Inlaks Foundation (India) - Inlaks Scholarship

Benefit

You will receive up to about EUR 110,000 (USD 120,000) for your entire postgraduate programme abroad. This amount covers tuition fees, living costs, a one-way flight, visa costs and a health allowance. Your course can last between nine months and four years, so the amount you receive will depend on the programme you choose. You will study full-time for a Master’s, an MPhil or a PhD at a leading university in the United Kingdom, in other European countries or in the United States. At six partner universities (Imperial College London, the Royal College of Art, the University of Cambridge, King’s College London, St Andrews and the Hertie School in Berlin), additional funding from the university may increase the total amount beyond this upper limit. The scholarship is awarded by the Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, which supports young Indian university graduates.

Eligibility

• Nationality and residence: You hold an Indian passport and are living in India at the time of application.
• Age: You were born on or after 1 January 1996, so you are up to 30 years old.
• Degree: You hold a degree from a recognised Indian higher education institution, or you are in your final year of study and awaiting your results. If you obtained your bachelor’s degree from a foreign higher education institution, you must have lived, worked or studied in India for at least two years since completing your degree.
• Grades: A minimum of 65% (CGPA 6.8/10 or GPA 2.6/4) for social sciences, humanities, law, fine arts and architecture. A minimum of 70% (CGPA 7.2/10 or GPA 3/4) is required for Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Environmental Sciences.
• Admission: You have already been granted admission (conditional or unconditional) to your chosen degree programme. You cannot apply without having been granted admission. If your admission requires you to take an English language test, you must pass this test before you apply.
• Field of study: Most degree subjects are eligible. The following are excluded: business administration and finance, computer science, engineering, fashion design, film animation, hotel and tourism management, MBA, medicine, dentistry and music. There are a few exceptions, such as documentary filmmaking and Western classical singing.
• No postgraduate study abroad yet: You have not yet obtained a master’s or doctoral degree outside India, nor have you commenced a relevant course of study.

How to apply

Applications must be submitted online via the Foundation’s website by 31 March. If you are shortlisted, an online preliminary interview will take place in May, and the final face-to-face interviews will be held later that month in Mumbai. If you have not received a response by the end of April, please assume that your application has not been successful.

How realistic are your chances?

It is a prestigious, highly endowed award open to graduates from most disciplines across India; as such, it attracts many strong applicants and competition is fierce. The entry requirements act as clear filters: you must already have been admitted to university, have strong academic results and be studying an eligible subject, which rules out a large proportion of applicants. If you meet these requirements and can demonstrate genuine talent and motivation in the interview, your prospects are good, but the selection process is demanding.