pointers in their application forms.
Eligibility Criteria.
General Eligibility Requirements:
- Nationality: Must be a Chevening-eligible country or territory. (Afghanistan, Albania, India, and so on). You must not hold a British or dual British citizenship (unless you are a citizen of a British Overseas Territory or hold BN(O) and are applying from Hong Kong).
- Academic Qualification: Should have an undergraduate degree that meets the requirements for admission into a UK Masters program. Most of them will ask for a 2:2 bachelor’s degree in a related subject, while some other courses will want a 2:1 or higher.
- Commitment to Return: Candidates must agree to return to their home country after completing their studies to contribute to its development.
- Work experience: Must have two years of work experience or up to 2800 hours of work experience. There is no hard and fast rule for the type of work experience. It can be internships, full-time employment, part-time employment, or voluntary work.
- University Applications: Apply to three eligible UK university courses and receive an unconditional offer from one by the application deadline.
So if you’re serious about elevating your career, Book your FREE profile evaluation session now. Our experts can assess your candidacy and provide a personalized blueprint to maximize your scholarship chances.
Application Process
The whole application process for Chevening scholarships is detailed below:
- Complete the online registration form
- The first step is to fill in the application form.
- Register your email address and mobile phone number.
- After successfully registering, you will receive the link to the application portal on your email address.
- Pass the eligibility checker
- Click on the link to the application portal. You will be taken to a new window containing all eligibility questions.
- Answer the questions to confirm your eligibility for a Chevening Scholarship. Once you submit the questions, you will find out immediately if you have passed or failed the eligibility checker.
- If you did not pass but think there was an error, you will be given two more attempts. If you pass the eligibility checker, you will receive an email to your registered email address with a link to continue your application.
- Make a note of your access code
- Follow the link in your email to continue your application. Once you reach the new window, you will see an access code displayed on your screen.
- Note down or take a photo of the access code, as you need it whenever you want to access your application form.
- Complete each section of the application form.
- You will now be able to start your Chevening application. Save your progress after every step, because the system logs out automatically after every 15 minutes of inactivity.
- The sections of the form include:
- Personal details
- Immigration details
- Education details: You can add up to 15 entries
- Work Experience
- Programs of Study: Submit details of your top three UK master’s degree course choices. You can check out the Chevening-eligible courses from the site.
- Reference: Submit the two referees’ names, job details, and contact details. If you are invited to interview, you must upload two letters written by your chosen referees to the online application system. The letters should be written in English.
- Essay questions: This section will have four essay questions on leadership, relationship-building, your course choices, and future career goals. Each answer has a 500-word limit and must be in English.
Selection Process and Deadlines
Selecting Chevening Scholars takes at least eight months from the application deadline to when applicants are conditionally selected for an award. It would be best if you held patience till the end. The whole process, along with the expected dates, is summarized below:
- 6 Aug 2024: Application windows open.
- 5 Nov 2024: Application windows close.
- From 6 November 2024: After the application window closes, applications are shortlisted as per eligibility criteria.
- Mid-November 2024 to January 2025: Independent reading committees assess all eligible applications. Their scores and rankings are then passed to local British embassies/high commissions for further evaluation.
- Mid-February 2025: Once the embassy/high commission has reviewed the applications, it produces a shortlist of those it will invite to interview.
- 19 February 2025: This is the document submission round. Shortlisted candidates will be requested to submit two references and their education documents before their interview date.
- 26 February to 25 April 2025: The invited candidates are interviewed in this time range.
- From June 2025: After months of preparation and trepidation, successful candidates will experience jubilation when interview results are announced from June onwards.
- 11 July 2025: Candidates must submit at least one unconditional UK university offer by this date and 17:00 BST (UK time). Be aware that university application deadlines may be earlier than the Chevening scholarship deadline.
- September/October 2025: 2025/2026 Chevening Scholars can commence their studies in the UK.
So, if you’re serious about elevating your career, Book your FREE profile evaluation session now. Our experts can assess your candidacy and provide a personalized blueprint to maximize your scholarship chances.
Chevening Scholarship Benefits
The Chevening Programme includes a program that creates opportunities for scholars to network with each other as well as alumni, the FCDO, high-profile speakers, and partner organizations. Award recipients receive:
- Payment of tuition fees
- Economy travel to and from your country of residence by an approved route for you only.
- An arrival allowance
- The cost of an entry clearance (visa) application for you only
- A departure allowance
- A contribution of up to £75 for TB testing, where this is required
- A travel top-up allowance
- A monthly personal living allowance (stipend) covers accommodation and living expenses. The monthly stipend will depend on whether you study inside or outside London. These rates are subject to annual review.
So if you’re serious about elevating your career, Book your FREE profile evaluation session now. Our experts can assess your candidacy and provide a personalized blueprint to maximize your scholarship chances.
Conclusion
The Chevening Scholarship is an excellent opportunity for aspiring students to pursue advanced studies in the UK and positively impact their home countries’ development. To submit a successful application, applicants must plan carefully, conduct thorough research, and clearly understand how the scholarship will help them. If you want expert guidance, don’t miss our upcoming Chevening Workshop on 13th Sept 2024 ( Link Below)! Learn everything about the application process, eligibility criteria, and more.
